[Read the entire article at the Washington Post]

One hundred years ago in November, the president of the United States was desperately trying to preserve his partisan majorities in Congress in the midterm elections — and blew it, losing both the House and the Senate in an almost unprecedented result. The good news for Democrats today is that Donald Trump appears determined to make the very same mistakes that Woodrow Wilson made in 1918, greatly enhancing the Democrats’ prospects for victory in the fall.

Although Wilson and Trump are in many ways polar opposites — one pious and scholarly, the other carnal and incurious — the two men are temperamentally alike. Alexander and Juliette George’s classic portrait of the 28th president sounds eerily familiar today: “Not only did Wilson grow up with a taste for achievement and power: he must exercise power alone. … His will must prevail. He bristled at the slightest challenge to his authority.” Historian Kendrick Clements similarly emphasized Wilson’s egotism, noting that if he “was mistaken or if he deceived himself, there was no way anyone could tell him.” “[A]ngry opposition,” the Georges concluded, “only intensified Wilson’s anxieties and … dictated a stubborn determination to subjugate his foes.”

A toxic blend of arrogance and anxiety led Wilson to catastrophic political error in 1918. As the days shortened into autumn, Allied troops in Europe appeared tantalizingly close to bringing an end to the world war that had dominated Wilson’s second term. Great success was at hand.

However, the timing of the peace was cause for alarm in the White House. Wilson was deeply worried that the slender majorities he enjoyed in Congress (made possible in the House only by a coalition with third-party members) might evaporate if American voters no longer felt it necessary to rally to the flag — and give a wartime commander in chief a cooperative legislature.

On Oct. 25, Wilson issued an unprecedented written appeal to voters nationwide, asking them directly to foil his Republican opposition and give him a compliant Congress:

“My Fellow Americans: The Congressional elections are at hand. They occur in the most critical period our country has ever faced or is likely to face in our time. If you have approved of my leadership and wish me to continue to be your unembarrassed spokesman in affairs at home and abroad, I earnestly beg that you will express yourselves unmistakably to that effect by returning a Democratic majority to both the Senate and the House of Representatives. … This is no time either for divided counsel or for divided leadership. Unity of command is as necessary now in civil action as it is upon the field of battle. … The return of a Republican majority to either House of Congress would, moreover, certainly be interpreted on the other side of the water as a repudiation of my leadership.”

Through this extraordinary bit of electioneering — taken without even consulting his Cabinet — Wilson openly nationalized the midterm election. By doing so, he turned it into a vote of confidence in his leadership. This was a terrible miscalculation.

[Read the entire article at the Washington Post]