Of Martin Luther king jr. And robert kennedy. Her class is about an hour and 10 minutes. Margaret lets get started. Welcome. Today we are talking about 1968, a year when a heck of a lot happened, including a president ial election. A year where there were a lot of social, economic, political parallels that are in some ways familiar to us now because, in part, some of the changes the early 21st Century America has experience particularly in politics were set in motion in this late period. 1960slets get started. Start with an unlikely as official News Conference or address to the american people. March 31, 1968. President Lyndon Johnson gave a televised address to the nation. His subject but was the vietnam war. By this point the vietnam had escalated into a bloody conflict involving over half a million american soldiers. A war that had gradually started as a small engagement against communist, put potential Prime Minister aggression in Southeast Asia in the 1950s had escalated into a major conflict that was tearing america apart. Johnson gives a speech about the war. He looks tired. He looks old. The glare of the television lights did not help matters. At the very end he lands this bombshell. Because of the importance of resolving the war in vietnam and peace talks were already ongoing with the north vietnamese, he says i do not believe i should devote an hour a day of my time to any personal partisan causes. Accordingly, i shall not seek and i will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president. So how did we get here . How did Lyndon Johnson, who had been elected in a landslide victory, less than four years earlier get to the point where he is decided not to run again for reelection because he does not think not only does he not think he will win, he does not think you look at the party nomination. How does this happen . This is a very hard scenario to imagine when johnson was first running for president in 1964. It was also a hard scenario to imagine given his administrations role in a broader, mainstream liberalism in 20thCentury America. Liberalism that has it is tied in with progressive ideas about progress and technology. Ideas that animated things like the 1939 worlds fair, the futurama exhibit and some of the other things we talked about in this class. This idea that big organizations and new technology. Big corporations and Big Government can bring good things about. America is Getting Better and better and that experts are the ones who can give the answers provide the answers for where america goes next. But having expertise, whether it be the expert engineers at General Motors envisioning the city of the future in the futurama exhibit in 1939, or be it the architects of things like the marshall plan, rebuilding europe and japan after world war ii, or the engineers of nasa who are building the rockets to send and to the men by the end of the 1960s. This optimism and faith in big organizations and Big Technologies is starting to break down. The thing that breaks down that faith more than anything else is the war in vietnam. This again was hard to imagine four years earlier. Opponent wasons barry goldwater, republican senator of arizona and someone from the far right of the Republican Party. The mainstream of the Republican Party in the early 1960s and before was not that far removed from the democrats, certainly there were lots of issues on which they differed. This general understanding that progress was possible, expertise you neededle, that big organizations to get things done even though dwight americanr warned the people in his farewell address about the growing militaryindustrial complex and the scientists who no longer knew how to innovate because they were on a government paycheck. He surrounded himself with scientists and understood the importance of these lark organizations Large Organizations to conduct business of the unites states. Both democrats and republicans are part of this broader postwar consensus about what the role of the government does, the importance of people with expertise in charge, and goldwater is someone who comes out of right field. Not left field. Although he was a sitting senator, he was a politician, a very seasoned politician and someone with a very firm and clear ideology conservative to libertarian. Today we would call him more of a libertarian. He was a great believer in freedom of every kind. Individual freedom and freedom from communism. He was the ultimate anticommunist crusader, following in the footsteps of people like Richard Nixon. Someone who comes and seizes the nomination for the Republican Party from more moderate abilities. Possibilities. He is quite a hardliner. Johnson very successfully runs against him as someone who was out of touch with the mainstream of politics, someone who was way too conservative for america. Someone who does not have americas interest at heart. Someone who should not be trusted to have his finger on the nuclear button. Nonetheless goldwater, despite the fact that a lot of the experts and establishment were very worried about goldwater, he had a lot of grassroots support, particularly among young people. Maybe not this young, although i had to throw this picture because i love it. He galvanized an incredible support from