Exhuming McCarthy
James Fallows connects the current inability of Republican leaders to repudiate the haters with some earlier US history:
One of the earliest political histories I remember reading was on why it took Dwight Eisenhower so long to condemn Joe McCarthy and his destructive, bullying “investigations” during the Red Scare years. I can’t now be sure just where I read it, but I remember the mounting sense among Eisenhower’s admirers that he was shaming himself by not taking a stand (and indeed for campaigning with McCarthy during the 1952 election). Ike finally turned on McCarthy late in 1953, after McCarthy began attacking the patriotism of Army officers and challenged Ike’s own Secretary of the Army. The situation now is different now in many ways, but as the reader suggests the basic dynamic is the same. The hateful side of a party is showing itself, and the party’s leaders are either pretending they don’t notice or else are actively pandering to the haters.
Two things. First, it’s worth remembering that even though Eisenhower turned on McCarthy, a fair slice of the conservative intelligentsia still thinks McCarthy was onto something (here’s an example, Buckley’s hedging recalibration of his view of McCarthy). Second, don’t forget about Ike’s other sleazy associate, Richard M. Nixon. Nixon made his name on commie witch hunting but he, unlike McCarthy, was smart enough to quit while he was ahead. Eisenhower didn’t want Nixon as his VP, and personally couldn’t stand the guy, but he took him on to pander to the far-right of the party. When Nixon finally became President, he also used the haters but kept them at arms length, just like Ike. It’s a simple pattern, repeated regularly in post-WW II politics.
The reason that Romney and Perry don’t have the guts to call out the haters is simple. Starting with McCarthy and Nixon, and intensifying during the civil rights era, Democrats threw the haters out of the party, and the Republicans took them in. Like Ike and Dick, the front-runners know that you throw the base under the bus after the election, not before.
September 27, 2011 9:30 am
Posted in: Election 2012
75 Comments
75 Responses
Crashman - September 27, 2011 | 9:40 am · Link
Typical Republican. Take no action against injustice until it directly affects you and yours.
JGabriel - September 27, 2011 | 9:45 am · Link
James Fallows:
Or they’re pretending it’s just a few bad apples, because No True Republican would ever behave that way.
.
John PM - September 27, 2011 | 9:46 am · Link
After having read Nixonland and having observed the Republican party for the past 17 years, I have concluded that Eisenhower running as a Republican (and by extension choosing Nixon as his VP) was the worst thing to happen to America in the 20th Century.
I still do not know why Ike ran as a Republican. Can anyone recommend a good biography of Ike?
4tehlulz - September 27, 2011 | 9:58 am · Link
It must be hard to be a Republican, with all the people who are not true Republicans sullying your name.
Heckler Screamed ‘Anti-Christ’ At Obama Before Being Whisked Away
cleek - September 27, 2011 | 9:59 am · Link
@John PM:
he seemed to think the Dems were soft on communism.
Gilles de Rais - September 27, 2011 | 10:03 am · Link
/firebagger crying emo tears
beltane - September 27, 2011 | 10:06 am · Link
Without the haters, what would the GOP have?
Certified Mutant Enemy - September 27, 2011 | 10:06 am · Link
@John PM:
According to my high school history teacher (not exactly 100% reliable), Eisenhower chose the non-incumbent party.
soonergrunt - September 27, 2011 | 10:09 am · Link
@John PM: The Republican party was, as was the Democratic party at the time, much more homogenous than now.
Both parties had Liberal and Conservative wings. Ike was pretty liberal for his day.
Certified Mutant Enemy - September 27, 2011 | 10:11 am · Link
@soonergrunt:
Eisenhower would not be welcome in the modern Republican party (neither would Nixon, Lincoln, and possibly Reagan).
gnomedad - September 27, 2011 | 10:14 am · Link
I always think of Ann Coulter’s pilgrimage when McCarthy comes up.
Certified Mutant Enemy - September 27, 2011 | 10:14 am · Link
@4tehlulz:
Shouldn’t fundies be celebrating that Obama is the Anti-Christ?
