Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election are not unprecedented.
Republicans have already won twice this century without getting the most votes. Gore outpolled Bush. Clinton outpolled Trump. If just 45,000 votes in a few states had gone the other way, Trump would have won again.
But this isn’t new. Twice in the 19th century Republicans won the White House while losing the popular vote. The 1888 election, with Benjamin Harrison beating Grover Cleveland, was like 2016.
It’s the 1876 election that is the Republicans’ original sin.
After 8 years of Reconstruction, with the South occupied, Wall Street was tired of it. New York had never been behind Lincoln’s War. The Panic of 1873, caused by New York greed, was still laid entirely at the feet of Washington. Mark Twain’s least successful book, The Gilded Age, is also the one he didn’t write by himself. Charles Dudley Warner, an essayist, was co-author. It’s as if Mozart wrote an opera with Salieri. It's the very definition of gilded, and history isn't fooled.
But the book’s name became that of the era. The late 19th century was truly gilded. Wealth was designed to impress, but it was all show. There was nothing behind it. Speculation ran rampant, and big railroad owners were like wolves. I’m considered out of step for saying this but the Progressive Era’s reforms were driven by Wall Street, by men like J.P. Morgan, forced to personally step in and stop the Panic of 1893, acting again in 1907. The only solution for the excesses of the market, it would turn out, was the firm hand of government. When everyone is a crook, civilization requires cops.
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