COMMENTARY: 2020’s Never Before (and Never Again?) Milestones – By Myra Adams (Real Clear Politics) / Dec 30 2020
We’ve all been deluged with lists of 2020 winners, losers, and reasons why everyone is saying good riddance to this challenging, tragic, chaotic, and unusual year.
This one has a different slant: Five “never before and never again” phenomena unique to 2020. (Yes, I know that one must “never say never,” but the following qualify as two-headed freaks of politics and economics.)
We Saw the First President to Be Impeached and Then Run for Reelection
Notably, Trump’s status as only the third U.S. president to be impeached was practically never mentioned during the campaign. (Obviously, both Democrats and Republicans had good reasons to conveniently forget.) But still, the notion of an impeached president running for reelection after winning the nomination of a major party, virtually uncontested, is a political abnormality befitting the plot of a Netflix series. Over time, historians will view this feat as a highly irregular chapter in presidential history, likely never to be repeated.
Both the Losing and Winning Presidential Candidates Won More Popular Votes Than Any President in U.S. History
Therein lies the factual justification for President Trump’s frequent insistence that his winning a record-breaking 74.2 million votes is why he “won” the election. The problem is President-elect Joe Biden holds the overall record with 81.2 million votes. Still, when comparing the number of presidential ballots cast over the last 20 years, Trump’s popular vote “loss” places him in the winner’s circle. Also, remember that he blew past his 2016 total of 62.9 million votes.
