When was the last non-cataclysmic U.S. election?

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A question from my odd perspective on my country's politics. Were U.S. elections always like this? Was every election predicted to be the potential end of American democracy? (Just had a Facebook friend post that this might be the last 4th of July). Or is this a relatively recent development?

I was born in 1981 and I was aware of elections as a child, but I didn't really become aware of the divide between the parties until I was nearly an adult. I remember how hotly contested the 2000 election was and every election since then seems to have been viewed as some kind of potential cataclysmic threat to democracy by somebody.

Were elections like this pre-2000? Were people like "If [insert candidate here] gets elected, America will surely die?" Or was it more like, "I sure hope my side wins, but gosh darn it, either way, America will survive" until recent years? And if it's the latter, when was the last non-cataclysmic election?

Obama's first election.

Thank you for your response .

Would this mean that, if McCain and his running mate Palin had won in 2008, you would not have considered that a threat to U.S. democracy?

And does this also mean that the Obama vs. Romney election in 2012 is what you would consider the first potentially cataclysmic, U.S.-ending election, had it gone the other way?

2004 was nasty I remember; I think some of it was the real start there. I recall all the Obama conspiracy theories. Talk radio talking about how bad things were.

No, it was not always like this it has gotten more this way after Obamas presidency ended. And I was born in 1989, the year of the Berlin wall being torn down.

I would say 2008 was the last one.

After Obama took office, the Tea Party movement started almost instantaneously to stymie him at every chance.

The "Teabaggers", as they were called, routed moderate Republicans in primaries, even some who had been in Congress since the 1970s.

Once Donald Trump launched his 2016 presidential campaign, by calling Mexicans "drug dealers" and "rapists", the Tea Party began their transition to Trumpism, which became complete when he took office. Trumpism now defines nearly all of American conservatism.

NO American election was "cataclysmic" until Trump. NONE!

Even the razor thin election of 2000 (in which incompetence in Florida may have thrown the election) wasnt like this.

Or at least none since EIGHTEEN Sixty. That was the year that an upstart third party (kinda like the Greens of today) actually got their man elected. The party was the Republicans (a party formed around Abolition of slavery), and the man was Abraham Lincoln. The south got so afraid that Lincoln would take their slaves away that they ...seceded from the Union...tried to form a seperate country...and the nation was bathed in blood.

Being a Boomer ive lived through almost a third of US history. Observed every election since that of JFK, and have voted in every election since Carter vs Ford. In every election the looser conceded defeat...praised and congratulated his opponent, and ...we had a peaceful transfer of power. The looser did not inspire a mob to storm the Capitol and to lynch the incumbent's own vice president. That is not how normal American elections go.

Please learn that!


The Obama vs Romney election is the norm. Neither Obama nor Romney claimed that the other was a "threat to democracy" because neither one was that.

Same with Obama vs McCain in which Obama won his second term.

Trump falsely claims that Biden is a threat to democracy, and Trump obviously really IS a threat to democracy.

So..."non-cataclysmic" is the norm.

And (as FE said) the Mitt Romney vs Obama is a good example of "the norm" if you're too young to remember much of ...the long history of American elections prior to Donald Trump.

No, I wouldn't have.

But I'm mostly referring to how Republicans and their base seemed willing to accept the results of elections until a few days after it became clear they had a black president and then the conspiratorial nonsense got cranked up to 11.

It turns out Obama didn't do Sharia law or reparations. Too bad.

2012 was normal in that Romney wasn't batsh*t crazy.

What cost him was some of the down-ballot candidates, like Todd "Legitimate Rape" Akin and Richard Mourdock.

Those types of candidates were the precursor to the MAGAs.

Conservative talk radio should be outlawed. It's done nothing but stoke hatred with its lies. They got away with it in the 90's because Clinton was literally caught with his pants down. Amazing how things are now that their guy is a pedophile.

There was something called "the Fairness doctrine" from 1949 to 1987 that mandated that whenever you editorialized on the air you then had to put someone speaking the opposite/contrasting pov on the mic or in front of the camera after you to give balance.

They did away with the rule in 1987, and then...in the Nineties...Rush, and the rest of Right Wing talk radio appeared.

So you wouldnt have to "outlaw" talk radio of a particular creed. Just reinstitute the fairness doctrine on everyone, and RW radio would probably whither.

Point-Counterpoint?

Or they'd just adopt the Hannity and Colmes method.

Many Canadians liked Obama and would have voted for him if they lived in the USA. He made much more sense than the shriveled up old lunatics the US has now.

You could call it that.

My impulse...when I see something like "Right Wing Radio should be outlawed" is to have the person who sez it be... dragged outside and to be publicly flogged in the city square ...because...America is supposed be about free speech: "I may not like what you have to say but I will defend to the death you're right to say it". I am not a fan of lying windbags like Rush, but tolerating them is the price we pay for living in a democracy.

But upon reflection ...it occurred to me that it aint that simple because a govt agency (the FCC) DID have a respectable rule that was followed for a long time: the now defunct "Fairness doctrine" in American media. The fairness doctrine demanded that you present opposing, or at least differing, povs from whatever opinion you spouted on the air. The effect was a double edged sword that both encouraged AND discouraged free speech at the same time. But it had the effect of keeping the allowed and encouraged free speech honest.

The Fairness Doctrine did not outright "outlaw" Rightwing radio, but its absence allowed Right wing radio to take root and to spread. Allowed a particular creed to take over the airwave because you didnt have to put on opposing povs...opposing povs who might fact check you...and keep you honest. And if it were reinstated it might well chop away much of Right wing weeds clogging up the radio waves.

But it would probably also make life difficult for MSNBC as well.