The Most Important Election of My Lifetime…Again

And other hyperboles, such as “if Trump wins I’m leaving the country,” or “if Harris wins it will be the end of our country”

One of the perks of being my age is that I’ve accumulated a lot of elections since the first time I voted in 1972, the year Republican president Richard Nixon defeated Democrat Senator George McGovern in a landslide victory of 60.7% of the popular vote, and 538 members of the Electoral College (270 are needed to win). By comparison, in 1984 Ronald Reagan took 58.8% of the popular vote and 525 members of the electoral college against Walter Mondale. Most elections, however, are much closer and, as we have seen, contested.

I was a freshman in college in 1972, enrolled in a Political Science 101 course in which our primary readings were daily newspaper articles. Our professor emphasized over and over that this was the most important election of our lifetime. That didn’t mean much to me then, inasmuch as the voting age of 18 had just become a Constitutional Amendment (number 26) the year before. I was mostly interested in girls and sports, and getting my mind blown by my astronomy and philosophy professors who introduced me to the wonders of science and reason.

Between the Vietnam War and, then, the Watergate scandal, the strongest impression I have from that period was that our country had never been so divided politically. Since most of my time in those years were spent as an undergraduate student, then a graduate student, then a community college lecturer, then a university professor, almost everyone I knew and hung-out with were liberals, so you can imagine the memories I have of what people thought of Nixon; and if “Tricky Dick” were not bad enough, for heaven’s sake Ronald Reagan was president for eight years in the 1980s! So throughout that time I was deluged from the people around me with rhetoric about how the country was on the verge of utter ruin, in the process of being destroyed by these quasi fascists. I recall a number of people telling me that if Reagan wins (and wins again) that they were going to leave the country. None of them did, of course.

Then came the 1990s and the Clinton years, when it was time for the Republicans to lose their collective minds over how one of the most pro-free market Democratic presidents in U.S. history was going to turn the country into a socialist hell-hole (helped along, of course, by that communist wife of his, Hillary). As such, conservatives, led by Speaker of the House Newt Gingerich—energized by his newly found power and “Contract with America”—perfected the art of blocking nearly everything Clinton wanted to do, which amounted to mostly centrist policies endorsed by majorities of Americans. But I will give Republicans credit for one thing during these years—at least they didn’t threaten to leave the country.

Illustration by Jeff Drew, from the cover of Skeptic magazine 27.4 (2022)

And who can forget the George W. Bush years, when so many Democrats threatened to leave the country that for a time it looked like the population of the United States might decline for the first time in history. But, of course, that never happened, and a good thing too because these same liberals then voted into office the first black president in the nation’s history, which the Republicans spent eight years griping about how he—even more than Clinton apparently—was going to turn the country into the People’s Republic of America. Interestingly, under Obama’s administration, the economy not only recovered from the Great Recession, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rebounded from 7,949 to 19,827. That’s a 149% increase! It reminds me of what Winston Churchill said when he heard that France’s governing Cabinet, after being defeated by the Nazis in May of 1940, declared in 1941 that “in three weeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken”—Churchill griped: “Some chicken. Some neck.”

By the way, in case you’re wondering, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed yesterday (October 30) at 41,141, close to its all time high of 43,275 (on October 18). Some of that increase happened during Trump’s administration (56%), but if you’re inclined to think that the Biden/Harris administration was also going to drive us to socialism, think again. For the record, the Dow’s annualized 11.8% return on investment under Trump was below that of 12.1% for Obama and 15.8% for Clinton. We will know in two months the figures for the Biden administration, but it’s likely to be in this range because, in reality, presidents and their policies have little to do with the stock market’s ups and downs, a point I heard Clinton make when he gave a speech at Caltech in January 2000, a startling admission from a politician; but then, he was at the end of his presidency.

Then there’s Trump. As much as the Dems despised George W. Bush, in the eyes of many liberals, compared to Trump Bush looks practically statesman like, even recalling the times when the self-declared “decider” asked “is our children learning?”, or when he declared that “you teach a child to read and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test,” when he mixed his metaphors in suggesting that “we ought to make the pie higher,” and my favorite, “fool me once, shame on—shame on you. Fool me—you can’t get fooled again.” (Cue The Who.) (There are so many Bushisms that there’s a list of the top 25 here.)