4tehlulz - September 27, 2011 | 10:20 am · Link
@Certified Mutant Enemy: You would think so, but I guess too many people have read Tim LaHaye fanfiction to know that.
Redshift - September 27, 2011 | 10:24 am · Link
@Certified Mutant Enemy:
Yeah, it does seem kind of weird and inconsistent that they’re actively trying to bring about the Apocalypse by fighting for Israel to claim all of its Biblical territory, but then they’re unhappy at the appearance of the Anti-Christ.
mark - September 27, 2011 | 10:24 am · Link
I’ve read 2 different biographys of McCarthy (who Walter Cronkite called “a fascist”) and his 2 best friends said he had only read one book in his life….Mein Kampf.
No shit.
I’ve always been fascinated, in a horrific way, with the McCarthy era. Saw the play “Trumbo” off broadway. Fantastic! Tim Robins was superb.
What was suprising was how many newspapers of the era groveled at Tailgunner Joes feet. They were just as bad as the media is now: owned by Rightwingers, etc.
He was one wierd dude and would supposedly stare at the clock so when it hit 5, he could have a drink of bourbon. Married his secretary…ala Rock Hudson.
A complete fraud who, if he had been a liberal, would have been exposed immedialtely.
handsmile - September 27, 2011 | 10:24 am · Link
Too soon, too soon, man, with the REM-derived post titles…sniff….
Thanks much for the link though; James Fallows is a true beacon.
John PM (#3): Re your request for an Eisenhower bio, Tom Wicker’s Dwight D. Eisenhower is an excellent introductory text. Part of Times Books’ “American Presidents” series, it is by no means authoritative but offers a well-constructed balance between his military and political careers.
Do avoid Michael Korda’s Ike, a hagiography rather than a biography. A more recent work, Eisenhower: The White House Years by Jim Newton would seem to address the political questions of interest to you and mistermix, but I’ve not looked into it.
MattF - September 27, 2011 | 10:24 am · Link
Don’t forget that the Robert Welch, the founder of the John Birch Society, wrote that Eisenhower might be a “conscious, dedicated agent of the Communist Conspiracy.” See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_W._Welch,_Jr.
What’s happened is that the nuts have taken over the Republican party. The party has always been a home for right-wingers (at least in the past century) but the takeover by the crazies via Goldwater, Reagan, and the Bushes is rather recent.
Added: Got my Joe’s and Bob’s mixed up.
GregB - September 27, 2011 | 10:25 am · Link
@4tehlulz:
I gather this will open the door for the inevitable questions from the media:
Some people say you are the anti-Christ.
As well as the follow up excuse making:
The question is out there.
Certified Mutant Enemy - September 27, 2011 | 10:26 am · Link
@mark:
That’s one more book than most tea-baggers read…
John X. - September 27, 2011 | 10:31 am · Link
One of the things we have politely scrubbed from history in the name of bi-partisanship was just how in love the Republicans were with Hitler. They thought he was the savior of Europe, and his policies showed the way forward for capitalism.
That’s what the Smedley-Butler affair was all about. A bunch of wealthy people who were, unfortunately, Too Big To Fail, wanted America on the fascist team.
Certified Mutant Enemy - September 27, 2011 | 10:35 am · Link
@John X.:
“A bunch of wealthy people who were, unfortunately, Too Big To Fail, wanted America on the fascist team.”
And now we have a bunch of people who actually think Hitler was a liberal…
Kane - September 27, 2011 | 10:36 am · Link
Romney has no base to speak of, so he can’t repudiate the haters who already distrust him. He’s on a very short leash with these people. Perry on the other hand seems to be drinking from the same well as the haters, so to repudiate them is to repudiate himself. If Christie got into the race, his repudiation of the haters would be portrayed as a heroic act, and even the haters would admire his straightforwardness. He not only could get away with it, it would be a wise political move.
