More Bad Public History

Since we were already talking about Stephen Ambrose today, let me point out that if reporters want to talk about past elections, it would help if they knew something about them. Specifically, I don’t see at all how you can compare Trump’s 2024 election to the 1892 election without talking about how James Weaver and the Populist ticket won Kansas, Colorado, Nevada, Idaho, and one electoral vote in North Dakota, probably throwing the election to Cleveland. In 1888, without a serious third party run, Benjamin Harrison won Kansas, Colorado, and Nevada. He then signed the bill to cheat Republicans into office forever by splitting the Dakotas into two states and allowing the other 1889 states in despite them not having proper populations for statehood, all while making sure Arizona and New Mexico, the latter of which very much did have the proper population level, did not get in since they might vote for Democrats. Nonetheless, the rise of Populism had an impact that quite probably threw the election to Cleveland. The given states enough weren’t enough to do so, but the People’s Party won enough usual Republican voters in other states to probably have won it for Cleveland. Jill Stein wishes she was James Weaver!

We’d have to go really deep dive to quite get to that conclusion, but the comparison of 1892 to 2024 the Times offers is just flat out superficial. It can do better. I’d recommend hiring historians to write for them.