In 1968, the Democratic Party met in Chicago to nominate its candidate for president. The Party was in chaos after the violent deaths of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. While King was not an acknowledged political figure, his non-violent social stance and his views on American involvement in Vietnam was influencing public policies. Perhaps more influential in the forthcoming implosion of the Democratic Party was the death of Robert Kennedy. His politics of idealism, fairness, and equity appealed to both blacks and whites, men and women, and cut across religious doctrine. While it was not a forgone conclusion that he would have been the Democratic candidate after the Chicago convention, most observers, then and now, believed he would have been. Call if fate, destiny, or whatever. His assassination in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on June 5, 1968 changed the Democratic Party, and this country.
King’s death in Memphis, on April 4th of that year, was like a punch to the gut. Tired of generations of unfulfilled promises, blacks took to the streets and vented centuries of frustration. Television brought images of erupting cities into living rooms across the country. Coupled with the emerging protests against American involvement in Vietnam, the middle-class had a front row seat, via their television sets, to what seemed unbridled domestic revolutions.
As mayor of Chicago, Richard Daley did not want his city represented as a lawless metropolis to the world. He requested National Guard troops to keep the peace from potential rabble-rousers. In retrospect, it was a self-fulfilling prophecy as war protestors sought to interrupt the Democratic convention. They didn’t succeed as Lyndon Johnson’s vice president, Hubert Humphrey, received the nomination. Still, millions across the country saw the conflicts between police and protestors on their television sets and wondered allowed why the country was turning upside down.
The Democratic Party seemed the home of lawless hippies intent on destroying the democracy the WWII generation fought to preserve. This became the rallying point for Richard Nixon’s Silent Majority and the cornerstone of his 1968 presidential victory.
The Democratic failure in 1968 wasn’t that simple. Maybe American society would have been more compassionate and inclusive if the Kennedys and King escaped their destinies and lived. We’ll never know. What we do know, however, is the transition of the Democratic Party was complete.
If I hear one more black Republican talk about the Party of Lincoln I think I’ll loose my mind! The Party that favored emancipation did so to punish Democratic slave owners and white supremacists who controlled the Democratic Party from the antebellum period through the Great Depression. The so-called Party of Lincoln abandoned the black electorate during the Progressive Era. Eleanor Roosevelt took advantage of that decision and actively pursued the disadvantaged (minorities and women) during the 1936 political season with promises of an inclusive society.
For twenty years, the disadvantaged faithfully supported the Democratic policies. There were certainly some political victories (including Brown v Board, Voting Rights and Civil Rights Acts) that seemed to indicate an equitable society was just on the horizon. But when Lyndon Johnson seemingly abandoned Great Society initiatives in favor of Vietnam escalation indicated that social equity may have been more rhetoric than initially believed.
Nonetheless, the implosion of the Democratic Party in 1968 allowed the Silent Majority to develop neo-Conservative policies that halted/rolled back many of the social gains from the New Deal and Great Society eras. The presidential administrations of Nixon, Reagan and George H.W. Bush were in essence a counter-revolution to the Leftist policies of the 1950s and 1960s.
Still, fifty years ago the Democratic Party was in turmoil. The evaluation of this tumultuous time is still a matter of interpretation. But today, the Democratic Party is arguably in turmoil again. There’s little question that the ascendency of Trump is a counter-revolution to the presidency of Barack Obama. The Democrats seem unable to deal with the subcurrent of angst and hate seen in many Republicans today (not all, but certainly some).
So maybe it’s just a reality of the world we live in. Sometimes the pendulum swings Left and sometimes it swings Right. So maybe the only truth is what’s found in the Good Book. I might be a bit old fashioned but I believe this journey doesn’t have an end. So turn Left or Right as you wish. As for me, I’m searching that eternal house not built by the hands of man.
See you soon.
PS: Has anyone seen the President’s taxes yet?