teenagers, housewives, people who are not part of the political establishment. A lot of people in the sun belt sun beltes, suburban communities of southern california, arizona, and the southwest who believe that america was on the wrong path. They were worried about communist influence in Public Schools and local governments, and were still the age of mccarthy was over, but they were still there was still a lot of people worried about the same things that joe mccarthy had Good Morning America about a decade before. But the democrats rule the day. The democrats have johnson in the democrats run a campaign that is successful not just in bringing building enthusiasm among the liberal coalition that had started in the age of Franklin Roosevelt with White Working Class voters from the north and west and africanamerican voters, but also to successfully paint goldwater as an extremist, someone who could not be trusted. The electoral map in 1964 was a landslide victory for the democrats. Here is what is interesting goldwater does not win very much. He wins his home state of arizona. He takes states that had been solidly blue, democratic for decades and decades. He is the deep south, the electoral votes of the deep south gopher very well very goldwater. Why do they do that . Because of civil rights. This is after the Civil Rights Act was signed into law by johnson. Something the whites of the deep south find something that is a great betrayal of their states rights and their way of life by the federal government. Goldwater is a states rights guy. He is a believer in freedom. Little believer in as government intrusion as possible including any business of the south. Have stateshat you going red in the south of the first time, but hardly the last time. 1968, fastforward. Johnsons electoral victory is enables him to get major pieces of social legislation passed in the wake of 1964 to advance his antipoverty agenda that he and john f. Kennedy did. To pass programs of what he calls the Great Society, including the centerpieces of medicare and medicaid, major social programs, Health Insurance for the elderly and lower income people. A whole host of other antipoverty programs, job creation programs, and enlargement of the domestic side of the government. Ist johnson also oversees the large meant of the military side of the government because of the war in vietnam. He oversees this massive escalation of the conflict. It is ironic because in he comes into office, he is very conflicted about it. This is kennedys war. This is not something, from the getgo, we hear this in the phoneof johnsons conversations with friends and colleagues in the oval office saying, i dont know how we will get out of this, but we cannot just pull out. Losing is not an option. When losing a war is not an option remember, look at the 20th century wars. World war ii only a couple of decades in the rearview mirror, this Great American victory. Ferment for america to lose a war, to pull out of a conflict in a small, less developed country, to not be able to win that war, that would be a terrible blow. It would be a cold war blow because this was a proxy war for american democracy versus soviet communism. Soviet and chinese communism, vietnam is one of those dominoes in the middle. So he escalates. By 1968 the escalation has been quite massive. One of the things that is propelling it is now that men are being drafted. As the war escalates, you need to draft more young men in the military. You need more soldiers. The draft is instituted in the runup to world war ii by roosevelt. We do not have now we have an all volunteer military, we did not then. The escalation of vietnam means the escalation of those being called up in the draft. During the nearly 10 years of heavy american involvement in the war, a total of 11. 7 million served in the armed forces. A little over 2 million of those went to vietnam. Within that number, 1. 6 million saw combat. Entire 1825he population, it is a little over a quarter of the population drafted up. The uncertainty of the draft, the fact that every young man makes itgister for it, a possibility and probability for everyone. At the peak of the draft, in 1966, 3 hundred 47,000 americans were drafted. By 1968, going into 1968, one third of the 20yearold men were in the service. One in 320yearold males in the United States were in the military. Evenly distributed by race, there was a disproportionate number of the men of color drafted up. That is something that thread through the Antiwar Movement and becomes a rallying cry for and connects the problem of the war overseas with the problems of Race Relations at home. It is something that you cannot get exempted from. No one is exempted from it. Even though some people are more easily able to dodge than others. The draft increases the antiwar base. Coming into 1968 there is already incredible antipathy about vietnam and a very vibrant Antiwar Movement. In the early days of 1968, towards the end of january, there is a north viennese assault on south vietnamese strongholds including cities that changes the visibility of the war and amps up pressure and broadbased antiwar sentiment beyond just those who are getting drafted. Mrs. This is a vietnamese holiday in early 1968, there is that the Johnson