I won’t bother recounting the effectively countless lies and indiscretions, along with the crimes and misdemeanors of the 45^th President of the United States, as we all know them by heart by now. And I’ve gripped enough on my podcast about Trump’s character shortcomings and my bafflement that conservatives—the self-proclaimed people of character and honesty, faith and fidelity—can support him; but in three straight election cycles he has legitimately won his party’s nomination, so here we are.

In my lecture on the psychology of political beliefs, I open with a two-post Twitter thread from a woman named Laci Green just before and after the November 8, 2016 election. Compare what Green wrote when she thought Hillary was going to win, with her sentiments four hours later when Trump was declared the winner:

That was 8 years ago!

By all metrics, things are more divided and polarized now than then, and it was pretty bad then. Remember the January 21, 2017 Women’s March, the day after the inauguration of Trump as US President? At the time it was the largest single-day protest in U.S. history, dwarfed only by the “mostly peaceful” riots following the murder of George Floyd that resulted in considerable property damage (see Minneapolis burning below).

Then there was January 6, 2021, and the violence at the nation’s Capitol building by Trump supporters (below) who believed what the President told them that the election—and by extension the country—was being stolen from them. People act on their beliefs, and if they think something as important as their country is being stolen then we shouldn’t be surprised if some act violently.

So neither party is excluded from expressing their political beliefs and ideologies violently.

And now we’re hearing from liberals and progressives that if Trump wins again in 2024 that they are going to leave the country. I have heard this from a number of my liberal friends, along with prominent public figures on the Left, such as Hollywood celebrities who said they would move to Canada (Lena Dunham, Snoop Dogg), Africa (Samuel L. Jackson), Spain (Amy Schumer), and Italy (Omari Hardwick). Cher said she would move to Jupiter if Trump becomes President again. Maybe Elon Musk would supply the rocket for her. George Lopez said that if Trump wins we “won’t have to worry about immigration. We’ll all go back.” Yeah, sure you will. And remember a few months ago (March 8) when Robert Di Nero told Bill Maher that if Trump wins “you won’t be on this show any more.” Really? How is that going to happen? Is Trump going to buy HBO just so he can fire Bill Maher? He’s done some crazy things, but this one seems unlikely.

Of course, liberals don’t have a monopoly on such hyperbole. Witness Elon Musk’s recent proclamations to his 200 million followers on X that “if Kamala Harris wins I’ll be thrown in prison”, that he’ll never get his rockets to Mars because of the Democrat’s bureaucratic red tape, that “Kamala wants to destroy your right to free speech,” and that a Harris presidency would “doom humanity.” Not just the country, but all of humanity! And who can forget Musk’s Tweet after the assassination attempts on Trump’s life, inquiring why no one is targeting Harris for assassination. He deleted the Tweet, but then repeated the sentiment at a town-hall-style event in Lancaster, Pennsylvania: “Nobody even bothers to try to kill Kamala. It's pointless. Why? They'll just get another puppet.”

Okay, it’s time for a reality check. None of this is going to happen. Whoever wins, you’re not going to leave the country…and I can prove it. I’m a fan of prediction markets (or betting markets). They work because when people have skin in the game—in this case by placing actual financial bets—they’re less inclined to say and do stupid things and more inclined to think and act rationally. I’ll put up $1000 of my own money right now to anyone who says that they will leave the country if Trump wins, if they’ll also put up $1000 of their money, which I get to collect if they don’t move. (I haven’t heard any Republicans say that they’ll move if Harris wins, but if you’re out there this challenge goes for you too.)

Anyone?

