OK, I should get this out of the way up front: I’m unalterably biased against any 77 year old man who wears his hair like that, if indeed that is the professor’s real hair, which I doubt.
Then there is the fact that a vast majority of historians are Trump Deranged or have otherwise migrated into the progressive propaganda camp. Presidential historians are particularly shameful in this regard, and one of the worst is American University Professor Allan Lichtman. He was all over the TV this weekend, chasing another 15 minutes of fame as a commentator on the Democratic Party’s Joe Biden problem from an alleged historical perspective. The Big Whoop about Lichtman is that he has developed a formula that predicted the results of nine of the 10 most recent presidential elections, so that is supposed to make him an expert. It doesn’t. To begin with, his system doesn’t have “the incumbent can’t think or talk clearly any more” feature.
Let’s see. One didn’t need any formula to predict that Biden would defeat Trump, saddled with the economic meltdown from the lockdown engineered by, among others , The Democratic Party’s teacher’s unions and some of their most totalitarian governors. The professor counts 2016 as a win for his system because Hillary won the popular vote. An organized smear campaign to slander Mitt Romney made his formula work in 2012: it didn’t have to. 2008 was an easy call after the stock market, the housing market and the economy crashed during a Republican administration. 2004 was another easy one…you know, John Kerry. 2000 is the one race Lichtman cops to missing under his “system.” Clinton against Dole, pre-Monicagate? Nobody thought poor Bob had a chance 1996. A third party candidate helped Clinton win with a minority of the vote : Lichtman’s formula was just lucky in 1992. Reagan over Mondale? Easy. Lichtman’s formula held the fact that Jimmy Carter was opposed in the 1980 primaries responsible for his loss: your friendly neighborhood amateur Presidential historian thinks the more likely reason was Jimmy implying in a debate that his 13-year-old daughter was his advisor on nuclear power.
These systems are remarkable until they aren’t, like the formula that held that any President elected in a year ending with a zero was doomed to die in office. It worked 1, 2, 3, 4,5, 6, 7 times straight, and very nearly an eighth after Reagan was shot. Now it’s just a bad memory. The World Series winner was supposed to predict the winner of Presidential elections for a while.
No, I’m not impressed with Prof. Lichtman.
But he clearly is. He went on Fox News Sunday to bloviate that if Democratic delegates rebel against President Joe Biden and choose another Democratic nominee, it will spell chaos for the party. Lichtman, who is a progressive Democrat and once ran for the Senate as one, was relatively restrained on Fox News, but on MSNBC, he went full Trump Deranged, saying that if the Democrats don’t run Biden, it will mean Trump will win (his system says so!) and that will be the end of democracy!
Those are Lichtman’s warped priorities: he thinks it’s essential that his party wins even if it means electing an obviously deteriorating old man who won’t be able to do the job of President along with everything else that implies. A shadow government run by unelected apparatchiks, for example. He’s a Presidential historian: he knows about Woodrow Wilson, and still he thinks its in the best interest of the nation to vote for that. Lichtman is warning the MSNBC types—you know, morons—that all that matters is keeping The Party in control. Having a virtual basket case in the White House? That’s not a disaster to this guy, not like he says an open Democratic convention would be.
The professor’s shtick radiates poor civic values, sickening priorities, irresponsible advice and worst of all for a history professor, a rotten historical perspective. I have no interest in his prognostications and neither should anyone else. Lichtman should go away now, coming out of his hole in four years like Puxatawny Phil to fascinate the same kind of gullible suckers with his election predictions as are entranced by systems to win state lotteries.
Ethics Alarms 
This kind of “reasoning” drives me nuts. Winning the popular vote but losing the electoral college is called “losing”, not a different sort of winning. It’s like when Trump claimed in 2016 that he win the popular vote “if you don’t count California” – that’s called “losing the popular vote.” The Lincolns did not have a lovely night at the theater, barring that one interruption.
So far the Electoral College has been the best indicator of who will be the President.
The only reason the professor has any fame is because the DNC power brokers will use any propaganda how ever lame, to advance the narrative.
I am stunned that no Democrat has suggested Biden being in office for even another day is unacceptable. The ones who have come out and said he needs to be removed and the ones who have equivocated on the issue have only done so because they believe his condition has rendered him incapable of defeating Donald Trump in November. It’s mind blowing! They’re fine with someone with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s heading up the executive branch. What is wrong with these people? Biden being president is not a constitutional crisis or a political crisis. It’s a national security crisis. And it’s unprecedented. Clearly, Russia, China, Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran have been fully aware that the United States has been run by a bunch of pipsqueak semi-professional vote-getting sycophantic advisors and taken advantage. Why aren’t the Republicans pushing on this front?
