This Is the Least Important Election of Our Lifetimes: New at Reason

2016 is not the most important election ever. That much should be obvious.

David Harsanyi writes:

During the 1864 presidential race between Abraham Lincoln and George McClellan, The New York Times published an article that contained this sentence: “We have had many important elections, but never one so important as that now approaching.” Though there may have been some truth in this claim, three years into the Civil War means the Times was probably one election too late.

In any event, every candidate or publication that’s made comparable declarations since that time regarding the presidential contest being the “most important” election of their “lifetime” or their “generation” or “in history” or “ever” is completely full of it.

That goes for Gerald Ford, who in a debate against Jimmy Carter claimed that the 1976 election was “one of the most vital in the history of America.” As it turns out, that was a contest between an accidental president and a highly ineffectual future president. And it wasn’t even the most important election Carter would participate in.

View this article.