Villago Delenda Est - September 27, 2011 | 10:38 am · Link
@John X.:
Pat Buchanan has publically proclaimed that we fought on the wrong side in WWII.
amk - September 27, 2011 | 10:40 am · Link
@GregB: I vote whiny wolfy at cnn for that job.
Yutsano - September 27, 2011 | 10:41 am · Link
@GregB: You left off the inevitable Nooners column follow-up: “It would be irresponsible not to speculate.”
LittlePig - September 27, 2011 | 10:42 am · Link
Not at all. Some Jews have yet to be sent to
Ground ZeroIsrael. The Anti-Christ is peaking too soon!kindness - September 27, 2011 | 10:44 am · Link
Yea but which election are we gonna have to wait until for this to actually happen?
4tehlulz - September 27, 2011 | 10:45 am · Link
@LittlePig: Peak Anitchrist will be the issue of the 21st century.
Chris - September 27, 2011 | 10:48 am · Link
@John X.:
William F. Buckley: “General Franco is an authentic national hero. It is generally conceded that he above others had the combination of talents, the perseverance, and the sense of righteousness of his cause, that were required to wrest Spain from the hands of the visionaries, ideologues, Marxists and nihlistis that were imposing on her, in the thirties, a regime so grotesque as to do violence to the Spanish soul, to deny, even Spain’s historical identity.”
When I look at how hard they worked to make “Communist” a synonym for “Democrat” and then look at their actual history re Fascism, it kind of makes me wish FDR had gone all McCarthy on them back in the day. God knows he wouldn’t have had to make nearly as much shit up as they did.
Certified Mutant Enemy - September 27, 2011 | 10:51 am · Link
@Chris:
Buckley’s quote should be read while looking at a picture of Franco standing with his good buddies, Hitler and Mussolini…
Bubblegum Tate - September 27, 2011 | 11:00 am · Link
The wingnut response in two sentences:
1. “But McCarthy was right!”
2. “Anyway, it’s not us who is full of hate, it’s you—you hate the tea party, hate conservatives, hate freedom, hate the rich…hate America and want to turn it soshulist!”
kd bart - September 27, 2011 | 11:00 am · Link
“Obama is the Anti-Christ”
The Right demands to see his unshaven head.
artem1s - September 27, 2011 | 11:04 am · Link
@John PM:
personally I would say Colin Powell endorsing Shrub was way worse, with worse immediate consequences. Never understood why he aligned himself with the Rethugs, unless it was because he had a front row seat for the Deranged Clinton Syndrome. It scared him badly enough that he was never going to run for elected office of any kind. I guess he figured he could deflect the crazy by hiding in their midst. Too bad he decided to drink the
kool aidyellow ore too.some guy - September 27, 2011 | 11:05 am · Link
meaning Obama will be turning on Lloyd Blankenfein and Jamie Dimon come November 7th, 2012? I sure as hell hope so, and that better be one big fucking bus.
kd bart - September 27, 2011 | 11:06 am · Link
Correction.
The Right demands to see his shaved head.
Chris - September 27, 2011 | 11:09 am · Link
@artem1s:
I’ve read his biography, and it sounds more like it was Carter Derangement Syndrome.
artem1s - September 27, 2011 | 11:10 am · Link
@GregB:
long form puh-lease!
catclub - September 27, 2011 | 11:11 am · Link
@mark: “A complete fraud who, if he had been a liberal, would have been exposed immedialtely.”
Your comment makes me think of LBJ. He strikes me as similar to McCarthy in ambition, but a much harder worker.
He made sure to serve in WWII ( as a short and safe as possible). The Chapter title in his biograghy that I remember was ‘The compassion of LBJ’. If you could come up with a good cause, that could also benefit LBJ, he was an amazing advocate. But that middle part was necessary.
Was he a fraud? I do not know.
(That book was Master of the Senate on his senate years. Has the final book on his presidency come out? Looks like no.
So I know nothing about Vietnam.)
Certified Mutant Enemy - September 27, 2011 | 11:12 am · Link
@Chris:
There was a belief among many in the military during the late 70’s that all the problems in the military were somehow Carter’s fault. This is almost gospel among career officers who served at the time (despite the fact most of the issues they will cite predate the Carter administration).
