“They’re comparing the 1972 election to the 2012 election,” I thought to myself. Next, I heard Gary Hart reminisce about working for the McGovern campaign and talking about the character of the liberal senator from South Dakota.
Then I knew.
As a rule, I’m not a fan of politicians. But George McGovern was a super cool guy. (He went to Hunter S. Thompson’s memorial service.) He stood for great things: advancing civil liberties; improving the lives of the poor, elderly and minorities; universal health care; providing a living wage; women’s rights; the environment; labor rights; gay rights; and most importantly in 1972, ending the Vietnam War.
I guess all that looks too much like freedom and equality for some people. McGovern lost by a landslide.
I’ve read on-line comments today from people who feel justifiably proud to have voted for McGovern. Wish I could’ve been part of that history. Would’ve been a blast, but I was just a little boy of 3 at that time. Twenty years later I was working on my campus newspaper, taking in all the excitement of covering the 1992 election between Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush. My newsroom friend Cheryl told me how when she was in eighth grade in 1972, her social studies class was divided into teams – one supporting Nixon and hers, supporting McGovern. My interest in McGovern was piqued.
A couple of years later, Republicans took over Congress. I read articles quoting that pugnacious loud-mouth Newt Gingrich, making war on the 1960s and deriding all liberals as “McGoverniks.” A few months later I read a guest newspaper column by McGovern, saying that it was an honor to have his name turned into a metaphor for liberalism, but he didn’t deserve it. He talked about heroes in America’s liberal tradition, who he felt were more worthy.
That same year, 1994, Nixon died and there were all the tributes on TV. I watched bemused as an African-American teen-ager said we should focus on the good things the man did. I was like, “Learn your history kid. Tricky Dick Nixon was no friend of the black man.” (Photo ops with Sammy Davis, Jr. notwithstanding.) I had read All the President’s Men the previous summer and remembered a passage in which one of Nixon’s self-named “ratfuckers” called prospective voters and played on their racism by saying McGovern wanted to do a lot “for the black man.”
Doesn’t that sound like the kind of crap right wingers pull today? Except present-day ratfuckers smear political opponents by saying they support “the homosexual agenda.”
That’s the American way, our enduring legacy. Nixonian politics has become a template for the presidency. Nixon-like paranoia and McCarthy-esque demagoguery is still a weapon wielded against anyone who doesn’t resemble a “real American.” By the way, Nixon was also a rabid anti-communist. Launched his career slandering others.
It didn’t have to be this way. America missed an opportunity – in 1972 – to elect a man of integrity to the presidency. We had an opportunity to continue advancing the socially progressive policies that were enacted in the ‘60s. But no, America didn’t want that. Come on, we gave them their Civil Rights. What do they want? This country bought into Nixon’s Southern Strategy in 1968 and we’ve been there ever since. Even though Nixon would go down in disgrace and several of his minions would go to prison, conservatives use McGovern’s name like it’s a cuss word.
For his anti-war stance, conservatives denounced McGovern as weak and disloyal to the United States, just as they do today to anyone who’s not hawkish enough. It didn’t matter that McGovern flew 35 bombing missions over Nazi targets in Europe during World War II and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for successfully landing a plane that was falling apart and saving the lives of every man in his crew.Oh, but McGovern was a liberal wimp. Just like Jimmy Carter, who by the way, graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.
I know a lot of good Christians in my state are going to vote for Mitt Romney, not because he has the best policies, but because, well, you know God is Republican. Democrats, liberals are all about immorality. Just forget about those Sunday School classes Carter has been teaching in Plains, Ga. for the past 30 years. McGovern, the son of a South Dakota Methodist minister, attended seminary school and worked as a minister himself for awhile, but decided his calling was in public life. He simply took the Christian principles of love and social justice into his career as a public servant.
Wimps? Carter has spent the past 30 years building houses for the poor and promoting peace and democracy around the world. After his political career ended, McGovern promoted world peace and worked to eradicate hunger throughout the globe. I would be proud to be aligned with these humanitarians called wimps.
America, what does it say about us? That we cheer on bellicosity, prejudice and paranoia, while disparaging leaders who are mild in tone, peace oriented and open-minded?
McGovern never apologized for his liberal views. Why would he? I’m going to stand by my convictions as well. Come election day, I will be proud to be one of the few in my backwater of a state to vote for Obama. Just as I was proud a few years back to vote against that horrible anti-gay state Constitutional amendment.
I hope somehow the ideals practiced by America’s true heroes will live on, and although McGovern would disagree, he’s one of those heroes.
