Is there a historical parallel for the upcoming presidential election?

To quote James T. Kirk from the movie Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country:
“Earth, Hitler, 1938”

@funkdaddy – I would take issue with your last sentence.

First, I think that Hillary is perfectly happy NOT being in the news; keeping a low profile at this stage makes strategic sense to her.

Second, and of more benefit to Clinton, is that the republicans, through their own actions and buffoonery, are making a clear case why voting for her make sense, She’s letting them put on their circus, and show just how unfit for office they are.

So I believe that the status quo is exactly what the wants.

And for the record, the only extreme of the 3 is Trump.
Clinton wants to preserve the status quo, and Sanders is a mainstream european social democrat.

@elbanditoroso – it’s not a judgement of the candidate. She just doesn’t get mentions. Let’s check news mentions at a couple sites

Clinton – nbcnews.com Top 5 – Trump, “Hell No” Trump, Trump, daughter pregnant, Amy Poehler imitation

CNN Search mentions in the last week – Clinton 113, Trump 226, Sanders 115, Carson 139… So despite being the only candidate leading convincingly, she trails all in mentions the last week and most of those seem to be in reference to Trump’s comments.

You can fault either analysis and I admit they are incomplete, but the general trend is you have to say something outlandish to get coverage and Clinton, to this point, hasn’t been as willing.

@ragingloli – I agree with you, if you mean Sanders, Clinton, and Trump. But Carson is pretty out there, as is Cruz behind him, and for US politics, Sanders is as far left as we’ve seen be considered as a viable candidate in my memory.

But others have better memories, hence the question ;)

oh right, carson. I misread him for clinton, because both are colossal Cs

I realize that you must know better, but reading questions like this always gives me the vague impression that people think that the presidential race is between all of the current contenders. No matter what happens in the primaries, there will be a reasonable candidate on the Democratic ticket. That candidate will win the election.

All of the silliness in the Republican primary race will be inconsequential, except to push the boundaries of acceptable rhetoric in American politics.

That “weak field of candidates” is better labeled “business as usual” candidates. It should be no surprise that people look for “something different” in times of great economic disruption

The popularity of the “outliers” is almost certainly a reaction to the hard new realities of the permanent recession/jobless recovery situation. While this result was readily predictable with wholesale elimination of our manufacturing sector, the effects were effectively delayed (and disguised) through the assumption of massive debt on the part of those booted out.

The parallel I would choose would be found in the culmination of the gilded age when the concentration of political and economic power on the part of banks snd railroads brought on the rise of the Grange and William Jennings Bryan. While the Grange and Bryan were labeled “the agrarian revolt”, hot on their heels erupted the progressive movement with muckraking expose’s of industrial and corporate horrors. It was the hoplessness of untangling corporate fat cat tentacles from the levers of his party that pushed Teddy Roosevelt to defect from the Republican stable and establish the Bullmoose party.

But like Loli, I too take issue with the notion that Sanders is the crackpot equivalent of Trump/Carson on the opposite end of the spectrum.

If Joe McCarthy had run for President, we would have a parallel in the US.

“McCarthyism”: term used in reference to demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of political opponents.
To be confused with fear mongering.

I too take issue with the notion that Sanders is the crackpot equivalent of Trump/Carson

That is not the claim.

Sanders is the farthest left candidate we’ve had in decades with a lot of support. That doesn’t make him a crackpot.

I agree with @ibstubro. The overt bigotry and fear-mongering is probably the worst since McCarthy. Nixon had a hand in that, too, before his presidential campaigns.

@stanleybmanly – I’m not saying Sanders is a crackpot or the equivalent of anyone else.

I guess if I’m saying anything about him, it’s that his policies are as unacceptable to a conservative base as any legitimate candidate we’ve seen in a long time. He is not playing the middle ground and never has. He’s been around for a long time, and this is the first time he’s had this level of support. Hillary was leading Obama by similar margins at this point in 2008, so I’m curious to see if he’s able to make the same kind of jump. It’s not all sealed up, but none of the other politicians are supporting Bernie. That seems unusual.

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I guess maybe the wording here lead people to believe I think it’s a battle royale for the votes from now until November. I understand nominations and that we have a long way to go, but even if a Sanders/Trump set of nominations probably isn’t in play, there has never been a more spread out field that I can find for the Republicans. No one is ready, but because there isn’t much middle ground, it doesn’t matter. They aren’t going to lose a lot of votes no matter who is put up, short of Trump, who somehow still leads.

So your leading candidate for a major party has zero chance of getting the nomination. That seems unusual.

I still think the Republicans find a way to put up Rubio, because he’s their best chance to take votes away. Right now, he beats both Clinton and Sanders in general election polling. Any feeling that the Democrats have an election locked up because they have a favorite is way premature. 45ish% of US voters wouldn’t vote for Clinton or Sanders against anyone.

And right now Rubio is in 3rd or 4th place, pulling under 15% of the votes from his own party. Again, that seems unusual.

We can say it’s early, so it’s inconsequential, but these are the times where candidates are setting their platform, based mostly on these polls. This is when they start having to produce actual plans of action and even though we know most of them won’t be implemented as they are, those platforms ultimately decide what’s deemed important by all candidates.

They’re going to separate from each other on something, and right now voters seem to be rejecting the middle ground all together, so we may see the biggest split between two nominated candidates we’ve seen in a long time.

David Kaiser on Recurring Themes in American history

The election of 1860 that put Lincoln into office may offer some parallels. Link The Democrats split between the establishment candidate Douglas and the more extremist Breckinridge, who came in second in the general election. The Republican party had just recently been formed. The idea of emancipation would prove to be a problem even for some of those in the north. New York draft riots

Arnold Schwarzenegger ran for Governor and won. It’s a good parallel to Trump. Famous, unqualified media figure running for an executive government position. I hesitate to make the comparison because Arnold wasn’t as coarse and vulgar as The Donald.