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Grover Cleveland and Donald Trump got 2 terms but not consecutive
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Grover Cleveland and Donald Trump got 2 terms but not consecutive

With his victory over Vice President Kamala Harris in this week’s presidential campaign, Donald Trump finds himself in rarefied company, becoming, along with Grover Cleveland, the second US chief executive to be elected to non-consecutive terms.

Trump, who was the 45th president of the country from 2017 to 2021, will serve a second term, this time as the 47th president.

The first was Grover Cleveland, who served as the 22nd president from 1885 to 1889, followed by his second term as the 24th president in the White House from 1893 to 1897.

And in addition to being more than a century apart, the two men had different views on tariffs.

Who was Grover Cleveland?

Born in New Jersey in 1837 and raised in upstate New York, Cleveland practiced law in Buffalo before beginning a rapid rise through the political ranks. In 1881, Cleveland, who campaigned as a reformer against corruption, was elected mayor of Buffalo. A year later he was elected governor of New York, and in 1884 he was nominated as the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate.

Cleveland, also running on an anti-corruption platform, defeated former U.S. senator and secretary of state James Blaine to become the first Democratic president since the Civil War. Cleveland overcame scandal In 1874, he admitted that he had fathered a child out of wedlock with a woman named Maria Halpin.

Cleveland won his first presidential term with the support of reformist Republicans known as the Mugwumps, and its duration It would witness both the Haymarket labor unrest in Chicago in 1886 and the passage of the Interstate Commerce Act in 1887, the first federal effort to regulate the railroad industry.

In 1886, at the age of 49, Cleveland married 21-year-old Frances Folsom, becoming the only president to marry while in office. His first presidency was marked by other firsts: He was the first president to have children while in the White House, and, according to historian Louis Picone, the first president to have a Christmas tree in the White House. strung with electric lights.

His administration also courted controversy when he blocked several bills offering pensions to Civil War veterans and seed grain distribution funds to drought-stricken farmers. HE in question the second says that federal aid “undermines the solidity of our national character.”

Ryan McMahon, an assistant professor of political science at San Antonio College in Texas, said Cleveland’s 1888 reelection campaign goals included reducing high tariffs imposed by Republicans over his party’s objections and supported by the wealthy.

“Grover Cleveland was a great reformer as a Democrat and wanted to lower tariffs because middle-class people were paying that cost in increased taxes,” McMahon said.

McMahon said Cleveland won the popular vote in 1888 but ultimately lost the Electoral College to Republican challenger Benjamin Harrison, whose campaign was backed by wealthy elites later known as the robber barons.

Four years later, Cleveland, who remained a prominent figure within the Democratic Party, was once again nominated for president, defeating Harrison on his campaign promise to reduce high tariffs.

Cleveland was in trouble almost from the beginning of his second term, this time as the nation’s 24th president. His first year in office was marked by the economic crisis known as the Panic of 1893, and the following year, thousands of railroad workers launched what became known as the Pullman Strikes, which crippled much of the railroad industry and forced Cleveland to deploy the federal army. Unions to break job cuts.

“The economy was a disaster when he came in,” McMahon said. “He had run again to cut tariffs, but the U.S. Treasury needed money urgently, so he couldn’t accomplish what he set out to do.”

By 1896 Cleveland had little support even within his party and chose to retire rather than seek re-election.

While Trump will be the second non-consecutive president, there are others who have failed in their attempts to return to the White House after serving as former presidents.

Martin Van Buren, the nation’s 8th president from 1837 to 1841, ran an unsuccessful campaign. 1848 As a member of the Free Soil Party. Millard Fillmore, president from 1850 to 1853, accepted the 1856 nomination of the American Party, also known as the Know Nothing Party, but was not elected. In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt, who served until 1909, ran unsuccessfully for a third term as a presidential candidate.

Could Trump run again in 2028?

Under the 22nd Amendment, no.

2009 Congressional Research Service paper The report, prepared by national government expert Thomas H. Neale, found that the four-year terms of presidents and vice presidents are in accordance with Article II of the U.S. Constitution. It states that it is determined in Part 1 of the article.

Until Franklin D. Roosevelt’s election to a third term in 1940, U.S. presidents continued the tradition of imposing two-term limits on themselves, Neale wrote in “Presidential Conditions and Tenure: Perspectives and Proposals for Change.” He said that since 1789, only seven of 31 presidents had served consecutively until Roosevelt, who was elected to a fourth term in 1944 and took office before his death in 1945.

Roosevelt’s longevity accelerated the transition of the 22nd centuryAnd With the amendment made in 1951, it was stipulated that no president could be elected more than twice.

“You would have to amend the Constitution to change that, and that is a long, painful and difficult process,” McMahon said. “It’s extremely unrealistic to think this will happen.”

Presidential historian Edward Frantz, chair of the history department at the University of Indianapolis in Indiana, had a final observation.

Given the historic nature of Trump’s win, Frantz said, “Last night’s biggest winner other than Donald Trump is Grover Cleveland, and everyone’s asking about him.” he said.