Administration did not see coming. And itme to the citys goes from major cities over the next three weeks of this, over 12,000 civilians are killed. A million refugees are created. It has a huge toll on the north vietnamese. Many more north vietnamese depths than south the enemy soldiers or american soldiers. Ultimately the American Forces prevail. It is not a win. The north vietnamese push back. This type of attack, this coordinated attack is something the Johnson Administration did not predict what happened. They were saying there was no way they north vietnamese had this capacity to do this. Y also do not have the there is no way they will prevail. They were right on the second point. One of the things that made it so visible is that because it. As fighting in the cities the fighting in the range of Television Cameras. It is where all of the foreign correspondents were located. So the fighting is beamed from the streets of the cities in vietnam back to the nine states. United states. It becomes more visible. When you hear about guerrilla warfare in the jungles, it is different. Actually seeing this erupt in the streets, that changes the dynamic. Hasantiwar basement which at its core these Young College students, vulnerable to the draft, and at institutions where they had time on their hands to protest, and a platform to get people to listen to them start to expand. It becomes a more broadbased youth movement. It is enabled in part by the fact that there are so many young people. Another reason that vietnam becomes such a political flashpoint is demographics. It is the baby boom. It is a new generation of young people. Female isat male and termed man of the year by Time Magazine in early 1967. By r start to be understood by their elders as this new generation that is not only large and numbers, but care more about social justice and steal it geopolitical issues than their previous generations did. They are intensely engaged in many of them in rectifying the injustices of the world and increasingly starting to talk about vietnam alongside civil rights and other injustices at home. They are connecting his problems these problems. It is a different sort of politics than we see an earlier Civil Rights Movements, which are about fighting for consumerbased citizenship. By withholding your buying power to get what you want, by using the front of respectability and Good Behavior as a way to commence convince people to go along with your cause. This is the way political protests have been conducted for quite some time in united take, not just the 1950s and 1960s, but well before that. This new generation has different tactics. Very quickly, Lyndon Johnson, the person who thinks these people should be my people, they should be my supporters, very soon these young people turn on lbj. Lbj is the war criminal. Lbj is the person responsible for this debacle in vietnam. Lbj is the person sending people there. Starts to takely over Everything Else that johnson is trying to do. It starts taking over fiscally because it is eating up a giant chunk of the budget. You cannot also have the generous antipoverty programs and welfare programs of the Great Society and have the big spend of increasingly expensive war. It also is eroding political support. By the time you get to 1968 it is not just the kids on the street. There are other people protesting for peace. There are other people out on the street or sitting in the tetng room watching the offensive and fold on the television and wondering what is going on. Somehow things are going wrong. Warscope and scale of the and the sneak attack, surprise offensive,the tet something where the u. S. Back troops eventually prevailed, but it goes against what the leaders in washington had been telling you can public about how the war is going. It is showing a different more than what leaders are saying. Everything is going fine, we are working towards peace, we are deescalating, etc. The moment that really turns the tide politically, or maybe it is the final straw that breaks the camels back, is when the person who is the arbiter of how americans understand the news of as day, someone who is seen a trusted source not fake news, but real, serious news Walter Cronkite, the veteran cbs reporter who had reported extensively from vietnam, he now sits at the anchor desk. The person who told america that john f. Kennedy had been shot and killed. He is the person who later informs america of the men landing. He is the person who is delivering the news of the day to millions of american households. How many people how many watched the Network Nightly News in the last month . Ok. There are a few. Network, not cable. Network. How many people make a point to watch it every day . No hands. One hand. All right. But you probably know walter conk right cronkite. [laughter] this is where news came from. It is not likely of all tend out from the news. How many people consulted a new source of the last one in four hours . It is not like you are tuning out. Youre probably tuning in getting more news than you want. We have too many places to find it. But then Walter Cronkite, or the other anchors were the places you went. The nightly news, you got 30 minutes of what to think. Anza very 28, cronkite and his broadcast with