Tom Hilton - September 27, 2011 | 11:14 am · Link
Well…other difference: the Republican base (the haters) really is their base, while the Democratic “base” (white progressives) isn’t actually our base.
That is, the haters are too numerous within the GOP to ignore, while white progressives are too few in the Democratic party to be worth wasting any time courting.
This is partly a function of the fact that there are about twice as many right-wing nutjobs as there are progressives, and partly due to the shrinking of the GOP (to the point where the fringe is now the majority) and the expansion of the Democratic Party (so that a minority, already small, becomes even smaller).
John X. - September 27, 2011 | 11:14 am · Link
Colin Powell,
Read up on Powell’s role in covering up Mai Lai. He was a made man in the military, and the military votes Republicans. When the time came, he threw away his reputation for them. In thanks, they unceremoniously put him on the margins when he tried to play grownup in the room.
He’s not some great political tragedy. He’s just another political enforcer who got burned.
Tom Hilton - September 27, 2011 | 11:17 am · Link
@soonergrunt: I think you mean “more heterogenous“. That or “less homogenous”.
WereBear - September 27, 2011 | 11:18 am · Link
I believe the Republicans represents their constituency. By kissing up to the haters instead of hiding them away (Karl Rover’s work, BTW) they have arrived at their present state.
Chris - September 27, 2011 | 11:23 am · Link
@Certified Mutant Enemy:
Yeah, and that sounded like what was going on with Colin Powell.
Yep, and the same’s true of Clinton derangement syndrome. Clinton gets shit for troop reductions that supposedly prove he hated the military and was disarming America, even though most of them were planned as early as the Bush administration (still from Powell’s biography, there’s a section where he actually outlines the strategic review he wrote after the wall came down and the military cuts he recommends).
As you can see, the “Obama Recession” type of rhetoric from the GOP is nothing new…
mellowjohn - September 27, 2011 | 11:24 am · Link
@amk: cokie roberts.
amk - September 27, 2011 | 11:26 am · Link
for once, dana milbank surprises me.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....story.html
Linda Featheringill - September 27, 2011 | 11:26 am · Link
@catclub: #38
Johnson and Vietnam:
I have often thought that war in Vietnam was addictive. It looked as though nobody that got caught up in it could just disengage.
Afghanistan might also have that characteristic.
sherparick - September 27, 2011 | 11:33 am · Link
Again, it is difficult to compare the “current” Republican Party, the creation of Dick Nixon and Ronald Reagan, resulting in the merger of business class with the “Conservative Movement” and the “Dixiecrats,” (also known as the Confederate Party) with the Republican Party coalition of the 1930s and 40s, which while certainly anti-FDR, had a fair mixture of progressives, liberals, moderates. In some way the defeat of 1948 unhinged it, and Nixon’s ruthlessness and McCarthy’s recklessness became seen as tickets back to power. McCarthy was very useful to the Republican party from 1949-1953. And the terror of losing office in a second McCarthy period was one of the things that drove the JFK/LBJ administrations so deeply into Vietnam. Of course, the resulting disastrous war and domestic conflagration led directly to the electoral disasters of 1969 and 1972, and one could say the lost of a coherent “liberal” majority in the U.S. ever since.
Certified Mutant Enemy - September 27, 2011 | 11:34 am · Link
@Chris:
What is often forgotten is the so-called Reagan military build up actually started during the Carter administration (Carter was a cold war hawk, he just didn’t spout insane idiocy like Reagan and his cronies).
amk - September 27, 2011 | 11:34 am · Link
@mellowjohn: As yutsano said above, nooners will beat the field. Of course, that dowd dame could also scratch nooner’s eyes out in the race to beat her.
Chris - September 27, 2011 | 11:35 am · Link
@Linda Featheringill:
Yeah, whoever withdrew from Vietnam was going to be tarred as “soft on communism” for life, especially if he was a Democrat. What happened there was the logical consequence of twenty years of politicians trying to out-McCarthy each other while making sure they didn’t get McCarthied themselves. No one was willing to face the political risk.
