Category: Week 5: 1876 (Page 2 of 3)

We all know how the old fable goes. The shepherd boy cries for the villagers, claiming his flock of sheep is under attack by a wolf. Each time, the villagers rush to defend his flock. And each time, it turns out the boy is lying about the wolf. When a wolf finally attacks the boy’s herd and he cries for help, the villagers assume he is lying. The sheep die a merciless death.

Now, this fable may not map plainly onto claims of election fraud, but the moral may help us understand the threat they pose.

The elections of 1876 and 2020 are frequently compared in discussions of contested election results. But comparing the two paints a misleading picture. In 1876, the election was undeniably rigged, as Shiela Blackford explains, in the form of stuffed ballot boxes, tricking voters, and blatant intimidation tactics. The use of these tactics led to a justified challenge of the results.

In 2020, no comparable corruption was found. Yet Donald Trump challenged the results anyways.

By most accounts, the 1876 election between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel J. Tilden was a chaotic mess of genuine electoral fraud. Tilden won the popular vote, but only because of rampant voter manipulation in key Southern states, as Michael Fitzgerald and Mark Bohnhorst detail. Ballots were stuffed. Illiterate voters were deceived. Violence was used to keep Black voters away from the polls. The contested results in Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana were far from hearsay — they were based on documented fraud. 

Hayes cried fraud, and as it turns out, he was telling the truth. The villagers, in the form of the Election Commission, stepped in to defend the country from the voter fraud, delivering Hayes his rightful victory.

Fast forward to 2020. Despite a pile of allegations, there was no credible evidence of widespread voter fraud. Every lawsuit alleging rigged voting machines or fake ballots was thrown out, often with judges — including Trump appointees — pointing to a clear lack of proof behind any of Trump’s claims. But the myth persists, and Trump and his supporters only double down on the claim.

This is where the real danger lies. In 1876, challenging the results was a legitimate response to a rigged election. In 2020, it was a reaction to unfounded conspiracy theories. 

Because the claims of voter fraud were real in 1876, it made Trump’s claims seem — at least to some — like they could have legitimacy. After all, we are told that history is bound to repeat itself. Why not in the form of another fraudulent election?

As it turns out, though, Trump was just a boy to cry wolf, alleging voter fraud and riling up voters against a contrived threat. But while Trump cried wolf and “villagers” swarmed to verify or disprove his claims, the real issue of voter suppression continues to be ignored. Voter suppression tactics continue to quietly disenfranchise voters across the country. Laws are restricting access to the polls for millions of Americans, disproportionately harming marginalized groups, yet the national conversation remains fixated on debunked fraud theories.

False claims of voter fraud aren’t just distractions — they’re dangerous. They erode the foundation of democratic participation, making it harder to address the real problems. If we want to strengthen our elections, we need to strengthen voting access. That’s the lesson we should take away from 2020, not that it was anything like 1876.

In 1876 both parties would claim victory in South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana. Hayes or Tilden? It was an unprecedented crisis to resolve. It is no surprise that reading through the allegations of fraud, contestation of results, and attempts to overturn the election in 2020 invoke parallels to 1876. 

How would they resolve this crisis? The Constitution states the President of the Senate (the Republican Vice President T.W. Ferry) should count votes. Still, Democrats would disagree and call for votes to only be valid if both the Senate and House concurred to their validity (citing historical precedence). 

Congress would pass a law to create an electoral commission, consisting of five members of the Senate, five Supreme Court Justices, and five members of the House, in response to the crisis. The commission, evenly split along party lines until a compromise fifth Supreme Court Justice was added, ultimately gave a one-vote edge to Hayes, securing the Republican victory. Showcased in a newspaper at the time (accessed here) the committee was seen as adequate for the present but likely inadequate for the future. As played out in 2020, the future would have its own set of challenges to deal with and would rely on formal institutions to combat diverging views of the election. 

What creates an environment where elections are contested? The 1876 election was a product of the resulting ideological divide after the Civil War. A polarized nation had two conflicting sides with disparate ideas about race, culture, and gender. The conflicting ideas culminated in delays in voting, real and alleged fraud, and an increasing role of outside institutions. 

