2020 US election: America’s presidency and its democracy have endured worse

In the past century, the US presidency has gone through periods of uncertainty, but the institution has always persevered. Faith in the presidency may wax and wane, but one thing is certain: Americans will have the chance to vote again

Chi Wang

Published: 1:30am, 6 Nov 2020

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It is clear that the US presidential election is going down to the wire. Until all the votes are counted – which could stretch well into next week – all we can do is speculate. Yet when I look back on the American presidential history I have witnessed in my lifetime, I am comforted that, regardless of the outcome, the United States will persevere.

The very first election I witnessed in the US was the now-notorious 1948 election. Initially, it appeared that Republican New York governor Thomas E. Dewey had defeated Democratic president Harry S. Truman. The Chicago Tribune even ran on its front page the headline “Dewey Defeats Truman”.

When all the votes were tallied, Truman had in fact secured a win, and he posed triumphantly holding a copy of the newspaper with the incorrect headline. The result was not disputed and did not lead to widespread protests or claims of fraud. The American people accepted the result and moved on.

This was far from the most dramatic presidential anecdote of the century: one in which four American presidents died in office. Two were assassinated – William McKinley in 1901 and John F. Kennedy in 1963.

Their successors have opposite legacies: Teddy Roosevelt, who succeeded McKinley, is remembered as a progressive with a keen sense for strategy, and who received a Nobel Peace Prize for his role negotiating the end of the Russo-Japanese War, which was partially fought in China. By contrast, Lyndon Johnson bears the brunt of the blame for escalating the US involvement in the Vietnam war.

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Franklin D. Roosevelt died in the midst of the second world war, leaving the presidency to a woefully underprepared Harry Truman, who did not know the full details of the Manhattan Project or of his predecessor’s strategy for ending the war and maintaining peace. Truman was president when I arrived in the US in 1949, by which time he had adapted to the necessities of the role. He has since been remembered as one of the very best American presidents.

Warren G. Harding died just as the Teapot Dome bribery scandal was being uncovered. He was one of two 20th-century presidents who left office in the middle of scandals that shook public faith in the government and the institution of the presidency. The other, Richard Nixon, resigned instead of facing probable impeachment following the Watergate scandal.

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The successors of Harding and Nixon assumed all the responsibilities and challenges of the presidency, along with the daunting tasks of restoring public faith in the White House. Calvin Coolidge, Harding’s vice-president, helped restore public confidence in the White House, though an entirely new crisis – the Great Depression – would diminish his legacy.

While Gerald Ford’s decision to pardon Nixon was hugely unpopular at the time, it has since been remembered as a moment of distinctive political courage that helped end the deeply damaging Watergate era and set the nation on a path to healing.

These are far from the only times the American public had reason to lose faith in the institution of the presidency. Jimmy Carter’s failure to rescue the American hostages held in Iran led to renewed disillusionment that swept Ronald Reagan into the White House in 1980.

Al Gore gives his concession speech on December 13, 2000, more than a month after election day. Photo: Reuters

While the 1980s and 1990s are remembered for their stability compared to the turmoil of the 1960s and 1970s, these decades were not without their presidential controversies. The Reagan administration was dogged by the Iran-Contra scandal. Reagan’s vice-president, George H.W. Bush, won the 1988 election in his own right but failed to secure a second term.

His successor, Bill Clinton, served two full terms, but his presidency was scandal-plagued in a way that called the character of the president himself into question. Yet Clinton survived impeachment and maintained relatively high public opinion levels throughout the ordeal.

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Election night in 2000 ended without a winner being declared. It would be several weeks before George W. Bush emerged triumphant, in an outcome that is still scrutinised to this day. Despite low public opinion and opposition to his post-9/11 foreign and domestic policies, Bush still won re-election in 2004.

By the end of his second term, analysts were categorising the 2008 election as generation-defining and historic in much the same way the 2020 election is being spoken of today. Barack Obama took the oath of office in January 2009, amid sky-high expectations that he would usher in a new era of progressive domestic policies and restore public confidence – both at home and abroad – in the American presidency.

Then came Trump’s unexpected 2016 election. His presidency has been divisive and scandal-plagued arguably more than those of Harding, Nixon and Clinton combined, yet he has managed to maintain the support of his core base. But it is uncertain whether he will secure a second term, or what further trials he may put the American people through.

Amid all this, it is comforting to recall that the American presidency has gone through periods of uncertainty, instability and turbulence before, and that the institution has always persevered. Faith in the presidency may wax and wane, but one thing is clear: regardless of the outcome, the American people will have the chance to return to the polls and vote again in 2024.

I hope to join them. I was born in warlord-era China and grew up under Japanese occupation. There was never any opportunity for the people to have a say in their government – a privilege I have never taken for granted since I first became eligible to vote in the US in 1960.

The American system is far from perfect, but considering all of the challenges the presidency endured in the last century, I am confident that it will survive whatever result the 2020 election brings.

Chi Wang, a former head of the Chinese section of the US Library of Congress, is president of the US-China Policy Foundation

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