a threeminute speech about the war in vietnam. He looks at the camera, he reads from the script, looks up at the viewer sitting in the living room and says it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of vietnam is to end in a stalemate. To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe in the face of evidence to be optimistic have been wrong in the past. To say we are mired in stalemate seems the only real and unsatisfactory conclusion. On the off chance the political analysts are right, and the next few months we must test the enemys intentions before negotiations. It is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy so to the best they could. While all of this is playing out there is a president ial election going on. And the summer of 1967 the democrats a group of left, young leftleaning democrats have started a dump Johnson Movement determined to find someone else to run for the democratic nomination. About for a number of potential candidates, landing first on trying to persuade robert kennedy, the brother of the former president , now senator from new york to run, he says he is not interested. After going through and looking at a few short list, they finally come to the senior senator from minnesota, euGene Mccarthy. Anccarthy was in unlikely person the run for president. He was fond of quoting poetry on the floor of the senate. He did not have a lot of friends in the senate. Was one colleague referred to him as the most intelligent man in the senate and that was not a compliment. [laughter] he was seen as kind of a cold fish standoffish. ,two intellectual for his own good. Was kind of a who cold war hawk. He was not a liberal softy. He was someone who believed in vigorous intervention to stop the spread of communism. He was someone who was on the side of, initially the house of unamerican activities committee. Guy. S not in uber liberal it was increasingly clear to him , particularly as the escalation increase to 1966 and 1967 that the war in vietnam was untenable and needed to end. He becomes he joins the race in as the antiwar candidate. A goodr 1967he gains deal of support and by early 1968 he is running very strong and in the ramp up to the New Hampshire primary which then was in early march. The New Hampshire primary mccarthy does not win. He gets over 40 of the vote. It is the moment when johnson, realizes this fringe antiwar candidate obscure antiwar candidate is someone who could potentially be , and also the antiwar sentiment is running so strong that it is not wise for him to run for reelection. Campaign gains steam and a lot of the energy of the Campaign Comes from young people. These Young College people who join on care more about a war in vietnam than any other issue and to have their First Experience in organized politics by jumping on this support of the Mccarthy Campaign. They are encouraged by Campaign Organizers to get clean for jean, meaning cut your hair, shave your beard, where tidy clothes. Do not look like a longhaired, young hippie. Look like a Campaign Worker as a forto increase the support mccarthy beyond just young people in their college dorm room. Asarthy is not the only the Mccarthy Campaign gains steam and becomes clearer and clearer that johnson and his Vice President hubert humphrey, who would be another possible nominee for the 1968 democratic nomination, that they are increasingly hobbled by the war in vietnam. Robert kennedy reconsiders his idea about not getting in the race. Tomiddle of march, too late actually get formally on the ballot for wisconsin. The wisconsin primary coming up, he is aess significant right in candidate and on the ballot for later primaries going forward, kennedy jumps in. Point the by this supporters of Gene Mccarthy, who might have been inclined to support committee the summer havee now have they plighted themselves to Gene Mccarthy and they see kennedy as this johnnycomelately, just getting in on the bandwagon once it gets going. Among the diehard mccarthy supporters there was a great dislike of Bobby Kennedy. Here is a homemade sign in iowa, at a Campaign Rally in these ring in supporting mccarthy. 1968handwritten and marker on the posters bobby go home. Bobby go home. You are either with Gene Mccarthy or Bobby Kennedy. And kennedy and mccarthy did not like each other very much either. Wellfinanced opponent. He would say things like, he plays touch football, but i play football. Atnedy was extremely good calibrating himself to be the larger cultural zeitgeist. Reaching out, not just to College Students, all of whom come in nearly all of whom are white. But reaching out to a Multiracial Coalition of democratic voters, people who had fond memories and loyalties to his brother, john, and to these other members of workingclass members of the roosevelt coalition, the new Deal Coalition to build support around his candidacy. And by the end of march you have johnson realizing he should see he is getting out. It just gets more crazy from there. If that had been all that happened in 1968, that would be enough of a story. But there is so much more that happens that shapes with the elections outcome is, and also where American History goes from there. Including the assassination of Martin Luther king in on april 4, 1968. Transformed a moment that rocks all of ,merican society that becomes as covers devoted to life magazine. The major photojournalistic mass magazine of the day. On the has effects broader contours of the Civil Rights Movement. The Civil Rights Movement that, as we know, is already changing and consist of many different Civil Rights Movements, and ideas about the ways to affect Racial Justice and social justice. The immediate aftermath of the King Campaign is violent. Disordergton dc, civil writing breaks out in africanamerican neighborhoods. There have already been a number riots indisorders, predominantly black neighborhoods in large cities. 