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A Short History of Presidential Election Crises

Author: Alan Hirsch

Publisher: City Lights Books

Published: 2020-02-27

Total Pages: 193

ISBN-13: 087286832X

An urgent primer on what can be done to combat emerging threats to the core of U.S. Democracy—presidential elections. In 2000, we learned that an exceptionally close presidential election can produce chaos, because we have no reliable Constitutional mechanism for resolving disputes. Joe Biden just won a presidential election that was extremely close in a number of states. Trump—and his many supporters—refuse to accept the legitimacy of those vote results, leading to an insurrection at the Capitol Building. Where do we go from here? In A Short History, Constitutional scholar Alan Hirsch presents a concise history of presidential elections that resulted in crises and advocates clear, common-sense solutions, including abolishing the Electoral College and the creation of a permanent, non-partisan Presidential Election Review Board to prevent or remedy future crises. “Hirsch does a very good job of offering historical context to illuminate the present—and the terrifying future. His imaginative proposals are probably too sensible to be implemented in an age of parochial partisanship.”—David Shipler, former reporter for the New York Times and Pulitzer Prize winner “Democracy is broken, but as Alan Hirsch explains, it really doesn’t have to be. This is the real story of how our voting system became so vulnerable to attacks from within and without, told with precision, verve, and even hope. This is the way out.”—Douglas Rushkoff, author of Team Human “This is a must-read for anyone who cares about safeguarding presidential elections―which should be everyone.”—Evan Caminker, Professor and former Dean, University of Michigan Law School "The noted law historian, author of Impeaching the President, examines the handful of seriously problematic presidential elections in American history and what the Constitution elucidates about the process of undoing such an event—namely, nothing. . . . A highly relevant study featuring much food for thought and prospects for change."—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review " [A] seminal work of meticulous and informative scholarship that should be considered as an essential and unreservedly recommended addition to community, college, and university library Contemporary Political Science collections. It should be noted for the personal reading lists of students, academia, political activists, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the subject."—Midwest Library Review

Thirty-Six Days

Author: Correspondents of The New York Times

Publisher: Times Books

Published: 2001-02-07

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 9780805068504

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From the most trusted newspaper in the country, here is the complete story of the Election 2000 standoff that stopped American politics. Beginning on Election Day and ending with the Supreme Court decision that gave victory to George W. Bush, this important volume provides a day-by-day record of events as they unfolded. Drawing on the talents of many of the the top political reporters at The New York Times, 36 Days aims to make sense of a complex and convoluted chapter in our recent history. Along with lead stories from each consecutive day, the book includes informative and enlightening background pieces, analytical essays, investigative reports, personality profiles, and opinion pieces, thus offering students and all other observations of this election a well-rounded, fair-minded, thoughtful account. These pieces are linked by original text that highlights key developments and shifting strategies. Also included are selected excerpts from all the relevant legal opinions, statistical graphics, quotations, and sidebar stories. An introduction by acclaimed presidential scholar Brinkley adds historical perspective to this authoritative and comprehensive chronicle.

The Presidential Election of 2020

Author: William Crotty

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2021-06-28

Total Pages: 303

ISBN-13: 1793625565

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The Presidential Election of 2020: Donald Trump and the Crisis of Democracy places the election of 2020 within the context of the Trump presidency, a chaotic and tense time in American politics and a dangerous one. The election is analyzed in depth and its meaning for the state of American society is made clear. A major theme in the book is a critique of Donald Trump's leadership, his incompetence in office, his appeal to followers and the danger this has proven to represent. Among other things, he was accused of mental instability during his presidency. Yet he received the second highest vote total in American history, exceeded only by winning candidate Joe Biden's. Trump was impeached twice for his actions in office but both times not held responsible for what he had done by a Republican-controlled Senate. The election is placed in an on-going context. It was followed by strenuous attempts by Trump and associates to have states reverse their results and declare him the winner and by the Trump-organized seditious assault on the Capitol in which five people died. The objective was to force Vice President Mike Pence, who was chairing a Joint Session of Congress, normally a formality, to instead reject the Electoral College vote outcome. Pence would not do it. His life and that of Speaker Nancy Pelosi were threatened by the rioters. The threat of a coup, a new development in American politics, and one led by Trump and others who share his views, remains. Meanwhile President Joe Biden in his efforts to reconstruct America has introduced the most ambitious policy agenda since the New Deal.

