The most important presidential election in American history was the fourth presidential election. Against this there can be no argument.
The election of 1860 resulted in a four-year referendum where the surrogates of the winner and his opponents gathered together in large groups and fired muskets at each other. The election of 1876 undid much of the great work of that four-year referendum and consigned many of the subjects of that referendum and their offspring to 90 years of not being able to enjoy the fruits of that particular hard-won victory.
The election of 1800 was still more important.
The election of 1932 was an existential question about to what extent the federal government should step in to assist in times of economic crisis. The outcome of that election gave us nothing less than the New Deal. The New Deal, in turn, gave us Glass-Steagall, the FDIC, the SEC, Social Security, legalized unions, took us off the gold standard, gave us a ton of organizations that functioned as the government giving people money for shit, and probably did a bunch of other stuff I’m totally forgetting.
Oh, hell, it even ended prohibition, improbably enough.
The election of 1800 was still more important.
The election of 1800 was nothing less than a referendum on the question, “Do we actually want to do this democracy thing anymore?”
“The Election of 1800 Was Way More Important Than This One [1]”
With the election a week away, it's important to keep perspective. This isn't the end of America. We're still here after Bush II. We're still here after Obama and if Congress (who's approval rating (It would certainly make C-SPAN much more entertaining to watch if we still had fistfights on the Senate Floor) [2] is still lower than any of the Presidential Candidates, by the way) would step up and do their job instead of ceding power to the President, we could sleep easier at night knowing that the septuagenarian reptilian criminal about to take office won't do much damage.
It's also important to keep in mind that no matter how low this election campaign has been, there have been worse (Wow! And to think they probably didn't have popcorn back then to thoroughly enjoy the 1828 Election Season! How sad.) [3].