Author: Talia

“Heads, I win; tails, you cheated,” is the New York Times’ summation of Donald Trump’s rhetorical strategy for his past three elections. It’s a sentiment that comes directly out of the mouth of the former President himself, such as when he said “[he would] totally accept the results of [the] great and historic presidential election – if [he] win[s]” in reference to the 2016 election. It’s a sentiment that he has continued to push into the current election, but much earlier, and much harder. 

The 2024 Election marks the 200 year anniversary of the 1824 election, and, despite there having been 40 more Presidents since John Quincy Adams was inaugurated as the 6th U.S. President, some things still haven’t changed. 

Most significant is the cries of election fraud. Allegations of “stolen” elections that are now spewed by Donald Trump on his Truthsocial and X account, were once the words of Andrew Jackson, all those years ago, alleging that his loss in the Election of 1824 was due to a “Corrupt Bargain”. 

At the time, to become President, the candidate would need to win the majority of the 261 votes making 131 the number to hit. The final race for office would be close between Henry Clay, William Crawford, John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Jackson. Jackson would earn 99 electoral votes and 152,901 popular votes, which was more electoral or popular votes earned by any of the other candidates. However, as was the process for selecting a President at the time, Jackson was still shy of the majority needed to assume the Presidency. As a result, the election would be sent to the House of Representatives to be solved between the top three candidates, kicking Clay out of the race. It is there that Adams won by one vote. 

It didn’t take long before Jackson would spread conspiracies of a “Corrupt Bargain”, a behind-the-scenes deal between Adams and Clay that caused one of the House votes to switch. Jackson felt that he had not lost, rather, his seat had been stolen from him. 

What Jackson and his supporters would coin “The Corrupt Bargain” about the election of 2024, Trump has coined his loss to President Joe Biden in the 2020 election as the “Big Lie”. 

This campaign cycle, we see Trump include this rhetoric of a stolen election much earlier than he had in his other campaigns. This could speak to his attempts to replicate the effective campaign Jackson ran, in which he utilized conspiracies of this corrupt bargain, and the public’s fury, to win the 2028 election. As early as May 17, 2023, Trump claimed that “they are playing election interference in 2024”, even tweeting images like this to his official social media. 

Similar to Jackson’s arguments that Clay weaponized Congress to overturn votes for Jackson into votes for Adams, Trump too accused President Biden of sending the Justice Department after him; claiming that the variety of court cases against Trump were interference in the 2024 election. 

However, while Jackson and Trump similarly spread conspiracies of “stolen elections” as a result of corruption and manipulation amongst the political elite, there are a few key differences between the two. One being that Jackson not only won the most electoral votes and popular votes of all candidates, but Trump in the 2020 election won neither, and in the 2016 election did not win the popular vote. 

The 2020 presidential election was not close. Biden beat former President Trump by over 7 million votes, and secured an Electoral College victory of 302-236. Jackson lost by one vote in the House. 

However, despite these staggering differences between the elections of the two former Presidents, one similarity remains; the use of media and allegations of corruption to rally support. Jackson, too, utilized the newspapers to his advantage to spread his allegations, create gossip, and stir anger. The American people want their votes to matter, they want to know that democracy works. Jackson and Trump understand this, they understand that if they can instill fear of fraud, corruption, and deception, they can stir distrust in the President and support for themselves.

It’s a strategy that worked for Jackson when he was elected to the Oval Office in the Election of 1828, and it’s a strategy that Trump hopes will yield similar results for him this election.

“She’s a radical, she’s a communist.” These were the words used by former conservative U.S. Representative Joe Scarborough to describe Kamala Harris. It’s no far cry from other conservatives’ descriptions of the Vice President from this election season. U.S. Senator Steve Daines claimed that “…she is unelectable because her positions are radical.”

It is unsurprising to see Trump’s campaign and his supporters paint Harris as “radical”, as, with partisan tensions high, it is exactly these fears about her “radical” stances on border control, fracking, funding the police, and gun control that cause hesitation in undecided and conservative voters. Therefore, it is even more unsurprising to see, in response, Harris attempting to moderate her image and tactically reject these far-left labels when needed. 

It’s a strategy that we have seen throughout U.S. history. Consider the Election of 1860, in which Illinois Republicans employed Owen Lovejoy to campaign for Abraham Lincoln. Lovejoy, a known abolitionist and controversial figure, seemed like an unlikely choice to commission to persuade Republican votes. However, he would become one of their most valuable weapons. 

Owen Lovejoy

Lovejoy, was anything but quiet about his position on abolishing slavery, maintaining him an infamous reputation in Southern Illinois. The Republican party knew that if they ignored Lovejoy, he could become ammo for the Democratic party, in which they could point to his radical position as an attempt to hide or disguise their “actual” position on the institution of slavery. Those opposing Lincoln’s calls for the end to the expansion of slavery feared that with the realization of Black people’s natural rights would come the realization of political rights and, thus, a chipping of white supremacy. 

Recognizing this fear of Republicans being “too radical” towards slavery, Illinois Republicans thought: who better to explain our moderate attitudes towards slavery than known extremist, Lovejoy? In an attempt to appear less radical, Illinois Republicans employed one of their most radical members to rallying the state’s conservatives for Lincoln. 

This use of rhetorical radicalism is familiar to us as we look at today’s election. Labeled as “far-left”, it is up to the Harris campaign to shift Trump’s narrative of her. We see this in how Harris speaks about gun control. 

During the Presidential debate between the VP and Trump, Harris took the time to shut down rumors that she and her running mate, Tim Waltz, want to “take everyone’s guns away”, as Trump alleged. She reaffirmed her stance later on Oprah, even joking that if “someone breaks into [her] house… they’re getting shot.” 

By painting herself as a gun-owner, who has no intention of taking people’s guns away, it could actually validate her stance on supporting stricter gun laws for some American voters. By clarifying that she does not intend to abolish the Second Amendment, and that she is not some “radical liberal”, some Republicans may be more likely to listen to her argument for better gun control. 

It is this same strategy that the Illinois Republicans employed. By appearing less radical, Harris can gain support from hesitant voters and also bolster her support because, now, her actual opinions and ideas don’t seem as extreme, and may not be as immediately dismissed. Illinois Republicans attempted to appear less radical towards slavery through rhetoric that reinforced white labor protection, denied Black people fundamental civil liberties, and upheld white supremacy. By appearing less radical, Illinois Republicans too hoped to garner more support from undecided or conservative voters for Lincoln, and the campaign’s call for the end of the expansion of slavery. 

Through these elections we can see that, when party tensions are high, and distrust grows between partisans, it becomes essential to appear more moderate and assuage the fears of those who find the candidates “too liberal”. In an election, a progressive candidate must ask themselves: How do we argue for change while promising to move slow enough? How do we move forward while meeting in the middle? How do we appear progressive, while picking up the missing votes in the middle?