The Bitter End

Author: John Sides

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2023-09-19

Total Pages: 417

ISBN-13: 0691253986

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What an intensely divisive election portends for American politics The year 2020 was a tumultuous time in American politics. It brought a global pandemic, protests for racial justice, and a razor-thin presidential election outcome. It culminated in an attack on the U.S. Capitol that attempted to deny Joe Biden’s victory. The Bitter End explores the long-term trends and short-term shocks that shaped this dramatic year and what these changes could mean for the future. John Sides, Chris Tausanovitch, and Lynn Vavreck demonstrate that Trump’s presidency intensified the partisan politics of the previous decades and the identity politics of the 2016 election. Presidential elections have become calcified, with less chance of big swings in either party’s favor. Republicans remained loyal to Trump and kept the election close, despite Trump’s many scandals, a recession, and the pandemic. But in a narrowly divided electorate even small changes can have big consequences. The pandemic was a case in point: when Trump pushed to reopen the country even as infections mounted, support for Biden increased. The authors explain that, paradoxically, even as Biden’s win came at a time of heightened party loyalty, there remained room for shifts that shaped the election’s outcome. Ultimately, the events of 2020 showed that instead of the country coming together to face national challenges—the pandemic, George Floyd’s murder, and the Capitol riot—these challenges only reinforced divisions. Expertly chronicling the tensions of an election that came to an explosive finish, The Bitter End presents a detailed account of a year of crises and the dangerous direction in which the country is headed.

Class, Ethnicity and Democracy in Nigeria

Author: Larry Diamond

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2015-12-25

Total Pages: 389

ISBN-13: 1349080802

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Bush v. Gore

Author: Charles L. Zelden

Publisher: University Press of Kansas

Published: 2020-07-16

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 070062967X

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Who could forget the Supreme Court’s controversial 5-4 decision in Bush v. Gore or the 2000 presidential campaign and election that preceded it? Hanging chads, butterfly ballots, endless recounts, raucous allegations, and a constitutional crisis were all roiled into a confusing and potentially dangerous mix—until the Supreme Court decision allowed George W. Bush to become the 43rd President of the United States, despite losing the popular vote to Al Gore. Praised by scholars and political pundits alike, the original edition of Charles Zelden’s book set a new standard for our understanding of that monumental decision. A probing chronicle and critique of the vexing and acrimonious affair, it offered the most accurate and up-to-date analysis of a remarkable episode in American politics. Highly readable, its comprehensive coverage, depth of documentation and detail, and analytic insights remain unrivaled on the subject. In this third expanded edition Zelden offers a powerful history of voting rights and elections in America since 2000. Bush v. Gore exposes the growing crisis by detailing the numerous ways in which the unlearned and wrongly learned “lessons of 2000” have impacted American election law through the growth of voter suppression via legislation and administrative rulings. It provides a clear warning of how unchecked partisanship arising out of Bush v. Gore threatens to undermine American democracy in general and the 2020 election in particular.

Jefferson's Second Revolution

Author: Susan Dunn

Publisher: HMH

Published: 2004-09-09

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 0547345755

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An “excellent” history of the tumultuous early years of American government, and a constitutional crisis sparked by the Electoral College (Booklist). In the election of 1800, Federalist incumbent John Adams, and the elitism he represented, faced Republican Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson defeated Adams but, through a quirk in Electoral College balloting, tied with his own running mate, Aaron Burr. A constitutional crisis ensued. Congress was supposed to resolve the tie, but would the Federalists hand over power peacefully to their political enemies, to Jefferson and his Republicans? For weeks on end, nothing was certain. The Federalists delayed and plotted, while Republicans threatened to take up arms. In a way no previous historian has done, Susan Dunn illuminates this watershed moment in American history. She captures its great drama, gives us fresh, finely drawn portraits of the founding fathers, and brilliantly parses the enduring significance of the crisis. The year 1800 marked the end of Federalist elitism, pointed the way to peaceful power shifts, cleared a place for states’ rights in the political landscape—and set the stage for the Civil War. “Dunn, a scholar of eighteenth-century American history, has provided a valuable reminder of an election in which the stakes were truly enormous and the political vituperation was far more poisonous than the relatively moderate attacks heard today. . . . An excellent work that effectively explains this critical contest that shaped the history of the new republic.” —Booklist “Dunn does a superb job of recounting the campaign, its cast of characters, and the election’s bizarre conclusion in Congress. That tense standoff could have plunged the country into a disastrous armed conflict, Dunn explains, but instead cemented the legitimacy of peaceful, if not smooth, transfers of power.” —Publishers Weekly “Dunn simultaneously teaches and enthralls with her eloquent, five-sensed descriptions of the people and places that shaped our democracy.” —Entertainment Weekly