Anoniminous - September 27, 2011 | 11:38 am · Link
The GOP has run out of time to introduce another person to the clown parade. The Iowa caucus is currently scheduled for February 6, 18 weeks away, and it may be moved up to keep its First in the Nation status.
Romney is leading the endorsement race with Perry coming in second.
Mr. Nate Silver writes “the vast majority of influential Republicans have withheld their endorsements” which is possibly Bad News for Romney. Local endorsements comes with a pol’s local support meaning boots-on-the-ground to chivvy voter turn-out. This is important as primaries have a very low number of votes; in 2008 a nation-wide total of ~18 million people voted in a 2008 GOP presidential primary, 30.5% of their 2008 vote in the general.
What all this suggests to me is the GOP is going into the 2012 election cycle with a serious problem: they ain’t got nobody. Romney should be their nominee but with his low approval among their mouth breathing, knuckle-dragging, “let ‘em die if they ain’t got no private Health Insurance,” base it is anybodies guess who they are going to end-up with.
rikryah - September 27, 2011 | 11:40 am · Link
they’re sociopaths…and think they’re right.
Chris - September 27, 2011 | 11:41 am · Link
Oh, also
@John PM:
The way Wikipedia makes it sound is that Ike ran as a Republican in order to head off Robert Taft, the favorite son of the conservative wing of the GOP - because Taft was an isolationist who opposed NATO. Ike wanted to prevent a resurgence of isolationism and thought he’d defeat it at its source, in the GOP.
srv - September 27, 2011 | 11:46 am · Link
McCarthy fan boy Robert Kennedy
catclub - September 27, 2011 | 11:53 am · Link
It seems that a Democratic parallel to Ike and McCarthy may be: why did Hubert Humphrey stand for LBJ as long as he did?
Please note that I wrote ‘may’.
Sorry to go back to the original thread.
p.a. - September 27, 2011 | 12:08 pm · Link
as a historical curiosity of no real import and to demonstrate McCarthy’s deep cynicism, I report this story told by one of my poli. sci. professors. McCarthy, junior Wisconsin Senator, was beginning his first reelection campaign (I believe he first won narrowly) and had no real issues and no record of accomplishment to run on. One Sunday in Catholic mass the priest’s sermon railed against the Communists, and the crowd, as they say, went wild. The little 15 watt lightbulb above Joe’s head went off and the rest is history. Don’t know how accurate this is, just relaying it.
Also too, please note no one turned on Joe until he targeted the US military. State Dept., other gvt. workers, actors, private citizens, niente de problemma. Only once the military was targeted.
Chris - September 27, 2011 | 12:17 pm · Link
@p.a.:
Well, not just the military. Some fool on McCarthy’s staff started making allegations against several hundred Protestant clergymen, which Republicans didn’t like at all, and put pressure on McCarthy until he dropped it. I think he also accused Eisenhower, once the man was in office, of being a communist agent just like Truman and FDR.
Let’s say that as long as he was going after those nancy-boys in Hollywood and the State Department, Republicans loved the man. When he started going after institutions they liked more, though, all of a sudden it wasn’t funny anymore.
The Red Scare era has to be the most misremembered parts of our history. Just like it was liberals like Hubert Humphrey, Walter Reuther and the Kennedys who did the most damage to actual communists (kicking them out of unions and the like), it was Republicans who ultimately brought McCarthy down by throwing him under the bus when he became a liability. Something to bring up the next time some conservative starts tearing up about what those awful liberals did to McCarthy.
Tom Hilton - September 27, 2011 | 12:19 pm · Link
@catclub: As I understand it, in 1968 Humphrey actually wanted to be freed to oppose the Vietnam War in his campaign, but Johnson refused to let him (and Humphrey was too loyal to the administration to openly break with his President).
