Posted on 11/01/2019 5:41:21 AM PDT by Kaslin
What are the roots of our present disorder, of the hostilities and hatreds that so divide us? When did we become this us vs. them nation?
Who started the fire?
Many trace the roots of our uncivil social conflict to the 1960s and the Johnson years when LBJ, victorious in a 61% landslide in 1964, could not, by 1968, visit a college campus without triggering a violent protest.
The morning after his narrow presidential victory in 1968, Richard Nixon said his goal would be to "bring us together." And in early 1969, he seemed to be succeeding.
His inaugural address extended a hand of friendship to old enemies. He withdrew 60,000 troops from Vietnam. He left the Great Society largely untouched and proposed a Family Assistance Plan for the poor and working class. He created a Western White House in San Clemente, California.
In July, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon.
America approved. Yet the elites seethed. For no political figure of his time was so reviled and hated by the establishment as was Richard Nixon.
By the fall of 1969, that establishment, which had led us into Vietnam and left 500,000 U.S. troops there as of January 1969, had turned against their own war, declared it "an unwinnable war" and "Nixon's war," and begun to cheer the huge anti-war protests scheduled for October and November.
David Broder of The Washington Post was one who saw clearly what was happening: "It is becoming more obvious with every passing day that the men and movement that broke Lyndon Johnson's presidency in 1968 are out to break Richard Nixon in 1969. The likelihood is great that they will succeed again."
In a cover story titled "Nixon in Trouble," Newsweek echoed Broder:
"From almost every quarter last week the nine-month-old Administration of Richard M. Nixon was under sustained attack and angry fire, and increasingly the target of the attacks was Mr. Nixon himself and his conduct of the Presidency."
On Oct. 15, some 250,000 descended on the capital for the largest demonstration in history. A stunned Time declared that, instead of resisting its demands, Nixon should prepare "the country for the trauma of distasteful reversal."
Time wanted Nixon to declare Vietnam a lost cause.
But by now, Nixon, realizing his presidency was in danger of being broken like LBJ's -- but believing he was reading the nation better than the establishment -- had decided to wheel and fight.
On Nov. 3, 1969, Nixon delivered an Oval Office address that was carried live on every network. After reciting the case Ike, JFK and LBJ had all made for resisting a Communist takeover of South Vietnam, Nixon laid out his own policy, the rationale for it, and urged the "great silent majority" to stand by him for peace with honor.
The network commentators almost universally disparaged Nixon's address as repetitive and unresponsive to the crisis of his presidency.
Washington's elites, however, had misread the nation.
An instant poll found that 70% of the country supported Nixon's declared policy. A coalition of 300 House members endorsed Nixon's stand. Liberal Democrats in the Senate rejected Nixon's policy, but Southern and conservative Democratic senators backed him.
Ten days after the "silent majority" speech, Vice President Spiro Agnew, in Des Moines, launched an assault on the unholy matrimony of media power and liberal bias. Agnew questioned whether the networks near-monopoly over the primary source of information for the American people should be permanently ceded to so tiny and unrepresentative an elite.
All three networks carried Agnew's speech live, but were rocked on their heels by the reaction. Scores of thousand of telegrams and letters poured into network offices and the White House, with the vast majority agreeing with the vice president.
The liberal establishment had sustained a historic defeat.
By December, Nixon was the most admired man in America. His approval rating in the Gallup Poll was 68%. Only 19% disapproved of how he was conducting his presidency. Dr. Billy Graham was the second-most admired man, and Agnew third.
Nor was this but a blip in the Nixon presidency. When, three years later, Democrats nominated the most impassioned and articulate of their anti-war senators, George McGovern, Nixon would crush him in a 49-state landslide.
In Watergate, the establishment would get its pound of flesh for its rout by Nixon in November 1969 and its humiliation in November 1972. But that establishment would never recover what it lost -- the respect and regard of the American people in the '60s and early '70s.
JFK's "best and brightest," whose hour of power was "Camelot," were broken on the wheel of Vietnam. After taking us into Southeast Asia, they had washed their hands of their own war and declared it immoral.
So great was the loss of esteem for the establishment among the silent majority, America's elite would soon cease to call themselves liberals and change their names to "progressives."
I recall reading; in a very old book, that there is nothing new under the sun.
Yep...Nixon was setup just like they’re trying to set Trump up! Fortunately for us, Trump is much more resourceful and wasn’t a product of DC!
Warren = McGovern
The left had the four major networks locked up with their propaganda. And Nixon didn’t really fight back.
Times have changed. That playbook won’t work anymore.
Many differences from the early 70’s till today.
- Three channel TV universe with no talk radio, right-leaning cable channels or conservative internet.
- NYT and WaPo dictated 90% of the print news coverage at a time when most people still read a daily paper.
- Nixon did not have Twitter or any other viable way of going around a biased media that was out to get him.
- Media drumbeat managed to drive Nixon’s approval numbers among REPUBLICANS down into the 20’s. Trump’s are holding firm in the 90’s.
- Nixon really DID involve himself in some sleazy and unethical things. Trump has not.
I learned something.
Good article.
If Warren gets the nomination, I hope she picks an Eagleton as her running mate. So many crazies to choose from, it will be a tough decision.
Hillary who should have been jailed working behind the scenes in both to impeach an elected President:
Nixon didn’t okay the Watergate break in but his covering up for the people that planned it, and his stonewalling did him in. He should have faced down the congress and said...go ahead impeach me and see where it gets you! Nixon was not accused of planning the break in at Watergate, he was implicated in trying to cover for those who planned it(which is a crime).
He should not have covered up for the burglars and their handlers and took a little heat for awhile. He was in his second term after all and would have had time to have recovered politically and ended his political life at the end of the Bicentennial year in heroic fashion.
We could have avoided 4 years of Mr. Peanut’s recession by electing another Republican in 1976. The distractions made the energy crisis worse and he was playing with a weakened hand in trying to deal with the Soviets and the Chinese.
Sargent Shriver is in the mix, I hear.
His skeletal daughter Maria would be a better fit.
No Islamic Republic of Iran if a Republican had won in ‘76, no ayatollahs, the Shah remains in power.
But maybe no Reagan either and with no Cold War II the Soviet Union survives.
Conservatives in Nixon’s day were the TOO silent majority. They have seen a lot of evil done to our country by the Left since then. Progressive Communists will not have a free ride in the next upheaval, because younger, stronger Conservatives will not roll over and play dead.
Ford might not have run in 1976 as he would have been vice president and not president. Reagan was already coming on strong in 1976. Still...these are just what ifs....
Without Watergate; there would have been no Gerald Ford incumbency to block Ronald Reagan from getting the nomination in ‘76.
Yes, but then you would have the historical precedent of it being nearly impossible for a candidate from the same party to follow a two-term president into office. Bush Sr. was able to do that only because Reagan was so popular.
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It was very well-delivered and it's easy to see why it would have influenced public opinion. But Nixon did not know the future and that South Vietnam would eventually fall to the Communists, after thousands of additional Americans had died trying to prevent that from happening.
Would it have made a difference if Nixon rather than Ford had been President in the spring of 1975 when South Vietnam and Cambodia fell to the Communists? The Democrats were determined to prevent anything being done to help the Saigon government. Could any American action at that point prevented the fall?
bkmk
Of yes that again sticky little inconvenient truth....liberal northeastern GOPe opposed Nixon as well as liberal Dems I’d point out
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