The 2020 election can be examined in a similar, although less polarized, light. The backdrop of the pandemic led to increasing social costs as political ideas became intertwined with public health. Debates about race permeated throughout the Black Lives Matter protests and similarly had a partisan divide. This growing distrust in institutions was spearheaded by a leader who voters felt represented an outsider to the political institution. Likewise, Tilden appealed to Southern Democrats who viewed the government as fundamentally opposed to their state-centric and pro-slavery viewpoint. 

Like the 1876 election, the 2020 one was increasingly reliant on the courts. President Trump would challenge the results in courts around the country and attempt to take his fraud case to the Supreme Court. 147 Republicans would vote against certifying the results of the election. 2020 saw an increase in public officials willing to break democratic norms.

The challenges of 2020 still appear relevant to the upcoming election. JD Vance, the VP candidate, says he would not have certified the electoral votes like Mike Pence did in 2020. Again, the 1876 election and considerations on whether the President of the Senate has a ceremonious or pivotal role in the certification of the votes become relevant. 

In both 1876, 2020, and likely 2024, contested elections revealed a fundamental truth: democracy relies not only on the processes and institutions but also on public trust in those systems. When that trust erodes, challenges to election results appear.

Sources:

“JD Vance says he wouldn’t have certified 2020 race until states submitted pro-Trump electors” 4 February 2024. ABC News

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/jd-vance-defends-trump-claims-invoking-jean-carroll/story?id=106925954

“The morning star and Catholic messenger”. 04 Feb. 1877. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86086284/1877-02-04/ed-1/seq-1/>

“The 147 Republicans Who Voted to Overturn Election Results” 6 Jan 2021. New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/07/us/elections/electoral-college-biden-objectors.html 

The election of 1876 saw claims of mass fraud, leading to four states sending two separate slates of electors to Congress to decide between. In fact, without considering these states with conflicting slates of electors, no candidate received the necessary majority of electoral votes to win the presidency. Therefore, Congress had been passed the responsibility to decide the election, though in a different way than in 1824. Specifically, Congress had to in some way form a consensus around which slate of electors was legitimate. In doing so, they formed a commission which decided in favor of Republican Rutherford B. Hayes. However, the gridlock that led to this commission was partially centered around disputes over whether the president of the Senate could himself choose which electors should be counted.

In the election of 2020, many similar dynamics were also at play. As in 1876, allies of Donald Trump, one of the candidates for president, submitted alternate slates of electors to Congress from states that had very close electoral results. Then, also as in 1876, the Republicans tried to use the president of the senate, the vice president, of their party to certify the electoral slates that supported their candidate. However, unlike in 1876, there was no actual evidence of fraud that could impact the result of the election in 2020, with 2020 not having masses of votes thrown out in a way that changed the outcome of the election, as happened in favor of Hayes in 1876.

The presidential election of 1876 can be used as a comparison point for the 2020 election, for both good and bad. The Hayes team’s claims of fraud, leading to their throwing out ballots, were based on intimidation and violence in post-Civil War southern states, backed up by electoral returning boards. However, in 2020, there were no credible allegations of widespread fraud, with such claims being shot down by officials at all levels of government. Further, many of those involved in this scheme have been criminally charged and are awaiting trial for their involvement, due to the illegitimacy of the slates. This illustrates that, while there is precedent for having alternate slates of electors and attempting to change the results of an election, that precedent relies on facts of irregularities and fraud that did not exist in 2020.

The election of 1876 was characterized by uncertainty and how close it was. The race was between Republican Rutherford B Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden. Tilden did win the majority popular vote, however he did not win the presidency due to the electoral college. Hayes won the college by only one vote, making this election incredibly close and controversial. This election draws parallels to the anticipated 2024 election between Vice President Harris and former President Trump. The upcoming election is anticipated to be a close race. 

The election of 1876 was somewhat concerned with legitimacy, which is an issue we face right now in the fallout of the 2020 election and widespread fear over voter fraud. In 1876, Rutherford B Hayes had 20 contested electoral votes and 165 certified votes, while Tilden had 184. According to the webpage “Disputed Election of 1876” by Sheila Blackford, a commission was created to combat this issue. The commission was a compromise as the Constitution dictated that the then President of the Senate, Republican Thomas W. Ferry. However, the Democrats argued that Congress, which had a Democratic majority, should decide instead. The commission was made through the Electoral Commission Act, which made a commission of two Democratic senators, three Republican senators, two Republicans representatives, three Democratic representatives and five Supreme Court justices. The job of the commission was to handle the election votes. What’s very interesting about this election though, is that Hayes was initially against the commission but later came around to support it because it would bring greater legitimacy to the election. 

