America's Most Contentious Election
Some more History Impossible content
Hey everybody, just wanted to point all of you fine people in the direction of a long-form piece I did for a new, up and coming publisher known as Keinrath Publishing, which is based out of Washington, D.C. I am among a growing stable of historical writers that tackle various subjects that carry some resonance with the events of today. The editor-in-chief/founder of Keinrath and I decided that, given what was initially predicted to be an extremely close and contentious election in 2024, that it would be appropriate to write about something similar that had happened almost 150 years ago: that is, the closest election in modern American history, that of 1876.
Longtime listeners likely remember me speaking to the awesome Richard Lim of the This American President podcast about a year ago about this very subject. I highly recommend you guys go check that one out if you haven’t already. For the quick and dirty version, 1876 probably stands out as the most controversial election in American history—and I am including the 2020 election in that roster—which could be seen in just how damn close it was, leading to lame-duck poster boy Rutherford B. Hayes becoming President of the United States by a single electoral vote. The context surrounding the 1876 election is insane enough—something I covered in the recently re-released “Original Donald Trump” inaugural episode of History Impossible—but the election itself is the stuff amazing HBO miniseries are made of (I have my fingers crossed we’ll get something like that one day; if they can make an eight-part, sixteen-hour miniseries about John Adams entertaining, they certainly can do the same here).
However, so you don’t have to wait for such a thing to happen, and so you don’t have to read the small number of books written about the subject, I wrote a nice, long-form essay summarizing the events for you over at Keinrath. Because the publisher is just starting out, there is a small, one-time entry fee for the article—a single dollar. I encourage all of you to support them, since this is the kind of content that we need more of, and something I was really happy to help contribute to. So show them some love and check out not just my essay, but the others that have been released as well. At the very least, it’ll be much appreciated by yours truly.
Excellent history that gives grounded perspective to current politics