Of course, in the long run I’m not sure the anti-war movement did us any favors; I think we’d have been better off with Johnson being re-elected in 1968 than with Nixon in the presidency. The Vietnam war was a catastrophic failure, but it wasn’t the only thing Johnson did.
El Cid - September 27, 2011 | 12:26 pm · Link
@MattF: The Republican Party used to mock and avoid the Birchers, as did the mainstream press. Check the archives of Time magazine, for example.
Today’s Republican Party are the Birchers, but also the Talibangelicals, the McKinleyite anti-regulators, the Segregationists, and so forth.
It’s an impressive coalition, actually.
Big Baby DougJ - September 27, 2011 | 12:27 pm · Link
It’s an interesting comparison, but also too, I’m reluctant to compare random idiot booers with Joe McCarthy.
John X. - September 27, 2011 | 12:31 pm · Link
Or you could go the other way.
The U.S. defeat in Vietnam led to D.C. massively backing off on their plan to oppose communism on a global scale with direct military support. Had the hawks been able to keep pushing toward a hot war, it is very possible that we’d all be glowing ash now.
The end of direct U.S. involvement allowed the Cold War to cool down. The opening of the Soviet archives shows that the Soviets did not want to fight directly with America, but the KGB and the hardliners were pushing the line that the Americans were deranged and committed to invading the Soviet Union.
If we had kept going at that level for decades, someone would have launched a nuke.
flukebucket - September 27, 2011 | 12:32 pm · Link
@Linda Featheringill:
It is just hard to swallow that a rag tag bunch of poor fuckers like that are kicking your multi-trillion dollar ass.
Stay the course! One more Friedman unit! Light is at the end of the tunnel!
El Cid - September 27, 2011 | 12:32 pm · Link
@Tom Hilton: In discussions like these it’s probably a good idea to include all those other political forces exerting an impact on the 1968 political environment. I’m noting an increasing tendency to create a reduced and easy narrative that the anti-war movement torpedoed LBJ, who otherwise would have been re-elected, and therefore—> Nixon.
El Cid - September 27, 2011 | 12:53 pm · Link
Speaking of crazy Birchers in today’s Republican Party, Michele Bachmann warns of Hezbollah missiles in Cuba, because why not?
What’s also funny about this is that the reason to fear would be the relaxing of the (U.S. Chamber of Commerce-opposed) US embargo against Cuba.
Presumably Cuba would want such a relaxation of this illegal embargo in order to trade and make money.
Hosting Hezbollah training would of course be likely to have an embargo re-imposed.
Of course, if you want to score points with the crowd who thinks that Fidel and Chavez threaten to over-run Florida with Communists, sure, such things make total sense.
And who could disagree with the argument that Hezbollah could have training camps in Cuba? I mean, it is physically possible: there is a place called Cuba, and theoretically it’s within the laws of physics and current transportation technologies that representatives of this group arrive to Cuba.
Therefore you can’t take any chances, and if we’re not allowed to bomb Cuba with plexiglass so as to seal it away forever, you might as well prepare for any imaginable under-the-bed scare possible.
And Ronald Reagan emphasized that Nicaragua was theoretically 2 days’ drive from Harlingen, Texas, as if Nicaraguans needed more oppression by having to be in Texas, and as if no one would notice their military convoys driving up through Guatemala and Honduras and refueling there and then driving all the way up through Mexico to arrive in a sneak attack on a strategically worthless shit town, but why not?
burritoboy - September 27, 2011 | 1:30 pm · Link
“What’s happened is that the nuts have taken over the Republican party. The party has always been a home for right-wingers (at least in the past century) but the takeover by the crazies via Goldwater, Reagan, and the Bushes is rather recent.”
No, that’s not correct. If you look at Robert Taft, the absolute central figure of the Republican party between 1932 and his death in 1953 (he was the most powerful elected Republican in the period), was prefiguring the Southern Strategy of the 1960s – he made a grand alliance with the Southern ConservaDems (i.e., the segregationists) to essentially block the New Deal after 1938. Taft opposed the New Deal, supported McCarthy (until McCarthy got out of control, at which point Taft gutted him), opposed WWII (because he hated FDR and because FDR made an alliance with Stalin), opposed the Nuremberg trials and all sorts of other fun positions.
