"American society is deeply divided," wrote the Süddeutsche Zeitung a few days after Donald Trump's election. The FAZ described the US election campaign as "extraordinarily dirty" and everyone on our side of the Atlantic agrees that the stone-age American electoral system is to blame for everything anyway. And that's all true. But was the 2016 election really that extraordinarily dirty and unprecedented? No, she wasn't! The Americans have been familiar with this for a while.
Even the Founding Fathers weren't saints
The United States experienced a particularly dirty election in its early childhood when incumbent President John Adams was challenged by his Vice President Thomas Jefferson in 1800. Adams ran for re-election that year as a member of America's first quasi-party, the Federalists. Almost because at that time there were no proper party structures and hierarchies. Federalists because... yes, good question. They were actually quite centralistic, but I'm assuming:different times, different customs? In any case, Adam's opponent, Thomas Jefferson, ran for the Democratic Republicans. As the name suggests, this is the grouping that would eventually become today's two major US parties. This group was actually federalist and advocated more state rights.
Incidentally, the same two candidates competed against each other four years earlier, which John Adams just won. So you see, political inbreeding has been a tradition in America since before the Kennedys, Bushes and Clintons. And although the 1800 election is now more than 200 years ago, it still seems strikingly familiar in many other respects. The election was dirty, the population was divided and the candidates appealed to people's deepest instincts.
The Americans have experience in dirty campaigns
Today, as we all know, we get upset about Trump statements like “bad hombre” or “nasty woman”. But compared to the 1800 campaign and the Jefferson and Adams attacks, it's all almost ridiculous. During the campaign, Jefferson once simply called his opponent a "hideous hermaphroditical character who has neither the force nor firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman” ). Adams shot back, calling Jefferson a "mean spirited, low-lived ... son of a half-breed Indian squaw sired by a Virginia mulatto father". em> ). Once again you realize that civilization needs time. We should have to wait another two centuries to hear sophisticated attacks like "Lyin' Ted".
Conspiracy theories and fake news were not entirely unknown in 1800 either. The Federalists behind Adams even spread the rumor at the time that Thomas Jefferson was chronically ill or even recently deceased! Oh, what a time it was when you could just say someone was dead and nobody could verify it. Although… Paul McCartney would probably not agree with me completely.
Polarization is simply part of US elections
Incidentally, the fact that the Federalists and Democratic-Republicans were not yet proper parties does not mean that the country was not divided in 1800. It was, however. And decent! For the first time there were already the well-known North-South disputes, which were to shape the USA for a long time to come. Jefferson and the Democratic Republicans ultimately won the election with only the votes of the southern states. And only because the slaves were counted there as 3/5 of a resident and thus gave more weight to the states. And that's where African Americans get upset. So much has been done for her...
The themes of the time should also look familiar to us. The Federalists stood for centralization (they were a bit unlucky with their choice of name, as I said), free trade and closer ties with England. The Democratic Republicans, on the other hand, were in favor of more rights for the states, advocated external protectionism and supported Napoleonic France. Incidentally, the Federalists were also “tough on migration”, while the Democratic Republicans actively addressed migrants. White English Protestant migrants though, before we jump for joy and declare Jefferson the 18th Century Martin Luther King.
Anyone who finds the US electoral system in need of reform today:that's the reform!
After the Democratic Republicans won the election with the help of the southern states, the fight really started. Not only Jefferson ran for the party, but of course he had a running mate as a candidate for the office of vice president. This was a nice man named Aaron Burr from New York. At that time, electors in the electoral college were still allowed to cast two votes each for the president of their choice and no separate vote for the vice president. The first-ranked then automatically became President, the second-ranked Vice-President.
So the Democratic-Republican electors actually wanted to give all their votes to Jefferson and Burr. Only one of them should abstain from his second vote, putting Jefferson first and Burr second. Unfortunately, he probably didn't get the memo. Or he just didn't care. In any case, both Jefferson and Burr received 73 votes, John Adams 64. And in the case of such a tie, the lower house of parliament in the USA decides - until today, by the way - on the winner.
The new parliament, which was elected in this election, only took up its mandate a few months later. So the old parliament, with its federalist majority, had to deal with the presidential election. And many Federalists hated it Jefferson from the bottom of my heart. He was a worse enemy to them than Trump was to the liberal eco-hipsters of modern-day Brooklyn. They hated him even more than Brooklyn eco-hipsters hate shifters on their bikes. And so many federalists chose Aaron Burr, which meant that neither Jefferson nor Burr got the necessary approval from nine states and had to be voted on again. And then again. And then again. Finally, after 35 (!) rounds, Jefferson won and became the third President of the USA. I don't know about you, but I still prefer a little recount in Florida.
And Trump is still worse
In 1801, after a devastating election campaign that included deep personal attacks, a tie between party members, and 36 rounds of voting in Congress, Jefferson became the third President of the United States. Then, in his inaugural speech, he famously said, "We're all Republicans, we're all Federalists," trying to reunite the country. That's exactly what Donald Trump still hasn't done after six months in office. He didn't do much else in those six months either. Oh, and by the way, Jefferson wasn't a pussy grabber either. But that's just a side note.
You can read about whether and what you should learn from this in this post, in which I deal with the often claimed repetition of history. See you in two weeks!