General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: How the extreme left gave us Nixon, Bush and now Trump [View all]TexasBushwhacker
(20,185 posts)Wallace only won 5 states, but he got enough votes in states that were traditionally Democratic strongholds, that several of those southern states went for Nixon. They came back for Carter on '76, but left again for Reagan in '80.
But I think you're ignoring a couple of things. One is that it is fucking hard to beat an incumbent and that goes for Democrats and Republicans. Americans have a tendency to give the President 2 terms to get shit done unless they commit some kind of grave error.
Nixon's stink was Ford's undoing in '76. The Iran hostage crisis was Carter's undoing in '80 and St. Reagan's promises sounded too good to be true (they were) "Read my lips" was George H.W. Bush's (and Ross Perot).
We also tend to flip and flop, from one party to the other. Since Truman took over for FDR and narrowly defeated Dewey in '48, we have kept one party in the presidency exactly 1 time, when GHW Bush had his single term after Reagan.
While it may have looked like a cake walk for Clinton last year, I think the only reason she did as well as she did was because Trump is just so awful. I think Cruz or Kasich would have mopped the floor with her. Not because she was unqualified, but because we just had a Democratic president for 2 terms, and it was time for us to flip to the other party. History tells us, that's just how we roll.