[wyattpeak]

I've got to say, I came away from that with a very different feeling. A lot of my concern about the current election is about the state of democracy: whether we* can return to a civil process whose outcomes are accepted by all, or if we are doomed to increasingly partisan affairs won by any means necessary.

Reading about a similarly fraught election, which seems to have vanished almost entirely from modern discourse, is a comforting reminder that, while a return to the status quo may not be guaranteed, it has at least happened before.

* I should note I'm not American, but how American politics plays out has a strong effect on our own politics.