It won’t happen. I know because I’ve offered $1000 to any of the UFO/UAP believers who proclaim that disclosure of alien contact is coming any day now. That was over two years ago. If you really believe we’ve been visited by aliens and that we’re going to find out about it soon, why not grab a free thousand bucks? The answer is that they don’t really believe it. It’s just rhetorical flourish to emphasize emotional desire, not rational belief. So, by extension, people who say they’re going to leave the country—or for that matter, that the country will cease to exist and collapse into a ruinous heap like ancient Rome—I’ve got the money if you’ve got the conviction.

Anyone?

Regardless of what happens next week, we’re going to be fine. If Harris wins, her administration will mostly try to continue the policies of the Biden administration, and the Republicans will try to block them at every step. To what extent they can will depend on who controls the House and the Senate, which also remains to be seen until the election results are in. If Trump wins, the Democrats are not going to just roll over and let the Project 2025 authors take over the country and order Trump to initiate a theocratic state, which he is unlikely to do in any case given what he has said about that project—along with his propensity to go his own way, which can change by the whims of the day and what he’s been watching on television or who he last spoke to—so the usual checks and balances as initiated by all parties to keep in line the current party in the White House will be implemented.

If Trump loses and declares that he really won—which most people think he will do, including me—he does not command the military, nor the Supreme Court, nor the National Guard, nor state militias, nor city police departments. It’s true that his Second Amendment supporting, gun totting, MAGA-hat wearing fanatics could cause violence along the lines of what we witnessed on January 6, 2021, but note what happened after that fateful day when Trump was in the White House watching it all unfold on his television set—there was a peaceful transfer of power, as has happened every election since the nation’s founding nearly 250 years ago.

Could there be other pockets of civil unrest and violence in this scenario? Sure, just like there was after George Floyd was murdered and BLM riots broke out in cities that resulted in massive property damage and even deaths. But here we are, still, a nation intact, with a viable Constitution that almost everyone respects and obeys, with state Supreme Courts and a United States Supreme Court to enforce the laws, with a rock solid economy and robust financial system that mostly flourishes no matter who is living in the White House, and with an electorate that, after all the hoopla and emotions that will be released next week, will go back to work and school and life as usual, because what else is there to do?

People talk about a second Civil War. That also is not going to happen. Sure, there are a handful of doomsday preppers, militia members, MAGA cult followers, white supremacists, skinheads, proud boys, and the like who could raise hell for a few weeks and lead to pockets of violence here and there, but could any of these knuckleheads and wingnuts organize themselves into massive armies numbering in the hundreds of thousands and line up in Gettysburg to face who? Hundreds of thousands of blue-haired, mask-wearing, hooded Antifa members armed with spray cans, frozen water bottles, and socks filled with rocks? This is not 1861.

Of course, I could be wrong. This really could be the election that destroys the country, in which America devolves into a socialist state while the Republicans sit back and watch it all unfold without a fight, or the United States becomes a Handmaid’s Tale of patriarchal, totalitarian theonomic Republic of Gilead while Democrats pack their U-Hauls and move to Canada.

But I doubt it.

So…tone down the rhetoric, cast your vote, chill out, and go back to work and play and life as we’ve known it for nearly two and a half centuries with the confidence that, given our history, will very likely continue for another two and a half centuries, regardless of who wins or loses this election, or the one to come in 2028. And when you think about people in the other party voting for their candidate that you can’t stand, remember the wise words of John Stuart Mill:

A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life.

Over the past year I have heard a number of people on both sides describe people in the other party as “enemies” (not just the candidate, but everyone who votes that party). They are not our enemies. They are our fellow Americans. We may disagree with them, but thinking of them as enemies to be destroyed is not conducive to a peaceful and prosperous future. So I will close this commentary with the poetic call for amity by Abraham Lincoln in this first inaugural address in 1861, when our nation really was on the brink of actual Civil War:

Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Michael Shermer is the Publisher of Skeptic magazine, Executive Director of the Skeptics Society, and the host of The Michael Shermer Show. His many books include Why People Believe Weird Things, The Science of Good and Evil, The Believing Brain, The Moral Arc,, Heavens on Earth, and Giving the Devil His Due. His latest book is Conspiracy: Why the Rational Believe the Irrational. His next book is: Truth: What it is, How to Find it, Why it Matters, to be published in 2025.