1970 f 1965, 1966, 1967. The economic and political frustration of poor black communities overflows after teams assassination. ,obert kennedy has an immediate kind of example of his mastery in the political moment. And also his understanding to the questions of 1968 extend beyond vietnam, extend the on the concerns of White College students, quite frankly. Thehe news came through wire on april 4, he was in indianapolis, indiana campaigning during the indiana primary. ,e gives this impromptu speech he says news has come that dr. King has been killed. He breaks the news around him, a majority minority crowd. Says, i too have a brother had a brother and i lost a brother to the violence. This is a time to end the violence. He gives us very eloquent and impromptu speech. There was not disorder or fires in indianapolis that evening. Getser Bobby Kennedy credit for that is a different matter. Nonetheless, it was an example of his mastery of politics, and his ability to reach out to a broader coalition. In ability that makes many people feel that he would have ultimately been successful, had he lived to become the nominee and the major Party Candidate in november of 1968. Alsoing assassination shifts there are other things that dr. King had started to build that continue. Including the poor peoples campaign, which was another focus on the economic stresses ,oving away from Voting Rights and desegregation of the south and moving towards more broad base economic justice. The month after teams assassination, the march on washington, the poor peoples march on washington that he was organizing and planning, that continued. It was followed in the summer of 1968 by other marches in other cities and in washington. The calls for justice have become more multiracial. You have signs in spanish. You have white people, you have hispanic people, you have africanamerican people and it is more focused around economic issues. Around the broader in justices that are not just in justices that are not just southern problems, they are everywhere. There are new voices in the Civil Rights Movement as well. Former student nonviolent coordinating committee, we talked about him in previous. Ectures a Southern Civil rights organizers. A student who was a leader of the student led Civil Rights Movement of the early 1960s. By the middle of the 1960s some of the student leaders are shifting their focus and shifting their message. That includes Sophie Carmichael in mississippi. The966, 1967, and 1968, language of civil rights has not been about let us sit at your lunch counter, but it is participate in a broader White Society. When that is more strongly separatists, africanists, penn blacknists and message of nationalism. When that says we cannot wait for White Society to get its act together and so much change will be necessary for justice to be achieved that we have to do it with the peaceful and nonviolent means. Here is an example. Carmichael i am bringing up as an example of as one of many leaders on the left as part of an emerging black power movement, but National Movement in the late 1960s. Activists who are coming out of the civil rights in many cases, aople who are articulating reality that is nonviolent and has only going us so far and Voting Rights can only get you so many things. Here he is talking in berkeley in the early 1968 at a rally to support freeing hewing new in, who is a leader of the black Panther Party from oakland who was imprisoned for murder charges after the killing of a white policeman outside of oakland. Gelling andon eventual freeing of him becomes a great cause of the black power movement, also other allies, white and black on the left. Here is, go. They took them from africa and took thousands of minor miles between us, they forgot what is bigger than water. We are wondering in the United States. We will build a concept of peoplehood in the country words where there will be no country. Ofs is a very different type articulation of africanamerican civil rights and rights. It is also accompanied with a e militant stance, but both visually militant and politically militant. The presentation of the black power activists is very different than the civil rights protesters of montgomery bus boycott, or the greensboro citizens of the lunch counters. There are no more suits and ties, there are no more we will make ourselves look like the respectable middleclass people we are. The customers we deserve to be. We are going to be militant and ourill dress to express power and our difference. Our youth, our power, our difference. An image that, again, think about these images are transmitted through print media and