In at least one specific way “American exceptionalism” is undeniable, and that is our democracy's extraordinary fidelity to the 1787 Constitution's mandate to hold a presidential election every four years. In a remarkable tribute to the stability of our form of government, this requirement has never been violated and successfully met 59 times. No other nation comes close.
By their nature elections engender tension, uncertainty, heightened passions, and divisiveness of varying degree, but at their democratically determined conclusion the results can bring relative closure, acceptance, and a calming of tempers sufficient to all to allow the body politic to resume normal life. In American history, the most striking exception to this pattern was the presidential election of 1860 which led directly to the greatest tragedy in our national life - the Civil War.
At present, the American people are looking ahead to the presidential election of 2024 with what can be fairly described as a sense of absolute dread. By unprecedented majorities they view their country as being “on the wrong track.”
Majorities believe the two probable nominees—Presidents Biden and Trump—shouldn't even be allowed to run for that office. Allegations of serious crime and corruption have been leveled against both men not seen in any previous campaign. Additionally both men would be the oldest ever to win their party’s nomination.
By common consent the poisonous cloud of political polarization that currently envelops the country is the worst in at least half a century perhaps even as far back as the Civil War itself. Furthermore, as the election draws closer this toxic atmosphere will almost certainly intensify.
To Republicans, continuation and probably expansion of the progressive Democratic policies of the last two years would be disastrous and pose an existential threat to the Republic.
Similarly for Democrats, the prospect of returning Donald Trump to the White House for four more years would be equally catastrophic—and clearly mark the end of the Progressive agenda for radical transformation of American society.
Millions of Americans have to be asking themselves, “ Is there no escape from this seemingly irreconcilable conflict and the doom-laden perceptions that attend it. "
As the epicenter of this gathering storm revolves around the policies and persona of the presumed and extremely controversial candidates—Biden and Trump—the not unimaginable withdrawal of one or both would certainly alleviate tensions in many quarters.
But such developments could not significantly relieve our national polarization until the country could see those men’s replacements and know whether the newcomers espoused policies sufficiently different as to assuage the anxieties of millions of voters regarding those policies presently being advocated.
Since both Biden and Trump are generally viewed as occupying the ideological extremes of our political spectrum and thus incapable of genuine reconciliation, then their replacements must be individuals not viewed as extremists and thus capable of moving their parties at least incrementally towards the center.
Currently among announced candidates only two aside from Biden and Trump—though both decided underdogs—meet the modest criteria of polling in double digits in the race for their party's presidential nomination: Ron DeSantis and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Though both men are being harshly vilified by opponents determined to shut down their candidacies as soon as possible neither can be plausibly labeled as an extremist. Though the two have serious policy differences, their disagreements are well within the pale of reasoned political discourse.
Most importantly they have remarkably similar viewpoints regarding the centerpiece of their candidacy, namely their desire to lead America out of its destructive posture of ever-worsening political polarization and back within the realm of political sanity from which our nation has so grievously strayed.
If nominated, both men could offer their parties genuine prospects of decisive victory, and unlike Trump or Biden, neither would be a lame duck on Inauguration Day. Both may be disliked by many but will be hated by very few.
In campaigning they will be appropriately combative but without auras at once ominous and threatening. They can convey conviction and compassion without abrasiveness and portents of looming disaster. Most critically they would not be the two candidates that sadly we are most likely to get.
It is true that hope is not a strategy, but our people cannot be blamed for entertaining it, at a moment they rightly view as a tipping point in our country's history.
William Moloney is a Senior Fellow at Colorado Christian University’s Centennial Institute who studied History and Politics at Oxford and the University of London and received his doctorate from Harvard University.