This parallels many of the fears people have about the upcoming 2024 election, especially following the 2020 election which was marred with issues about legitimacy. The Washington Post article, “American Democracy is in Trouble–Even If Harris Wins” by Perry Bacon Jr. lays out some anticipated outcomes of the election. Even in the best case scenario for Harris, Bacon Jr. is concerned that conservatives won’t see her, a “liberal Black woman from California”, as a legitimate president. 

All of these outcomes are concerned with legitimacy as the immediate election following the January 6th insurrection, which was a crisis of legitimacy so great it caused people to storm the Capitol building to stop the counting of the votes. As this election looms closer and closer, we can only wonder if we’ll be facing a similar crisis of legitimacy for the 2024 election, and, if so, what we can do to fix it. 

Most might not know the name of Rutherford B. Hayes or remember anything special about him and his presidency, but his election to the presidency might show us that our current political atmosphere is not as special as we might think. 

The election I’m talking about is the election of 1876. What was so interesting about this election is not the campaign but what followed. The parties were the same as they are today but  the base was a bit different than what we see today from the Democrats and Republicans. Democrats had their support in the former confederacy and from immigrants across the nation while Republcian’s strength was found in the north and out west. The Republicans nominated Governor of Ohio Rutherford B. Hayes to succeed 18th president Ulysses S. Grant, while the Democrats nominated the northerner New York Governor Samuel J. Tilden. Here is where things got weird. First off, no one really knew who won. Some papers just sided with the candidate they supported and declared them the winner like “The National Republican” that declared Hayes the winner and others like “The Louisiana Democrat” ran headlines that said that Tilden won and the Republican rule was over. While in the electoral college, things would become messy to say the least. In Oregon, one of the electors for Hayes was replaced due to the fact he was a postmaster and being a “federal office holder” disqualified you from being an elector. He was replaced by a Tilden elector by the Governor. While in Louisiana, South Carolina and Florida “White thugs had stuffed or stolen ballot boxes, intimidated black voters, and printed Democratic ballots with the Republican symbol to trick illiterate voters.” (Ross, 2016).  As a compromise between the Democrats who controlled the House and the Republicans in the Senate, both parties agreed to a plan to have a bipartisan commission with five Republicans, three senators and two representatives, and five Democrats, two senators and three representatives. The commission would also include Supreme Court Justices, three appointed by Republicans, two by Lincoln and one by Grant, and one appointed by the Democrat James Buchanan. However, Justice Stephen Johnson Field was a Democrat so the leaning composition was really two and two. There would also be an independent Supreme Court justice appointed by Lincoln but he resigned to be a senator and was replaced by Joseph P. Bradley, appointed by Grant,  who was considered to be the most moderate of the Republican appointed justices on the bench. In the end, the vote was unsurprising with Hayes winning 8-7, and Hayes was inaugurated. However, things were not done just yet and the Democrats had a last card up their sleeves. They threatened to filibuster the commission until inauguration causing it to be thrown in the House where they had the majority. To avoid this constitutional shenanigans “…four Southern Democrats met with five Ohio Republicans… in return for the presidency, to allow “local self-­ government” in the South.” He would pursue a policy of noninterference in Southern affairs, order federal troops to stop protecting the remaining Republican governments…” (Ross, 2016). This deal would be called the “Compromise of 1876” and was viewed as the end of Reconstruction. 

Sure, compared to the last century of politics, our two and half decades since 2000 might seem like a hot mess, but compared to 1876 things are pretty normal or even business as usual. We saw recently (in 2000) ballots being thrown out and their validity debated and many people remember the “hanging chad” debacle. Or, not new, is ‘not news’ agencies calling elections for people who did not win,we still see people today saying Trump won in 2020. This happened in Oregon when they replaced the Hayes voter too. Recently in Nebraska, we see  they almost changed the system of voting from a congressional system to a winner take all. I can say this about learning about past elections, living through this and talking to family, things will never be normal because U.S. politics is just not that normal.

