McGovern’s Patriotism — And How the 2012 Campaign Dishonors It
Since this is before my time it just illustrates to me how far we have…what’s the term I want to use? How far we have fallen since McGovern? But that does not really illustrate on how weird a trip the Republican party took the nation on after Nixon.
I would ask people from that era, does it seem like the GOP has been taking revenge for the resignation of Nixon? Not so much that the GOP liked Nixon, more like the GOP lost and was humiliated and wanted to ‘get back’ those that got Nixon to resign. It goes back to a meme I have heard in GOP circles like “JFK used to do it” or “Clinton used to do it” to justify why they could behave as they did.
With that in mind this opinion by Will Bunch (Author, ‘The Backlash’) hits all the right buttons for me.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/will-bunch/george-mcgovern_b_1998655.html
…snip…
It’s hard to believe that 40 years ago, there was a candidate for president who supported a guaranteed national income for all Americans, national health care and legislation for clean air and clear water, but what’s even more remarkable was that he was McGovern’s opponent, the “conservative” incumbent Republican Richard Nixon. Which goes to show just how far to the extreme right the playing field has tilted. To be sure, McGovern supported all those things too, and, yes, his platform was certainly the most progressive of any major presidential candidate in my lifetime. He was also remarkably naive during his 1972 campaign of the extent that social unrest and programs ike school busing for racial integration were driving blue-collar whites out of the Democratic Party.
…snip….