This article was originally written by Mark J. Stoddard for Meridian Magazine. The following is an excerpt.
Some Mormons would do well to take off their rose-colored glasses of history when examining the current presidential race. I keep hearing bizarre calls of doom and gloom if this or that candidate should win; that this is the dirtiest election ever.
When George Washington was nearly forced to run for president of the new republic in 1789, it was one incredibly boring election matched only in boredom by his reelection campaign where he ran unopposed. Since then U.S. elections have been brawling slugfests of words with the war of words between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams being one of the most brutal. Name calling at its worst. The editor of this publication wouldn’t reprint the diatribes.
The personal attacks against the corn-cob smoking wife of Andrew Jackson, the inflammatory rhetoric against the backwoods rail-splitter Abe Lincoln, the chants of “Ma, Ma where’s Pa, he’s in the White House Ha, Ha, Ha” against Grover Cleveland, are the things of American presidential politics.
Right now all political parties are deciding who they will nominate although fringe parties – not a term of derision but a statement of location on the political reality spectrum – likely have their candidates. Hillary Clinton is a prohibitive favorite to be the Democratic Party’s candidate barring any FBI results of criminality. Donald Trump has moved into the lead against all previous predictions for the Republicans.
For some, the sky is falling down, but, it’s not, and won’t.
Read the full article at LDSmag.com.