Of course, Taft isn’t precisely like current Republicans (he opposed the Cold War, for instance). However, the most central event of the Republican Party in the last third of the 20th century was absorbing the Southern ConservaDems into the Republican Party and that was indeed Taft’s major political effort of his life.
Chris - September 27, 2011 | 1:36 pm · Link
@burritoboy:
I always wondered about that: what was it that made Republicans and conservative Southern Democrats come together against FDR in the late 1930s? It’s not like civil rights were a big deal yet, and the South was benefiting perhaps more than anywhere else in the country from New Deal redistribution.
John X. - September 27, 2011 | 1:57 pm · Link
Chris,
Here’s a hint – New Deal policies ended sharecropping.
Another hint – FDR opened up Southern (and Northern) arms factories to blacks.
Yet another hint – FDR was pro-union and the South’s identity was, and still is, based on being able to squash labor movements.
John X. - September 27, 2011 | 2:03 pm · Link
And Civil Rights actually were a pretty big deal in the 1940s:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/A._Philip_Randolph
soonergrunt - September 27, 2011 | 3:04 pm · Link
@Tom Hilton: You are, of course, correct.
Tom Hilton - September 27, 2011 | 6:28 pm · Link
@El Cid: I think the Vietnam War was the single greatest factor in Johnson’s declining popularity. I don’t think it was the anti-war movement that turned most people against the war, though, so I wouldn’t say they torpedoed LBJ (as such).
And there were other factors, including (obviously) racial resentment, which Nixon exploited to the fullest.
That said, I don’t think the most visible aspects of the anti-war movement did the Democrats any favors. Chanting “hey hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” demonizes Johnson to a degree that obliterates everything he did of any value (which was a lot). And the Chicago riots—well, one can acknowledge that (nearly) all the fault lies on the side of Daley and his brutalizing thugs, and at the same time point out that the protestors had no coherent strategy or any clear idea how doing what they did would move them any closer to their goals. Chicago was a big deal—it turned off a lot of people for one reason or another (moderates for one, liberals for another)—and remember, when enough voters are turned off, the right wins.
burritoboy - September 27, 2011 | 7:18 pm · Link
Chris,
John X. has got it right. Actually, the Southern Conservadems were beginning to be unhappy with the National Democratic party starting in the 1920s (if not before). The Northern Dems started nominating folks like Al Smith, who was a New York City Catholic, half Irish / one-quarter Italian, anti-Prohibition, anti-Klan, pro-Jewish, pro-feminist (his campaign manager was a Jewish woman) politico. The Southern Conservadems responded by getting their Klan hoods on and burning crosses in New Jersey (the convention was being held in Manhattan).
JWL - September 27, 2011 | 7:53 pm · Link
“When Nixon finally became President, he also used the haters but kept them at arms length, just like Ike”.
Arms length? Nixon was a veritable walking, talking, black hole of hate. The sick of soul and depraved were drawn to him like moths to a flame.
El Cid - September 28, 2011 | 6:56 am · Link
@JWL: Of course, our arms aren’t very long, and Nixon wasn’t likely to be hugging them. Arms’ length was close enough.
El Cid - September 28, 2011 | 7:00 am · Link
@Tom Hilton: A huge other set of factors included weakening black community support for voting itself, and the racial and ethnic rebellions in cities around the nation were a great deal more fear- and hatred-inducing to the broader white populace than those trying to levitate the Pentagon.
Though, no, such protests may not have ‘helped’ in that sense.
It also didn’t help that the highest labor leadership gleefully embraced the Cold War perspective of McCarthyist anti-Commie witch-hunting and the slaughter of 3rd world independence, democratic reform and social justice policies, including the betrayal of local labor movements by infiltration.
That was one reason that the anti-war protesters had no luck appealing to ‘labor’—the labor leadership was for the war. This is often forgotten.