Donald Trump enters the race
Jeffrey Engel
Dallas (SMU) – SMU historian Jeffrey Engel predicts that history will likely repeat itself in 2024 if former President Trump, like early 20th century president Theodore Roosevelt, refuses to step aside for the good of his political party.
In a Time Magazine op-ed, Engel discusses the similarity between Roosevelt’s presidential campaign in 1912 and Trump’s announced campaign for president in 2024. Democrat Woodrow Wilson was the beneficiary of the Republican Party’s Roosevelt-fueled division over its nominee in 1912, Engel says, and a Trump candidacy could produce the same unhappy results for the GOP this time around.
“So, if Trump wins (the nomination) in August, Republicans will lose in November, “Engel says. “In the more likely event that he loses the nomination, he will run as a spoiler – or at least tell his supporters to stay away from a clearly fraudulent election. With little room to spare in a country so evening split between red and blue, a Democrat, indeed any Democrat, will win,” he said.
Jeffrey Engel is the founding director of the Center for Presidential History at SMU. He is co-author of Impeachment: An American History and When The World Seemed New: George H.W. Bush And The End Of The Cold War.
214-768-3973, jaengel@smu.edu