Exactly. I told my wife yesterday that the only reason some Democrats are calling for President Biden to step aside because they fear he’ll lose. If he was up by ten points in the polls, not a one of them would calling for his resignation. Not Morning Joe, not Jerry Nadler, not Hakeem Jeffries, not Michael Moore…not anyone.
Which is disgusting. You have described exactly the situation that existed in 1944, however, when the Democrats let FDR run while many had to know, as FDR knew himself, that he was dying and unlikely to live out his term. Of course, FDR on his deathbed would be a more fit President than Joe Biden in his prime.
Thanks for talking about this Lichtman guy. He’s awful and he’s soiling your lane. Pathetic how the media buy and echo the idea the guy has a bullet proof crystal ball so, attention must be paid. Ridiculous. “You can’t predict the future. Might as well flip a coin.”
one of your lanes
Carter failed because he was a disaster as president and left Americans in Iran for over a year. That’s no surprise. Mondale never had a prayer. Bush the elder one because he was still piggybacking off of Reagan and his opponent was weak. Clinton was elected because the economy tanked and push really wasn’t trying to win that second term. Bush the younger almost fell short despite winning all three debates because the margin was razor thin in his favor in one state. He won again because John Kerry wasn’t really a serious opponent. As already pointed out, Obama won because the economy tanked on the other party’s watch, and one again partly because there was an organized campaign to throw mud at Mitt Romney, partly because Romney had no idea how to fight back. Trump won because enough people in other places were tired of Democrats squashing the economy and Hillary was not a likeable person. Biden won because of covid and the response.
By all rights Trump should win at this point because Biden has been exposed as incompetent. This country needs a leader, not a puppet of unaccountable party leaders. The system we set up can only work if it elects competent people who act competently. The system can’t work if it elects the incompetent who do nothing but follow whoever is pulling the strings. No one elected Jill Biden, and she is being extremely selfish if she is in fact the one pushing her husband to continue on when he clearly can’t do the job anymore. Certainly no one elected Hunter Biden, who has every interest in his father protecting him and preventing him from becoming just another junkie who can’t stay out of trouble.
The fact that a certain number of arbitrarily chosen factors go one way or the other are not going to determine the outcome of this election. As you pointed out, competence does not appear to be a factor chosen. The fact is that this country is now in uncharted territory with this election. We have had presidents stumble and sometimes recover, sometimes not. We have had presidents die in office, but never during an election. Even the one president who was disabled was not disabled during an election. In this case we have a president who has been widely revealed as disabled (oh, plenty of us knew already, but now it is undeniable) in the heat of a very contentious election. However, that same president remains alive and able to speak, and there is no mechanism by which to remove him. Oh, there is the 25th amendment, but that will never work because the opposition party would have to sign off on it and why should they sign off so that their candidate could face someone more formidable? Why should they give the party that has played them dirty for decades a do over? The Democratic party led itself into this mess, and that party is now just going to have to take the hit. The problem with using slimy tactics is that eventually you drown in your own slime.
I’m sorry, but “A shadow government run by unelected apparatchiks” is EXACTLY why they voted for Joe Biden to begin with. They aren’t worried about it, that was the point. It was a return to ‘democratic norms’ when Obama was a puppet and G.W. Bush was a puppet and Clinton was probably a puppet. Trump terrifies them because he refused to be a puppet. Their only problem with Biden is that now some people are beginning to realize what this really means. They wanted a puppet President, but they wanted plausible deniability in their conscience that that is what they wanted. Now, the curtain has been pulled back and it is giving people a queasy feeling. However, not quesy enough. 43% still say they will vote for Joe Biden. I don’t think that number will fall much even if he is in a coma.
Biden= government by the ruling class elite (Democracy)
Trump= government by an elected official of the people (death of Democracy)
I found an article that explains this better than I can.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20746/who-running-the-country
NIce article. Thanks, Michael.
You are welcome. I have known this for awhile. All cult Democrats believe in this, but not necessarily at a conscious level.
Oh my gosh, I just had a recollection from 1976 after reading that piece you linked and following this discussion. I would have been in either 1st or 2nd grade and it was “Ford vs. Carter” that year. The girl I sat next to in class was talking with me about the election. I said my folks were voting for Gerald Ford. And she said (this is very close to an exact quote), “I would vote for Carter…after all, Gerald Ford has been the President and it wouldn’t be fair if Carter didn’t get a turn, would it?”
Now, we were what?…seven, maybe eight years old? For all I know, Holly (that was her name) was probably treating the Presidency like the drinking fountain. Gerald got his drink, now it was Jimmy’s turn.
But maybe not. Maybe, Holly was tuned in to this concept of “turn” politics.