My answer on Quora.
The biggest reason for this is that there are many players and movements in politics, the media, popular culture, academia and education who are going out of their way to sow division in the country for both ideological and will-to-power reasons. This has caused a stronger bifurcation into political camps that have polarized the nation rendering the possibility of presidential landslides a likely phenomenon of the past.The nation is divided along key fault lines and this is a tragedy.
It wasn’t of course always like that.
Source: Bored Panda
Historically presidential elections have been are fought over one or two issues that resonate in the minds of the majority who vote. In addition many people vote based on personality/character of candidate. At times voters are on the same page and other times they are not.
The election results reflect this. Such back and forth pattern switches have consistently occurred in the US as well as other countries for that matter (look at Canada in 1984, 1993, 2006, 2011 and 2015 or the UK in 1983, 1992, 1997, 2001, 2010 and 2019).
This in itself is not necessarily a negative aspect of the political milieu although it could be if the divisions appear to intensify with time to the point where they become irreconcilable. I suspect that we are seeing this right now.
Now the term landslide is somewhat of a nebulous and oft abused label. One person’s landslide can be another’s near miss. We see this with 2016 and 2020. However similar arguments can be made for 1968 and 1992 once you factor in the impact of a strong Third Party candidate (Wallace in 68 and Perot in 92). The electoral college map also has a tendency of exaggerating voter pattern deltas by its binary win-take-all approach.
However there have been several elections that even the most jaundiced partisan would have to concur were clearly landslides. FDR’s wins from 1932–1944, Ike’s back-to-back triumphs in the 1950s, LBJ in 1964 and of course the two mothers of all landslides - Nixon in 1972 and Reagan in 1984. One could also make the landslide case for Reagan in 1980, George H.W. Bush in 1988, Clinton in 1996 and Obama in 2008.
However all of these apparent drubbings were punctuated by the close contests of 1948, 1960, 1976, 2000 and 2004.
So what explains pattern breaks?
To answer this we have to dig into the key issues that defined each election. Political decisions ideally ought to be made by examining the nuances of the full scope of proposed policy differences, but this is rarely the case. One or two talking points are all that matter.
Source: Cool Pun Discovery Engine
So first lets see how this impacts the landslides.
FDR for example won his first two elections on the mantra of fighting the Great Depression. While the efficacy of his methodology is justifiably disputed it certainly carried the day in 1932 and 1936. In 1940 with WWII underway in several theatres he could counterbalance a popularity drop off elsewhere with the bounce that war normally gives the incumbent holder of the Oval Office. Despite some grassroots opposition the country largely rallied around the flag and FDR profited from this sentiment.
Eisenhower like FDR before him could also unify the country along a common theme. He had war hero status, personal popularity and successfully took the baton from his predecessor Truman to fight the Cold War against the Soviet menace. It was this single issue that would ensure victory (albeit against an opponent who struggled twice to relate to the average voter).
LBJ’s landslide came courtesy of the JFK popularity bump and the fact that his opponent, Barry Goldwater, could be easily, and in my opinion dishonestly, pigeon-holed as an extremist. Nixon in 1972 carried the day in an ironically similar fashion with George McGovern staring down the receiving end of the extremist label in ideological reverse.
Ronald Reagan was successful in that he exuded positivity and a transition to policies that emphasized economic and military strength in the face of the “Evil Empire’. He also had the luxury of weak opponents who seemed to articulate a malaise. They were sitting ducks prepped to augment the appeal of the Gipper, whose long coattails helped George H.W. Bush to victory in 1988 against a cumbersome Michael Dukakis.
Source: Historycentral.com
Bill Clinton’s landslide in 1996 came courtesy of a strong economy, a centrist approach and an opponent - Robert Dole - who seemed to be the GOP version of Walter Mondale at least with respect to how he managed his campaign.
Barack Obama in 2008 also faced a weak opponent in John McCain (who was well past his expiration date). Like Reagan, Obama exuded charisma and played the game of politics well. In addition he understood the relevancy of the new media in a way that superseded all that went before. It paid dividends especially at a time when the economy had sunk to a low.
So what about the close calls?
Harry Truman in 1948 faced a tough fight in a very splintered election. It was the Post-War challenge and when a party had been in power for so long as was the case with the Democrats it was natural to assume that change was imminent (look at Churchill v Atlee in the UK). However Truman scrapped it out in the trenches and defied media predictions to emerge victorious. In his case it was mind over matter.
Kennedy in 1960 edged out Nixon in what some have described as the most corrupt election since WWII (although 2020 may eclipse that title). Like 1948 it came down to character and in this case JFK had the edge over the former VP. Eisenhower cast a big shadow but it wasn’t large enough to safeguard Nixon.
Source: Britannica.com
In 1976 Gerald Ford was up against the baggage of Watergate as much as the opposition of Jimmy Carter who played it smart by outflanking Ford to the right thereby guaranteeing a win in what can only be described as the last stand of the Rockefeller Republican.
2000 and 2004 were the George W Bush wins. The former was largely an Al Gore loss and a case of what-might-have-been. The latter was Bush wringing dry the embers of a rally-around-the-flag drive against an opponent whose deficit with respect to inspirational quality matched a moribund sense of creativity. It was a win by default.
What all of these close calls had in common though was the lack of a powerful consensus to ensure a landslide. There was division but I do not believe it was as stark as it is now (although 2004 was a precursor of what was to follow).
So what about 2016 and 2020?
When Two Tribes go to War (I really hope not) source: Teachwire. Thanks to Frankie Goes to Hollywood.
Without a common enemy provoking cross party revulsion, such as Nazi Germany and after that the Soviet Union, it was only natural that the country would turn on itself. Peace can be a killer and the weight of being the lone superpower can prove too much.
Each of these elections is the political culmination of the stratification of American society that has been ongoing since the 1990s. Some can point back further to the impact of the Gramscian march through the institutions that was given a significant oxygen boost by the radicalism of the 1960s and the 1970s.
Whatever it is you now have two versions of America. The one views the country’s fate as intrinsically tied to a globalist infrastructure that will mesh corporate economics, identitarian politics with cradle-to-grave welfare. Policy will be defined for the good of all by the knowledgeable other. The alternative values freedom of the individual and the exceptionally of the nation. It refuses to sit still while it sees the the Republic that it values burn. The elections in 2016 and 2020 have highlighted this.
Donald Trump was not the cause of this divide. He merely exposed it for all to see.
What we have is gigantic chasm that has been simmering for decades and it is here that we witness the most critical break from the fluctuating patterns of yesteryear. As it stands there is a close split by numbers and this will continue to grow. Calls for unity ring hollow if they do not coincide with action.
What should people even unify around? Both sides have markedly different values. However what is certain is that as institutions atrophy and weaken under political game play the foundations will crumble with obvious repercussions. It is at the core that we see the crux of the problem. Once these shared fundamentals go how do you save the marriage? and is it indeed worth saving?
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