Foreign Policy - November 08, 2024 - by Ravi Agrawal the editor in chief - What the Founding Fathers Would Say About Trump's Win

 

What the Founding Fathers Would Say About Trump’s Win

“I told you so.”

By Ravi Agrawal, the editor in chief of Foreign Policy.

No audio? Hover over the video player, and tap the Click to Unmute button.

My FP: Follow topics and authors to get straight to what you like. Exclusively for FP subscribers. Subscribe Now | Log In

November 8, 2024, 12:01 PM

Donald Trump’s decisive victory in the U.S. presidential election this week has left many analysts reaching for precedents in the past. The last time an American won a non-consecutive second term as president was when Grover Cleveland defeated the incumbent Republican Benjamin Harrison. If Trump goes on to win the popular vote, it would be the first time a Republican leader has done so since 2004, when George W. Bush defeated John Kerry. And while it’s hard to remember a time when the U.S. electorate was as divided and polarized as it is, the United States has certainly been through moments of extreme division and instability. 

How do we place this week’s results in historical terms? To find out if the past has any lessons for the future, I spoke with two great American historians: Julian E. Zelizer, a professor of history at Princeton University and the author or editor of 26 books including Fault Lines: A History of the United States Since 1974; and Joanne Freeman, a professor of history at Yale University, whose most recent book is The Field of Blood: Congressional Violence in Antebellum America.