The 18th Anniversary of the Most Important Election of Our Lifetime

November 2004 was supposed to be the endgame of elections yet no one remembers it.

We were told it was the Most Important Election of Our Lifetimes.

This superlative was echoed by a host of politicians and entertainers, ranging from Dick Cheney, Dianne Feinstein, John Kerry, Al Franken, George W. Bush, and Bruce Springsteen to Eddie Vedder. None other than Barbra Streisand even called it “one of the most important elections in the history of this country.”

If you look at Google Trends, this election cycle marked the peak usage of the phrase “most important election of our lifetimes” of the past two decades. I’m talking, of course, about September 2004—two months before Kerry narrowly lost to Bush in W’s bid for re-election. 

If your memory is fuzzy about what happened next, it’s because—well—not much did end up happening. Bush’s very real damage to America was mostly inflicted during his first term: the Iraq War, No Child Left Behind education reform, and two rounds of tax cuts. His second-term initiative to “reform” Social Security withered within months of his reelection, and his immigration reform bill got killed in the Senate in 2007. Meanwhile, his popularity and power—even within his own party—tanked, and he was seen as a lame-duck president long before Barack Obama won in November 2007.

In retrospect, 2004 was the least important presidential election of this generation, along with perhaps 2012.

Eighteen years later, we still haven’t learned our lesson; we’re still hearing those exact same vote-or-the-sky-will-fall proclamations. Republicans say that electing their candidates is the only way to prevent America from turning into a crime-ridden hellhole where you will be forced to turn your kid gay or trans. For the Democrats, a loss of the Senate and House portends the End of Democracy in America.

Elections certainly have consequences, and this isn’t to say that there is zero difference in who wins or that we shouldn’t vote.

But some perspective is needed. There’s little doubt that despite all the doomsday prophets saying otherwise, you and I will wake up on Wednesday to a world that is not significantly different than on Tuesday. 

My quick prediction: Republicans will take back control of Congress this week, and then the rest of the Biden administration will resemble something like Bush’s second term. The major items on Biden’s ever-thinning docket for the rest of his term are either Republican-friendly: deficit reduction and increased national security spending ($813.3 billion in national security spending, an increase of $31 billion, or 4 percent, from 2022) or are unlikely to pass even with Democratic control (a hefty tax on billionaires). 

In other words: Get ready for two years of the zombie of neoliberalism to shamble on as we get ready for the next Most Important Election of Our Lifetime coming your way in 2024.