Australia and the World Past and Present

Donald Trump has achieved something that only one other person has done in American history.

He is the second person to have ever won two non-consecutive terms of the American presidency.

The only other person to have achieved this feat is Grover Cleveland and that was over a century ago.

If we are to have some idea about the mathematical chance of a random American becoming president, we need to have some estimate of the American population. I have taken as my base a very rough estimate of all people who have been born in the US since 1776.

There is the “natural-born-citizen” issue. The Constitution say that a person must be a ‘natural-born citizen’ in order to be president. The Constitution doesn’t go on define what that means exactly but many argue that it means that they must have been born in the United States.

So for this reason, I won’t consider the number of those who have migrated to the US and since taken out citizenship.

So how many people have been born in the United States since its inception?

No single official source tracks total births in U.S. history but estimates are derived from population growth records.

Current estimates for the total number of births in the US range from 400 million to 500 million.

I will take the more conservative 400 million.

The United States has had 47 presidents.

In other words, that is a 1 in a 8.5 million chance of becoming president.

You have a higher statistical chance of being struck by lightning during your lifetime or dying from a shark attack.

21 presidents have won a second term.

That equates to about a 1 in 19 million chance for your regular Joe Blow.

Only Trump and Grover Cleveland have won non-consecutive terms so ,very roughly, that’s a one in 200 million chance.

Grover Cleveland

Cleveland served as the 22nd and 24th president, firstly from 1885-1889 and then from 1893 to 1897.

He was the first Democrat president elected after the Civil War.

He had cut his political teeth as the Mayor of Buffalo and as the Governor of New York.

In contrast to the current President, Cleveland was against placing high tariffs on foreign goods entering the country. High tariffs had been put in place during the Civil War and Cleveland actually wanted to see these tariffs go down.

He was not keen on government subsidies to business and farmers and under his administration, the federal government established oversight of the railways.

Today, his presidency is seen as being highly damaging to Native American people. It is estimated that, following the passing of the Dawes Act, indigenous people lost control of around 100 million acres of land.

Essentially, the Act took land that was held in trust by the government and converted it so that it could be held and sold by individual Native Americans. In practice, much was sold and transferred into other hands.

At the beginning of his Cleveland’s term, he was not overtly political in his appointments. Some politicians like to fire officials from the previous administration and immediately install political mates under what was known as the ‘spoils system’. But Grover was reluctant to fire Republicans if he believed that they had been doing a good job. This became an issue among his supporters and he relaxed this practice somewhat later in the term, appointing more Democrats to key positions.

Cleveland had no problem in vetoing bills that were sent him from Congress. He vetoed more bills than any previous president. He vetoes pension bills for veterans of the Civil War. His vetoing of the ‘Texas Seed Bill’ became infamous. That state had been through a severe drought and Congress had sought federal money to supply farmers with seed for new crops. The president had a bare bones conception of government. He saw a larger role for what we might call civil society today. The debate between ‘small government’ and ‘big government’ is a perennial one which never completely goes away. America was a different country to what it is today. Cleveland’s America was more rural. Communities were stronger. Americans knew their neighbours better. More people got by without government intervention and were proud to do so. Still, Cleveland’s lecture on the principles self-reliance would have been cold comfort for Texan farmers at the time.

A significant debate in the 1880s centered around the currency and whether is should continue to be backed solely by gold or whether it should be backed by silver too.

Cleveland oversaw and expansion of coastal fortifications in the US (70 of them) which even included minefield defences. Grover had his forts. Trump has his wall.

At the end of his first term, Cleveland (like Trump) ran for a second term. Grover won the popular vote but not the electoral college.

But he kept plugging along and managed to stage a come back.

Immediately after winning his second term, the country experienced a severe economic depression – the Panic of 1893.

Another issue at the time was the annexation of Hawaii and this was a course of action that didn’t appeal to the President.

Cleveland’s second term was plagued by rail strikes and this had flow on effects for the mail service as much of it traveled by train.

We have seen how it is tremendously difficult to win 2 non-consecutive terms.

In the US incumbency has a powerful effect. If you are an incumbent you have a better chance of being reelected than not. There may be multiple reasons for this.

Constituents can see that you are already in the role. Serving in Congress or the Senate or as President comes with some degree of esteem. These are powerful positions. They have a certain amount of gravitas attached to them. Voters may not like their representative but they will often have respect for the position itself. Some voters will feel that an incumbent must have the right stuff, simply by virtue of already occupying the position.

Incumbents get a lot of media attention. They are already involved in the legislating process. They are involved with the issues of the day and the media will actively seek them out for comment.

Another factor may be access to resources. Incumbents may have greater access to staff, volunteers, a party machine, donations and funds.

In the US over 70% of incumbents are reelected.

Once a president loses office, they will have to deal with the sense of loss and the loss of prestige. Others people will look at them as a has-been, and will think that they should ride off into the sunset.

It takes a great deal of self-belief and energy to even contemplate a comeback to the highest office in the most powerful country in the world.

Like him or loathe him, we should acknowledge that Trump has been able to do something very few Americans have been able to do.