Historic, Unprecedented Political Strangeness

Events have occurred in this presidential election that are unprecedented in my lifetime, but also in all of American history.  Historians might point to three unique political occasions in my lifetime that this one tops.  I'm saying that too.  The three are Watergate, Bill Clinton impeachment, and Bush-Gore 2000.

If we go back into all of American history, there are some amazing political times.  The founding fathers did a great job with the United States Constitution, however, in need of amendment when Thomas Jefferson became Vice-President to John Adams (1796), the two of different ideologies and political parties.  Sitting Vice-President Aaron Burr shot and killed founding father, Alexander Hamilton, in a duel (1804).   The 1824 Presidential election went to the House of Representatives, which chose John Quincy Adams through controversial back-room dealings that required Henry Clay as Secretary of State.

With great fanfare, John C. Calhoun became the first of only two Vice Presidents to resign in intense opposition to Andrew Jackson in late 1832 over protective tariffs. Perhaps Jackson outdid that by shutting down the national bank in 1833.  The House of Representatives impeached Andrew Johnson in 1868.  In the election of 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes lost the popular vote to Samuel J. Tilden, and despite winning the electoral college by one vote, it was thrown to the House of Representatives, where Hayes won in the seventh ballot, only with the support of Democrats and a deal to end reconstruction.

Only months into his presidency, James Garfield was shot and murdered in 1881 by one of his political supporters, because he had denied him a political appointment.  William Howard Taft lost the presidential election in 1912 to Woodrow Wilson, only because his closest friend, Teddy Roosevelt, ran against him in a third party candidacy.

When you jump to my lifetime, Richard Nixon was caught robbing the DNC headquarters at the Watergate building and after his cover-up was exposed by Washington Post reporters, he resigned as president.  President Bill Clinton had sexual relations with a young White House intern, lied about it on national television and again under oath in a case of sexual harassment against him, so he was impeached by the House of Representatives in 1998.  Al Gore won the popular vote in the presidential election of 2000, but George W. Bush narrowly won the electoral college, narrowly winning the pivotal swing state of Florida, subject to a Supreme Court decision after a challenge by the Gore campaign.

We come to Clinton and Trump.  We don't yet know what history will show, but James Comey, the director of the FBI, both an Obama and Bush appointee, is afraid what history would show if he did not open an investigation against Hillary Clinton.  Less than two weeks before the election, the candidate of a major political party is under investigation for potential multiple imprisonable crimes. Many, including myself, based on evidence that is already well-known, believe she is guilty.

Donald Trump is a unique candidate himself, and unprecedented in his qualifications.  We've never seen anyone like him.  When you add Hillary Clinton, is this the most historic, unprecedented political strangeness in American history?  You tell me.  Certain other factors make this even stranger to me.  Despite Clinton's historic badness, Trump could lose for two strange reasons, lack of his own party's support, who sabotage his campaign to give the election to Clinton, or by voting in the solid-red state of Utah for a never-elected Mormon protest candidate, Evan McMullin (it's a toss-up right now).  So strange.