How the 2010 Election Broke American Politics

The year our politics got more poisonous

Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash

We’re used to hearing it in every election year — “this is the most important election of our lifetime.” There are a lot of good recent candidates for the title:

• 2008, when Barack Obama and John McCain (along with Sarah Palin) represented two starkly different visions of America’s future during a time of national crisis;
• 2016, when Donald Trump thumbed his nose at pretty much every norm in our political system;
• And 2020, when Americans had to choose whether we were going to let a clear threat to democratic order stay in the White House.

Midterm elections usually get less press (and less voter participation) than presidential ones, but there have been some big midterms in recent years as well:

• 2006, when the Iraq War and Hurricane Katrina had exposed the Bush administration’s fatal flaws;
• 2018, when Democrats took back the House and thus were able to prevent Trump from legislating anymore.
• And 2022, which was interpreted as a national referendum on abortion and a rejection of Trumpism.

But if you’re looking for an election that profoundly reshaped our country’s political and cultural fabric, you…