Election Meltdown

Author: Richard L. Hasen

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2020-02-04

Total Pages: 202

ISBN-13: 0300252862

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From the nation’s leading expert, an indispensable analysis of key threats to the integrity of the 2020 American presidential election As the 2020 presidential campaign begins to take shape, there is widespread distrust of the fairness and accuracy of American elections. In this timely and accessible book, Richard L. Hasen uses riveting stories illustrating four factors increasing the mistrust. Voter suppression has escalated as a Republican tool aimed to depress turnout of likely Democratic voters, fueling suspicion. Pockets of incompetence in election administration, often in large cities controlled by Democrats, have created an opening to claims of unfairness. Old-fashioned and new-fangled dirty tricks, including foreign and domestic misinformation campaigns via social media, threaten electoral integrity. Inflammatory rhetoric about “stolen” elections supercharges distrust among hardcore partisans. Taking into account how each of these threats has manifested in recent years—most notably in the 2016 and 2018 elections—Hasen offers concrete steps that need to be taken to restore trust in American elections before the democratic process is completely undermined.

How Democracies Die

Author: Steven Levitsky

Publisher: Crown

Published: 2019-01-08

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 1524762946

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Comprehensive, enlightening, and terrifyingly timely.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice) WINNER OF THE GOLDSMITH BOOK PRIZE • SHORTLISTED FOR THE LIONEL GELBER PRIZE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • Time • Foreign Affairs • WBUR • Paste Donald Trump’s presidency has raised a question that many of us never thought we’d be asking: Is our democracy in danger? Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt have spent more than twenty years studying the breakdown of democracies in Europe and Latin America, and they believe the answer is yes. Democracy no longer ends with a bang—in a revolution or military coup—but with a whimper: the slow, steady weakening of critical institutions, such as the judiciary and the press, and the gradual erosion of long-standing political norms. The good news is that there are several exit ramps on the road to authoritarianism. The bad news is that, by electing Trump, we have already passed the first one. Drawing on decades of research and a wide range of historical and global examples, from 1930s Europe to contemporary Hungary, Turkey, and Venezuela, to the American South during Jim Crow, Levitsky and Ziblatt show how democracies die—and how ours can be saved. Praise for How Democracies Die “What we desperately need is a sober, dispassionate look at the current state of affairs. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, two of the most respected scholars in the field of democracy studies, offer just that.”—The Washington Post “Where Levitsky and Ziblatt make their mark is in weaving together political science and historical analysis of both domestic and international democratic crises; in doing so, they expand the conversation beyond Trump and before him, to other countries and to the deep structure of American democracy and politics.”—Ezra Klein, Vox “If you only read one book for the rest of the year, read How Democracies Die. . . .This is not a book for just Democrats or Republicans. It is a book for all Americans. It is nonpartisan. It is fact based. It is deeply rooted in history. . . . The best commentary on our politics, no contest.”—Michael Morrell, former Acting Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (via Twitter) “A smart and deeply informed book about the ways in which democracy is being undermined in dozens of countries around the world, and in ways that are perfectly legal.”—Fareed Zakaria, CNN

Almost President

Author: Scott Farris

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2013-05-07

Total Pages: 393

ISBN-13: 0762784210

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Veteran political journalist Scott Farris tells the stories of legendary presidential also-rans, from Henry Clay to Stephen Douglas, from William Jennings Bryan to Thomas Dewey, and from Adlai Stevenson to Al Gore. He also includes concise profiles of every major candidate nominated for president who never reached the White House but who helped promote the success of American democracy. Farris explains how Barry Goldwater achieved the party realignment that had eluded FDR, how George McGovern paved the way for Barack Obama, and how Ross Perot changed the way all presidential candidates campaign. There is Al Smith, the first Catholic nominee for president; and Adlai Stevenson, the candidate of the "eggheads" who remains the beau ideal of a liberal statesman. And Farris explores the potential legacies of recent runners-up John Kerry and John McCain. The book also includes compact and evocative portraits of such men as John C. Fremont, the first Republican Party presidential candidate; and General Winfield Scott, whose loss helped guarantee the Union victory in the Civil War. This new edition of Almost President brings the work up-to-date with a section that explores the results and ramifications of the 2012 presidential election.