Ignoring the lessons of Nixon’s elections …

I’ll start with a confession: I hated Richard Nixon.  In fact I still do. 

I blame him for dragging out the Vietnam War and allowing more Americans to be killed and wounded there for purely political purposes – even after the North Vietnamese tried to forge a peace agreement to end the war. He was also a monster who used the power of the Federal government against his personal enemies.  Ultimately, he was forced to resign for allowing rogue elements in his administration – operating with his tacit approval – to break all manner of laws, and then participating in a cover-up to save his ass.   

However, he was elected President twice. 

That didn’t happen because he was well liked.  By almost all accounts he was a truly disagreeable person who resented anyone with a more privileged upbringing than him. He especially despised Ivy Leaguers and intellectuals. But he was equally ill-at-ease with ordinary people.  You’ll never read anything about how Nixon exuded warmth or connected with a crowd while campaigning.  He didn’t even bother to show up in many primary states before he won the nomination for his second term. 

So how did he do it? 

The truth is he let the other side help elect him. And they did a wonderful job of driving Americans into his arms electing him the first time in 1968 and delivering a landslide victory over the Democrat George McGovern in 1972.

There are lessons from those elections that seem to be ignored by the Democrats and the far left today.  I’m starting to think history is about to repeat itself. 

The 60s challenged the core values of many middle-class Americans. The counter culture of sex and drugs and rejection of middle-class values among the young made many Americans increasingly uncomfortable. Organized religion was ridiculed. Marriage and monogamy were lampooned in the popular culture. Having a regular job was seen as slavery and moving up the economic ladder through hard work and playing by the rules passé.

The children of the Post-WWII generation seemed to be turning their backs on – and actually attacking – everything their parents had built their lives upon.      

At the same time, the Vietnam War dominated politics and the nightly news leading up to the 1968 and 1972 elections.  Every night there were reports of American soldiers dying in Vietnam; more were coming home grievously wounded. There were also clips of growing protests against the war, mainly by the young. Public opinion was shifting against support for the war.    

Early on, most protests against the war were relatively peaceful. However, as the war dragged on these became increasingly confrontational. Radicals started baiting police, assaulting police, and even intentionally provoking violent police overreactions, as at the Chicago Democratic Convention in 1968. 

Ultra-radical groups such as the Black Panthers, the Weather Underground, the SDS and others started attacking commercial and government installations.  The Weather Underground took credit for bombing the U.S. Capitol in 1971, the bombing of banks, police stations and other acts that can only be described as domestic terrorism. People died in some of these attacks.  

Perhaps the most atrocious behavior of the anti-war movement was the hatred and venom unleashed on our soldiers when they came back to the States. Returning soldiers were spat upon and called baby killers, rapists, and murderers. Wearing a military uniform in public was almost certain to incite verbal if not physical attacks on many city streets.

Anyone who dared speak in favor of our soldiers was shouted down. Anyone who didn’t toe the radical anti-war line was also shouted down. The radicals celebrated images of Jane Fonda at an anti-aircraft battery in North Vietnam, and John Kerry – yes the same John Kerry – testifying before Congress about alleged war crimes being committed by our soldiers.        

Far from galvanizing public opinion against the war and the political establishment, these acts ultimately had the opposite effect – the American public wanted more emphasis on law and order and a significant segment rallied behind supporters of the war. 

This happened, I think, because the middle class felt they and their values were under assault by people who had no regard for the law, no respect for the rights of others, no respect for our soldiers -- remember, many of the middle-class men were proud of their own service in WWII or the Korean War -- and no respect for what the middle class had worked so hard to achieve.   

To many middle-class Americans, the protesters had become barbarians. The protesters never realized that the more they stepped up their violence, the more they hardened and expanded the opposition.  While the war remained unpopular with most of the public, Nixon became the alternative to the chaos the radicals demonstrated, and which Democrats seemed to support.   

The “silent majority” finally had had enough. The chaos had become too much. The attacks on their core values had reached a tipping point and they retaliated by electing Nixon, not just once, but twice, to the absolute consternation of liberal Democrats and the radical left.    

The left and the liberals in the media never saw it coming.  Pauline Kael of the NYT summed up the ignorance of the left when she said she couldn’t understand how Nixon was elected because nobody she knew voted for him. 

Right now, the left and its supporters, the left-leaning media, and liberal Democrats as well, are equally deaf to the mood of the country.

The recent protests won’t do anything to hurt Trump’s popularity.  If anything, I expect his numbers to rise significantly. The more protesters ramp up the violence, the more they demonstrate to a lot of potential voters that not just Trump, but their own sensitivities and values, are being assaulted by foul mouthed, lawless barbarians who only want violence and chaos.

It may make great TV – seeing protesters try to rush the stage, seeing mobs shouting down candidates and preventing them from speaking, seeing police facing off against angry crowds, and seeing violence between protesters and Trump supporters – but there’s probably a heavy price to pay for this; something the most violent protesters apparently don’t comprehend. 

The vast majority of Americans are turned off by wanton violence and mobs, regardless of how righteous the cause may be to the instigators.   

Much like the most radical anti-war protesters of the 60s and early 70s, the people violently disrupting Trump’s rallies are only helping to build support for the person they want to defeat.

If they truly want to stop Trump, let him speak.