WALL STREET JOURNAL
History Repeats as Farce, Then as 2016
by Joseph Rago
November 4, 2016

Americans elected the greatest president, Lincoln, four years after the worst, Buchanan, so there’s some hope that 2020 will redeem 2016, whoever wins on Tuesday. But whatever the future holds, perhaps the past could help beleaguered voters make sense of the choice between the two most unpopular candidates since the advent of modern polling. How unusual, from a historical perspective, are Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton? Is the country as divided as it seems? Will the 45th president be as terrifying as both sides claim, and by the way, is the apocalypse nigh? And where do the political themes of 2016 fit within the American experience? READ MORE