The Eight Year Itch

1952 to 1960 - Dwight Eisenhower - 8 years - Republican

1960 to 1968 - Kennedy/Johnson - 8 years - Democrat

1968 to 1976 - Nixon/Ford - 8 years- Republican

1976 to 1980 - Carter - 4 years - Democrat

1980 to 1992 - Reagan/ Bush - 12 years - Republican

1992 to 2000 - Clinton - 8 years- Democrat

2000 to 2008 - Bush - 8 years - Republican

2008 to 2016 - Obama - 8 years - Democrat

2016 to ? - Trump - Republican

 

Of the eight changes of party rule over the past 64 years, the last 16 presidential elections, 75% occurred at the end of two terms of control. Through war and of peace, through assassination and resignation, through civil rights and uncivil wrongs, through fathers and sons, through impeachment hearings and missile crisis, through incompetence and corruption, through the best of times and the worst of times, the one almost universal certainty is that after eight years of being led by Democrat or Republican the voters will demand a change.

 

Despite his obvious and oft times overwhelming flaws, despite his seeming repeated attempts to undermine his own candidacy, despite his pronounced lack of preparation and understanding of the task that lay before him, Donald Trump was still in the right place at the right time.

 

Notwithstanding that Barack Obama had turned a monthly loss of 800,000 jobs into a prolonged period of reduced unemployment, despite 15 million who found work over this time of recovery, despite a revitalized stock market, despite a return from the brink of epic disaster to at least a stabilized economy, despite the fact that President Obama had stopped our nation's bleeding, it was not enough to assuage the anger of the masses. If life was better, for many it was still not good enough. 

 

A different party, after eight years of not being in power, always can promise better. Even if it can't deliver, and the Republican plan, if there even is one, is very unlikely to do so, all it has to do is to say it can. The Democrats and Hillary Clinton could only say they would try harder. That was not, and never is, the right answer.

 

This nation is nothing if not perpetually dissatisfied with its station. No matter what the basis for this election's insurrection, whether it be immigration, the inevitable march of time and the understanding that minorities will soon to be in the majority, the ascension of a black man to the highest office and the contemplation of a woman to take his place, the feeling that others around the globe no longer stop and listen when we speak, no matter if it is these matters or others that weigh on the voters, it always boils down to the same inevitable conclusion that two terms is more than enough for the party then in power.

 

When history is written about this election, and those with the benefit of hindsight attempt to dissect the reasons we handed the keys to the car to someone who has never driven and is blind to the dangers on the road, we should first and foremost ask how we did not see that this was the most likely outcome of all.