Television Media to an audience in 1968. In them images are flashed into living rooms, largely white living rooms. Along with images of civil disorder and predominantly black neighborhoods in nate in major cities. Including, in detroit where some riotingost significant occurs, and most civil disorders happen in detroit in 1967. Black neighborhoods are up in flames and white residents, typically white workingclass residents who feel in danger by this violence are increasingly worried about the violence in their midst. Africanamericans, many who are frustrated with the incompleteness of the civil rights victory. The slowness with which why politicians have responded to the deep and enduring inequities. The segregations in poor neighborhoods. The limited economic opportunities. The limits on housing and jobs. This is, and could the empowering images of black people fighting back, to some other africanamericans activists. To some other africanamerican activists this is disturbing. We got this far because we were nonviolent, we were peaceful, and this type of violence will not advance the cause. And too many whites, ordinary people sitting in their living rooms, watching television, who are already feeling anxious about all of the changes that are going on around them. They see these images and they think, what we need is line order. These images are also coming across at the same time as images of College Students growing their hair long and misbehaving. There is a lot of introduction to the violence they are city desk seeing in city streets. Also the violence they are seeing in other places, and the violence in vietnam. There is very little good news that Walter Cronkite is delivering in 1968. That is what politicians who have line order message us who come out and say, i will clean up the streets. We will reduce crime. We are going to create some order out of this chaos. Have our increasingly potent and convincing. The progenitor of this messaging is Ronald Reagan, who in 1966, and a foreshadowing of what happen in 1968 is elected governor of california. Unsurprisingly california is a place where these two types of first breakout. First on the campus of berkeley in 1964, the free speech movement, mass demonstrations by students on the campus of berkeley against the berkeley administration. Of los the streets angeles, the watts neighborhood going up in flames in 1965 in response to police violence. And in 1966, Ronald Reagan runs against the incumbent, liberal governor, someone who had be in Richard Nixon four years earlier. Running on this message of law and order and bringing order out of chaos. Is important. The people who are running in 1968 take note from that. , lets about disorder talk more about disorder on College Campuses. Again, you have the men and women of the year. This vast number of young people. Young people who are going to college in greater numbers than ever before. Young people who are increasingly attuned to broader social issues. They are caring about what is going on in the america around them. They are seeing a deeply unjust nation. They are seeing in america that acting with brutality across the road, particularly on nations filled with people of color. And post colonial nations. They are mad. Not all of them, but a lot of them. Another thing that really shocks the older generation is, not just the discontent and the marching on the streets. The peaceful and nonviolent protests of these young people, but the increasing violence and disrespect of authority with which these take on. Even in the most elite College Campuses in the nation. So, in april and may, columbian manyrsity is one of places, many colleges campuses across the countrys country that becomes consumed by these protests. The administration of the University Becomes a target of student discontent are not only in the context of the university. Columbia was expanding its campus and expanding into predominantly black neighborhoods and raising the and building new administrative buildings. That became a flashpoint for students who are discontent. It also student discontent that is talking about the war in vietnam. Talking about how Research Universities are complicit in the warmongering machine of the u. S. Government because they are doing military research. They are researching things like chemical weapons. Napalm beingn dropped. Being developed on university campuses. And 1971 on he nine many campuses, including this one, they are increasing protests, and sometime acts of violence against University Properties and violence in which student students are caught up in. Increasingly militant stance of these very privileged young people. These people whose parents are it sooh my god, you have good. You grew up in a town of peace and prosperity. We worked really hard to make sure you can go to this nice school and you are growing your hairline growing your hair long. Face might have been the ise of Young America that the spotter of newspaper headlines. It is the face of Young America that we remember. We think about the 1960s, with the kebab the counterculture, we think about hip. We think about the antiwar left. We think about people growing their hair long, chopping acid and dropping out. Not forget that this was not everybody. At the time,s