References

E.W. Halsey. (1876, November 15). The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, November 15, 1876, Image 2. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82003389/1876-11-15/ed-1/seq-2/

Sanderford, A. (2024, September 24). State Sen. Mike McDonnell deflates GOP hopes for Nebraska winner-take-all in 2024. Nebraska Examiner. https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2024/09/23/state-sen-mike-mcdonnell-deflates-gop-hopes-for-nebraska-winner-take-all-in-2024/

Ross, M. A. (2016). Rutherford B. Hayes. In K. Gormley (Ed.), The Presidents and the Constitution: A Living History (pp. 253–265). NYU Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1803zfw

W.J. Murtagh. (1876, November 9). National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, November 09, 1876, Image 1. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86053573/1876-11-09/ed-1/seq-1/

Music has long played an instrumental role in American public life, and it has especially made an underrated impact on American politics. The social effect musicians can have on the general public is truly insurmountable. From songs like Give Peace a Chance by John Lennon to We are the World by U.S.A. for Africa, music has been used as a tool to galvanize the American people to a point of action. In instances of presidential elections, the effect is similar; music is used to arouse support for presidential candidates.

The importance of music in presidential campaigns has become especially evident in the 2024 presidential election. Headlines like More and more artists want Trump to stop using their music dominate the news, as artists fight for their rights over their own music.

Though the use of music has evolved, employing music as a campaign strategy is not a new approach. Earlier campaigns, such as the election of 1876, also utilized music as a campaign strategy. 

The election of 1876 was a heated one between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel J. Tilden. As the election was ramping up, the candidates needed songs to soundtrack their campaigns. Because of this, catchy tunes began to circulate with supporters.

Republican Campaign Song, 1876

One tune, the Republican Campaign Song, was a sheet of lyrics created and distributed by advocates for Hayes. The lyrics of this song expressed support for Hayes and Wheeler’s Republican ticket. The lyrics give reference to battles and the rebellion, pointing to the recent Civil War and secession.

In addition to these tunes meant to be sung by the common man, sheet music was produced for musicians to play as well. One example of this is the Tilden and Hendricks March music. This nineteen page score was most likely played during campaign speeches or parades. Associating music to a specific candidate was a smart way to get more of the senses involved during a presidential election.  

Tilden and Hendricks March, 1876

Now, in a modern day context, politicians aren’t relying on their supporters to write music for them, they are using musicians’ copyrighted songs and applying them to their own campaigns. This, as one could imagine, has been much cause for controversy if done illegally. In fact, over the years, Trump has received many cease and desist orders from artists who don’t want their music associated with the Trump Campaign. And 2024 is no different. Artists like Beyonce and Celine Dion have made public statements barring Trump from using their music, all on top of taking legal action. This evolution of music being made for a candidate like what we see in 1876 to taking a musician’s work without consent in 2024 is truly thought provoking. When has the collision of creativity and politics gone too far?

Sources:

RollingStone, “All the Artis’s Who Don’t Want DonalD Trump Using Their Music,”  RollingStone, August 30m 2024 https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/all-the-artists-who-dont-want-donald-trump-using-their-music-1235080043/r-e-m-8-1235080077/

Tracy Smith, “A Political Playlist: The Fight over Campaign Songs,” CBS Sunday Morning, September 8, 2024 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/a-political-playlist-the-fight-over-campaign-songs/

As the Harris campaign unfolded after Biden’s withdrawal from the election, there was an undeniable excitement brewing in the Democratic party. Looking back, the tik tok edits, Charli XCX endorsements, and Lil Jon DNC performances brought a distinctly youthful energy to the earliest days of Harris’ campaign. For Gen Z voters like myself, the excitement behind the Harris campaign was a far cry from the 2016 and 2020 elections we remember most vividly. For older voters, the comparisons came quickly: it felt like 2008. 

The comparisons that have been made between 2024 Kamala Harris and 2008 Barack Obama are not necessarily about tangible policy issues. Instead, the comparisons focus on the sense of energy and excitement that their campaigns seemed to capture. Stefanie Brown James, Obama’s 2012 national African American vote director told U.S. News, “They are very similar in the way they do politics. It is very relational with an air of joy.”

Leaning into a political predecessor to inspire voters isn’t a novel idea. Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan was previously used in 1980 by the successful Reagan-Bush campaign (United States Studies Centre). Reusing slogans or other campaign tactics that have previously proven successful is intuitive and resourceful. 

