Nixon Vs. McGovern 2.0 – OpEd
Any number of pundits and social commentators are looking at the current presidential election matchup between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump in terms of its historical, societal, or political ramifications. They’ve come up with several hypotheses, some of which are more interesting and important than others, but, in my view, miss the mark. In this brief essay, my goal is to demonstrate that the most useful way of looking at this election cycle is to view Trump vs. Harris as Nixon vs. McGovern 2.0.
In the mid-to-late 1960s, a group that I’ve long referred to as the hippy-dippy stoned slackers of Woodstock Nation had succeeded in taking over the colleges and universities in the US. As a result, these institutions have been churning out politically correct, group-thinking progressive trained seals by the millions each year for more than 50 years. This indoctrination even extended to those who did not attend college, since virtually all of them received their grade school education from teachers with college degrees. This ultimately resulted, by the election of 2016, in a majority of the voters having this mindset.
Getting back to the late 1960s, these leftists, drunk with their own perceived power, attempted to go from being outsiders looking in at the Democratic convention of 1968 in Chicago (where they caused plenty of mayhem, but the party leadership managed to hold on and pick a mainstream candidate, Hubert Humphrey), to actually choosing their party’s presidential candidate at the 1972 Democratic convention in Miami Beach, Florida…and they succeeded. In fact, I believe that comparing the 1972 Democratic convention to the upcoming 2024 convention will provide much more insight than comparing the upcoming 2024 convention to 1968, which many pundits have been doing and continue to do.
The 1972 Democratic Party nominee was George McGovern, a member of the Greatest Generation, with a stellar military record during World War II that was comparable to George HW Bush. However, his political agenda was considered to be far to the left of his party. I still recall that, due to all the procedural wrangling and contentiousness during the convention, and attempts by demonstrators outside the convention hall to move the party platform even further to the left, McGovern actually went outside the hall to meet with the protesters. As a consequence, he didn’t give his acceptance speech until the middle of the night. Due to the late hour, the television audience was miniscule, since people needed to get some sleep so that they could function at their jobs the next day. In writing this, it all sounds so provincial by today’s standard!
McGovern picked Thomas Eagleton as his running mate, who was then a Missouri Senator. Shortly after being named, it was revealed that Eagleton suffered from bouts of severe depression requiring electroshock treatment on several occasions. McGovern’s initial reaction was to support Eagleton 1000%, but shortly afterward; Eagleton was replaced by Sargent Shriver. Sound familiar?
The subsequent campaign resulted, thankfully, in one of the greatest, if not the greatest blowout elections of all time. Nixon won every state except Massachusetts (and the District of Columbia), including McGovern’s home state of Minnesota. He increased his raw vote total by more than 15 million, which was an increase of over 40% from 1968. Both the raw vote and percentage increases were by far the largest ever seen and still stand as records. Believe me when I say that Nixon accomplished this feat despite never being in the running for a Miss Congeniality award!
By comparison, the second largest increase in raw vote total by an incumbent was 11.3 million (representing an 18% increase) by Donald Trump in 2020, but he lost the popular vote and the election. Of note, the only other incumbent to increase his vote total by any amount (in this case from 750,000 to 1.1 million), yet lose the popular vote and the election was Martin Van Buren in 1840; at a time when the number of votes cast was almost two orders of magnitude less. Every other incumbent President who lost in their reelection bid received fewer votes than they got the first time. Interestingly, Barack Obama is the only incumbent President to win reelection for a second term with fewer votes than he got the first time.
In 2024, the students and descendants of the hippy-dippy stoned slackers of the late 1960s, who now control virtually all the levers of power in the Democratic Party (plus the administrative state), have flexed their muscles once again, and they are backed by very powerful, very rich totalitarian-minded globalists. Their nominee is Kamala Harris, who was elevated to that position due to the mental disabilities of Joe Biden. She has just chosen as her running mate Tim Walz. Together, they represent the most far-left nominees in the history of the Democratic Party, as did McGovern and Shriver in their day.
The only suspense at the upcoming convention will be whether there are dissenting voices among the rank-and-file delegates. I suspect that those voices will be squashed. As mentioned above, a lot of people will focus on those outside of the convention hall in order to compare and contrast with what happened in 1968. I believe it’s more useful to compare what happens in 2024 with what happened outside the convention hall in 1972. Once again, I suspect that this time, it will have zero impact on what goes on in the convention hall, which will function like the politburo of the former Soviet Union.
On August 10, 1972, I turned 21 years of age. This placed me among the youngest of the eligible voters. As someone who enthusiastically cast a vote for McGovern, as did many younger voters, it meant that sanity was maintained by my elders, virtually all of whom are now dead. As a result, the people who voted in 1972 will represent only a small fraction of the votes cast in 2024 and will skew much more progressive than had been the case in 1972.
Therefore, the result of the 2024 election, when compared to the result of the 1972 election, will represent a powerful gauge as to the effectiveness of the educational indoctrination that has occurred in this country over the past 50+ years. As such, we will know how far we have moved toward becoming a Marxist state over the course of my voting lifetime (52 years). Hopefully, we’re still far enough from the point of no return that fraudulent votes will be insufficient to skew the outcome toward the Marxists. However, even if that skewing can be avoided, the fact that the outcome is a tossup at this point in the campaign should give all of us pause.
I believe that once we’ve crossed over the Marxist threshold; there’s no going back…and even if we don’t cross that line this time, we may have already gone too far to begin the process of turning the ship of state around. As someone with young grandchildren; this is my greatest concern. The die has been cast, and it’s all in the LORD’s hands from this point going forward. For my part, I’m praying for a Republican blowout in 2024 that is reminiscent of 1972.
- This article was published at Brownstone Institute