yes, when the modern left, liberal left comes together, and you have strong leftists movements within and outside formal politics, a push towards but it is also the moment when the modern right is coming together. Because there are also young people on College Campuses, young people in high school, have veryle who different ideas about what america is, and what it should be. They are championing conservative values. Who are not distressing their parents by growing their hair long or doing drugs, but are projecting a more wholesome image. Also more increasingly gravitating towards conservative thinkers and conservative politicians. Barry goldwater to Ronald Reagan and on and on as people who have the answers to what is ailing america. That the solution is not more government, not more freedom for people to do what they want, but the solution is actually less government. The solution is returned to traditional values of church and family and community. So the late 1960s is the beginning of, not only modern politics of the left, but the modern politics of the right. To understand the 1960s as is crazy, long hair hippie and ,veryone was a hippie everything was incredibly powerful. It helps explain how 1968 played out the way it did. So, june begins with an event that completely upends not only the Democratic Political landscape, but the broader Political Landscape of 1960 america, which is the assassination of Bobby Kennedy the night right after he has one the primary california primary. The primary that probably would have secured him a nomination, it got him enough delegates. Kennedy ultimately surges past maccarthy, becomes the candidate to beat in the late spring and early summer. At the evening of triumph, he is struck down by an assassins bullet. This is something that has a devastating effect, not only on the people who were the supporters of robert kennedy, but on a broader public that already had been devastated by other assassinations. Hero after hero is slain. John f. Kennedy, Martin Luther king and now robert f kennedy. Kennedys assassination, just like kings assassination brings a broader national mourning. Now it is for the it throws the democratic nomination into turmoil. It is not clear who can bring them together. Meantime, the Republican Party republicans are debating who will be their nominee. Early summer, it is clear that the person who is going to be the nominee is the most unlikely of candidates. Richard nixon. Why is he unlikely . He is lost, a lot. Kennedy in 1960, narrowly, but he loses. He runs for california governor in 1962, he loses to pat brown, the liberal that Ronald Reagan later defeats four years later. And famously says you are not going to have Richard Nixon to kick around anymore after that. Yet a very adversarial relationship with the press. Enemy and ass the highly adversarial. It is recorded again and again in the history books. The 1960soment of in which heed flustered and television was not kind to him and it was very kind to john f. Kennedy. Was that the reason he lost, no. There are many reasons the election played out the way it did. There are differing interpretations about the magnitude of the debate. That was clear from 1960 is that one thing that Richard Nixon was not good at was television. By 1968 television was more important than ever before. To show up well on television and commute through Television Advertising was the key to gaining political support. And convincing people to come onto your side. His allies are watching what is going on, particularly after reagans victory in 1966. Seeing other potential contenders for the republican nomination fall by the wayside. George romney, father of mitt romney, people who wouldve been likely candidates all of the sudden are not strong possibilities. This is an opening for Richard Nixon. As Richard Nixon makes his great comeback, he is very mindful of what his public image will be. So mindful that it is the subject of satire on the cover of esquire magazine. What does he do, he hires a madison avenue at agency to go the whole Television Presence around him. He hires key aides who are very satellite savvy to deliver a message. Among them being roger goodell, a young aide who goes on to manage fox news. Also among the Campaign Staff is a young Patsy Buchanan who becomes a television pendant and it president ial candidate himself. He is responsible for writing some of the more strongly conservative speeches that nixon gives during the 1968 campaign. Got a really sad that savvy Television Group around him. He builds a public image that is very different from the image that he has in 1960, trying to instance himself from this. Television advertising for a creatively and a way that actually does not foreground him , his his voice that much. Although his voice is there an voiceover that has a series of images that are designed to play on emotions rather than doing a straight, here is my policy page and here is what i will tell you. He is very cutting edge in his use of media in a way that is complete opposite of what he does in 1960. His team makes sure years in a very carefully controlled media environment where if there is a town hall meeting, all of the people have been prescreened and preselected. He will not get anything to out out