Source: United States Studies Centre

A similar strategy was used in 1876 by Rutherford B. Hayes and William A. Wheeler. Instead of generating an entirely new campaign song, the Hayes campaign recycled the melody from William Henry Harrison and John Tyler’s popular “Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too.” The new version – “Haye’s the True and Wheeler, Too” – appealed to older voters, successfully building a sense of nostalgia. For younger voters, the catchy melody created a similar sense of excitement as the original lyrics had in 1840 (Library of Congress).

Source: Library of Congress

As Kamala seeks to energize her base in the final month of her campaign, she doesn’t need to completely reinvent the wheel. Historical evidence shows that slogans, songs, and ideas that successfully energized Obama’s base in 2008 will hold up 16 years later.

Source:

Pop stars, massive crowds and history: How the Obama and Harris Campaigns compare, Phillip M. Bailey, Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy, 8/20/2024, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/08/20/obama-kamala-harris-campaigns-compared/74772276007/

Voices, Votes, Victory: Presidential Campaign Songs, https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/presidential-songs/issues-and-slogans.html#obj7

Reagan: ‘Making America great’ the first time, https://www.ussc.edu.au/reagan-making-america-great-the-first-time

While the situation on January 6th, 2021 in which Mike Pence re-asserted the pastoral role of the Vice President in certifying electoral votes was unique, both the Vice President and many others looked to the precedent of 1876 on how to proceed. With this in mind, how did the election of 1876 inform the electoral count in 2021, and what might this tell us about the upcoming election?
The election of 1876, between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden, had a massive impact on the legacy and continuation of federal reconstruction efforts. More importantly for this discussion, it was a highly contentious election that ended with the election of Hayes being contingent on 20 disputed electoral votes. The dispute came from Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Oregon, who all submitted multiple slates of electors to the Senate in hopes of preventing the election of Hayes. The solution that was chosen by Congress was a bipartisan commission of 15 Senators, Representatives, and Supreme Court justices. Eventually, with inauguration looming, the commission came to a decision, known as another “corrupt bargain” that elected Hayes in exchange for (essentially) the end of federal reconstruction efforts.
The facts of the election of 1876 invite many comparisons to 2021, although the comparison is not perfect. The concept of the electoral count being the place to challenge the results of the election is a major similarity, and the creation of alternate slates of electors unconnected to the vote returns is a major point of comparison.
These comparisons are not new or unique to years after the 2020 election. Instead, they were happening in the moment, and the election of 1876 was a guide for many people on both sides of the 2020 certification. For example, on the morning of Jan. 6th, Vice President Mike Pence, whose job was to oversee the certification, released a letter in which he commits to following the lessons learned from 1876, and to carry out the “largely ceremonial” role that he is assigned. As a lesson from 1876, Pence reasserted his role of not challenging the election, adding new language to the historical script of the electoral certification that helped to shut down challenges to the validity of slates of electors. At the same time, others used 1876 as a template for challenging the election. Minutes before the Senate was placed into an emergency recess and locked down, Republican senator James Lankford of Oklahoma called for the formation of a 15 member electoral commission, the same as the one created in 1876. By attempting to create this commission, it is possible that Lankford and other Republicans hoped to either re-elect Trump, or to create something with which to bargain.
What do these comparisons mean for today? Well, first of all, it can provide some comfort in recognizing that the American electoral system, while imperfect, is resilient, and has endured (potentially larger political) challenges before. Similarly, it is a reminder that electoral challenges are not uncharted territory, and that there exist (somewhat) robust systems to address challenges that worked in 2021, and could work moving into the upcoming election.

After the events of January 6th, many are rightly concerned about the possibility of political violence and whether the results of the election will be free and honest. The country has seen how easily the results of an election can be resisted, and mobs motivated by partisan candidates can become unruly and dangerous. This is not the first time an election has come in the wake of political violence.

The 1876 election happened 8 years after the the election of 1868, one in which the KKK enacted mass political suppression and violence against the newly enfranchised black voters in the South. This election also came a decade after the end of the Civil War, the largest-scale act of political violence ever seen in America. It can then be assumed and confirmed by the documents that exist from the time that those living through the 1876 election had the same, if not greater, concerns that plague our modern-day election.

