Bolling: Could Trump Make History

Well, for better or worse, it is official. Former President Donald Trump has announced that he is once again seeking the Republican Party’s nomination for President in 2024.

Should Trump win his party’s nomination, and should he win the general election, he would become only the second President in history to serve two non-consecutive terms. Can Trump do it? Judging from historical experience, the answer is probably – no.

In the 246-year history of the United States, there have only been four Presidents who sought reelection to the office once they had been defeated. Three of them were unsuccessful in doing so. Only one – Grover Cleveland – was successful; but some of the other efforts are worthy of note.

Martin Van Buren
Martin Van Buren, a Democrat, was elected President in 1836. Almost immediately upon taking office Van Buren had to lead the nation through a financial panic. By the time the 1840 election came around, Van Buren was fairly unpopular, and he was defeated by William Henry Harrison, who was the nominee of the newly formed Whig Party. Van Buren attempted a political comeback in 1844, but he was denied the nomination of his party. He sought the presidency a third time in 1848 as the nominee of the Free Soil Party. He only received 10% of the popular vote, but that may have been enough to throw the 1848 election to Zachary Taylor, another Whig.

Grover Cleveland
Grover Cleveland was elected President in 1884, the first Democrat to hold the office since 1856. He proved to be a fairly uninspiring President, and he was defeated by Benjamin Harrison in 1888. Cleveland and his wife then moved to New York, where he reportedly became bored with life. He longed to return to the thrill of the political environment, and he ran again in 1892, winning the nomination of the Democratic Party and defeating the incumbent President who had defeated him four years earlier. Cleveland is the only President in history to serve two non-consecutive terms.

Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt became President in 1901 following the assassination of President William McKinley. Roosevelt was a commanding personality, and he was easily elected to his own full term in 1904. In 1908, Roosevelt chose not to seek another full term as President, which he could have done. Instead, he chose to support his good friend and fellow Republican William Howard Taft. With Roosevelt’s support, Taft easily won election, but by 1912 the friendship between Roosevelt and Taft had turned because Roosevelt did not feel that Taft had remained faithful to his progressive reform agenda. So, in 1912 Roosevelt chose to oppose Taft for the Republican nomination. Taft prevailed, but Roosevelt persisted, forming a third political party – the Bull Moose Party – and running against Taft and Democrat Woodrow Wilson. Roosevelt actually performed well, and received more votes than Taft, but his presence in the campaign served to split the Republican vote and elevate Woodrow Wilson to the presidency.

Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover was elected President in 1828. Like Martin Van Buren before him, Hoover had the bad luck to be serving as President when the nation’s economy crashed in 1929, ushering in the Great Depression. Blamed (fairly or unfairly) for the Great Depression, Hoover lost his reelection campaign in 1932 to Franklin D. Roosevelt. Hoover, who always felt he was unfairly blamed for the Great Depression, and who had become an outspoken critic of Roosevelt’s “big government” policies, attempted a political comeback in 1940. However, the Republican Party was reluctant to nominate Hoover, and he eventually lost the GOP nomination to Wendall Wilkie, who lost the 1940 campaign by a wide margin.

When you consider this history, it should be no surprise that Trump has decided to attempt a political comeback in 2022. He feels he was unjustly denied the presidency in 2020 and replaced by a President who has failed to lead the country as effectively as he could do. He wants revenge, which was the motive that prompted these other once-elected and once-defeated Presidents to seek their former office again.

Could Trump pull it off like Grover Cleveland did, or will he become just another disgruntled former President who failed in his effort to regain the nation’s top office? Only time will tell, but based on history, it is entirely possible that his own party could turn him aside, e.g. Van Buren and Hoover; and if they don’t, the American people may well, e.g., Theodore Roosevelt. Should Republicans choose to renominate Trump, they would clearly be taking a huge historical risk.

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