of the side. He is also keying in the broader in zaidi is the what the public has. He is looking at what reagan did in 1966, and what other republican candidates are doing elsewhere in 1966 and in 1968 to play up to this concern about crime and law and order. He says in may, a great many quiet americans have become committed to answers to social problems that preserve personal freedom. Americans he quiet then famously labels the silent majority. These are the people that he is speaking to. It is a very powerful message. , the silentis majority of more conservative americans and the major challenger is george wallace. George wallace is someone who attention inlot of lake, in part because he is has a strongly populist voice as a candidate in 1968. He had a messaging about personal freedom and antielite message that is very reminiscent of the message that donald trump used so effectively in 2016. Trump and wallace were very different people with a, very different histories. Wallaces campaign, just like trump, appeals to this populous interest and this notion of the people versus the powerful. That these experts and pointy head people who got us into this mess in vietnam and tell us all of these things are good for us, they do not know better. Why do all of these College Professors in washington. Cap bureaucrats know whats what . We should not have these people missing in our lives. Wallace is a southerner. He was a former governor of alabama. Governor inlabama 1958 and lost. He ran as a racial moderate. He learned his lesson from that loss. Morehe needed to be much strident on race and the preservation of segregation. In 1962 he ran again for alabama become aand one and staunch vocal and National Prominent defender of segregation. In rising to national prominence, he was not just speaking to alabama, he was concerned about how states rights were being infringed upon. How local traditions and customs were being infringed upon by new federal mandates. You can listen to some of his speeches, even as governor. In his inaugural address he talks to southerners might have left the south who are seeing all of these changes in the racial order around them and the social order around them, that is not something they are pleased about. By 1968, he has transitioned this message to not talking specifically about racial change, but talking about social disorder, crimes and these line order concerns. He is not talking about race, but he kind of is. Have everyal parties anarchist on the streets. I am not talking about race. Majority ofing races in this country are against the breakdown of law and order. He is talking about the preservation of homeowners rights, low taxes, keeping your community the way it is. He is talking about states rights and speaking against the measures that have been used by the federal government to try and implement an institute a better and fairer racial order in the self and elsewhere. He garners a great deal of support, not just in the south, but in the north as well. Typetype of message is a of harsher and more diluted version of nixons silent majority. Nixon had the softpedal and wallace had the harder edge. By august, he gets to the national convention. We rarely ever hear about the Republicans Convention set happen at the beginning of august. It really did not make much news compared to what happened at the end of august with the democrats in chicago. The republicans came in to their convention with Richard Nixon, it was pretty clear where they were going to go. The democrats come into their convention it is not clear whether the establishment is now led by a personified by hubert humphrey, johnsons Vice President who is now running for the nation had not been in any primaries. He is running for the nomination. We will talk about how the nomination system has changed so much since then. But chicago also becomes a destination for the antiwar left. Here we have a group in new york that is sponsoring buses to go to the convention. It is talking about how tens of thousands will be there to demand an end to the war in vietnam and black america. Racial justice at home and end of the war abroad are twins. They are being linked together by the leftists protesters. Chicago becomes, as the democratic establishment goes down to chicago, so did these many protesters. Violence ensues. Why is this such a meaningful and important event . Television. No more television. You cannot to give a place with more Television Cameras inside and outside the hall that at a National Political convention. Everyone is descendent on chicago. When all of these protesters who are camped out across the city of chicago protesting that war,rats conducted the protesting the injustices for the social order. When they are set upon by the Chicago Police department, at the order of a democratic mayor, Richard Daley who is on the , thisof the convention becomes musty television. The rift in the Democratic Party becomes visibly displayed at the convention at the end of august. Hallave, both within the you have strife within the Democratic Party, and you have violence outside of it. Coming, bruised and battered out of the fray as a nominee that nobody really wanted, except the establishment type
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