Though political violence and suppression did occur in the election of 1876, the government’s breakdown of the KKK after 1968  election was mostly successful in preventing that violence from being mass-organized. Instead, what made the 1876 election contentious was the voting count, namely that neither party was able to get a majority of the electoral votes due to unclear results in three southern states.

Bringing this back to a modern comparison, the breakup of the KKK could be compared to the government’s efforts to find and uncover the insurrectionists on January 6th and bring them to justice. The consequences these people faced might mean that this election will not be one made contentious by political violence, like in 2020 and 1868, but instead, one made contentious by a struggle to certify votes like in 1876. This possibility is already occurring in Georgia, where Trump’s stacked election board is making plays to resist certifying the election results and, therefore, create confusion come election day. If this were to occur, like in 1876, both sides might be forced to come together to find a subconsutional compromise like what happened with the 1876 committee and subsequent bargain. The question becomes, then, are we in 2024 capable of creating such a compromise to keep the union going, or are we more divided now than in post-civil war America?

In the election of 1876, suppression of black voters gained a new prong of attack: ideologies about gender roles. If white men won in former Confederate states like South Carolina, their ideologies of what a man’s role and a woman’s role ought to be would be reinforced as the ideal. Notions of masculinity and femininity for white Democrats were inextricable from white supremacy — and were key to their subsequent victory. If white men were the ultimate aggressors — or as they would call it, protectors — then white women were the ultimate victims. Through political cartoons and depictions of Columbia, of angels, and of America personified, white women dominated notions of purity and goodness.

White femininity, tied to virtue and piety as much as white masculinity was steeped in violence, was also a weapon to beat down black voters with. They were the standard against which black women were derogatorily compared, and their claims that black men had been aggressive against them always resulted in violence from their male protectors. Women of both races turned out in huge numbers in support of their chosen candidates (despite still lacking the right to vote) through clubs, canvassing, and attending rallies. White women acted out melodramatic scenes to play up their perception as a populace who must be protected at all costs.

Black people were therefore maligned as a threat against white men’s ability to protect white women — usually in highly sexualized language to paint black men as uncivilized aggressors and black women as demons of iniquity. Black women were the most passionate political participants despite having the least enfranchisement and least protection because as a particularly vulnerable group they had arguably the most at stake in the election. They were smeared by white voters as the antithesis to white femininity — and thus, the antithesis of good.

The goal of these ideologies of femininity and masculinity — and of these ideals being inseparable from whiteness — was to separate and subjugate, and determine once and for all what the roles of white men v. black men and white women v. black women were. The election of 1876 determined what the roles of women in politics absent the ability to vote were, and furthermore put white male dominance back on the political menu.

Gender ideology is once again at stake in the 2024 election. Hundreds of years of political precedent have established the presidency as a man’s job, and for the first time, a black woman has a good chance of winning it.

Donald Trump has built his campaign on the very same notions of white supremacy and masculinity that hallmarked the 1876 South Carolina gubernatorial race — anti-political correctness, whiteness as a virtue, and violence in the face of defeat. His political persona posits itself as the ideal of white masculinity, and his base feel empowered. Even his slogan — Make America Great Again — draws parallels to cries by white Democrats in 1876 to make politics white again. These parallels aren’t so much eerie as easily foreseeable: of course a culture where whiteness and masculinity are rewarded would see equal rights as a loss of advantage.

The threat that Kamala Harris poses to Trump is not just Democrat versus Republican. A Harris victory would redefine what a woman ‘can’ do — what a black woman can achieve. And rather than celebrate this as indicative of the American ideal that anyone can succeed, Trump’s followers will believe that her win is a threat to the white supremacy they have thrived under. A threat to white people, a threat to men — nevermind the forty-five other presidents and Harris’s own vice presidential nominee that prove white men are far from becoming a minority in politics.

Shirley Chisolm tried in 1972. Barack Obama elicited many of the same fears from white Republicans, all of which came to naught. What Democrats in South Carolina did in 1876 was re-assert white male dominance as the status quo, and thus as immutable — but Kamala Harris’s campaign has proven otherwise. Voter demographics are more important now than ever: college-educated white women are still a determining group, though now with equal enfranchisement to their male counterparts. Thus, race and gender are still practically inseparable in modern politics, and a Harris victory would assert that the place of a black woman in politics is in the White House.