So, in discussing my far left ideas with Hillbots, I run into a lot of revisionist history. A big reason I hear democrats can't move left is because George McGovern was too far left and that's why he lost. This is normally an argument for why we can't have Sanders because if he ran he would be the next McGovern. As such, I thought I should set the record straight and argue why this is false.
First of all, 1972 was 44 years ago. The political climate of the time means absolutely nothing in relation to the climate today. You know who became president 44 years before 1972? Herbert Hoover, who was elected in 1928. We didn't even have the great depression or the new deal yet. The gilded age was still in full swing. Imagine if, in the 1970s the republicans argued we couldn't move to far right because Hoover was far to the right? Does that make sense? Because it didn't stop Reagan from rising to prominence in the primary in 1976, or from winning in 1980. Political paradigms shift, and as I've been saying, I believe we are undergoing a party realignment that is, in essence, a reverse of the one that happened back in the 1970s when McGovern lost. So, what relevance does McGovern have on today's political discourse? It should be nothing. A different age, with a different electorate. The youngest people who could even vote for McGovern in 1972 were baby boomers born in the 50s. So people who are 60+ years old today are the YOUNGEST people to vote for McGovern. The country has moved on, there are people today who are grandparents (assuming they had their children young) who weren't even born when McGovern ran for office.
And beyond that, let's look at his campaign itself, starting with his controversial left wing positions. Yes, on economics the guy was basically a basic income supporter like me, but reading the synopsis on his election, I don't get the impression this is what cost him the election. His controversial positions were essentially based around the three As: "amnesty, abortion, and acid." In short, the guy wanted amnesty for draft dodgers from the Vietnam war, which was controversial at the time. He was very anti war to a fault. Yes, the war was controversial at the time, but that is like settled history today. And today, democrats actually favor anti war candidates I think. Obama ran on getting out of Iraq for crying out loud. Would Sanders really be too dovish in the 2016 democratic party today? Probably not. McGovern was for abortion, in an era before Roe v. Wade was decided. This has no relevance on 2016, when abortion is front and center for democrats these days, including Clinton, Obama, and every other democratic politician worth their salt. And "acid" actually referred to wanting to legalize marijuana...something some states are doing, and which I think we will see happen in the coming decades.
What's mysteriously missing from criticisms of McGovern? Economics. Yes, his ideas weren't popular in the face of a booming Nixon economy, but there wasn't a massive outcry about McGovern's basic income ideas. Nixon also wanted a form of basic income in his family assistance plan! The major outcry McGovern faced was over social issues. He was anti war, he was for legalization of marijuana and abortion. I think these positions are right at home in the modern democratic party. I mean these are the kinds of things the Obama coalition came out in support of Obama for. Not marijuana so much, but ending the Iraq War and protecting the right to choose. And democrats tend to get criticized by their base when they start acting like neocons. This is why they lost in part. A wave of enthusiasm came out in response to ending Bush's policies, and one criticism of Obama and Clinton are their continuation of these policies. As such, I think not being McGovern like enough is actually a reason the democrats lose elections these days. The democrats should take some pages from McGovern's platform if they want to win in these changing times.
But wait, McGovern's failures go on beyond his positions. His campaign was an unmitigated disaster on so many levels. He picked a vice president who was undergoing electroshock therapy for depression. This was controversial and hurt his chances a lot. And another big thing that happened, and this is what's REALLY relevant to the 2016 election, is that the establishment had a fit. The democratic establishment didn't like too much democracy in the democratic party. McGovern was basically Bernie Sanders. He was a grass roots inspired peoples' candidate who won the democratic party's primary because he was popular. But this didn't sit well with the establishment class and the donors, who were marginalized at the convention. They lost their power, their clout. So Jimmy Carter, you know, the guy who won in 1976 and imploded the democratic party in his 4 years, led a "stop McGovern" movement at the convention to try to strong arm the delegates into supporting someone other than McGovern. Yes, the democratic establishment, unhappy with the electorate's decision to choose McGovern because they lost their power in the process, basically sabotaged McGovern in their party's convention that year. In the end though, McGovern came out on top.
No one wanted to serve as his vice president. He wanted Ted Kennedy, but he refused along with like a dozen other high profile people, so he ended up with Tom Eagleton, who, as I said above, was under treatment for depression, and this was controversial and hurt his campaign.
After the convention, the establishment wanted nothing to do with his campaign, and many of them started actively supporting Richard Nixon. He didn't do well against Nixon because his anti war policies were too radical for many Americans. Nixon had a more pragmatic approach to ending the war, and that ultimately won out. Combine that with the southern strategy and breaking into the Watergate complex, and McGovern never really had a chance. Not to mention in the final days of the campaign he told a reporter to "kiss his ***", which obviously didn't go over very well.
In the general election, he lost by a landslide. This was in part because Nixon winning a second term was more or less inevitable (he was popular and the party realignment away from the democrats and toward the republicans was in full swing), in part because his social policies were radical for many Americans, and in part because his own establishment turned on him and basically sabotaged him. From here the democratic party moved to the right and the neoliberal branding we see now started to be born, and they then blamed every defeat they had from there on out on the left and used them as an excuse to move further and further to the right.
Speaking of the establishment, do you wonder why the democrats have superdelegates? Well, 1972 was one of the reasons why. After getting their butt kicked for most of the 70s, the democrats decided in 1981, gee, we keep losing because we give the people too much power in choosing the party's nominee. We need to stop that, so let's implement superdelegates so the establishment has more control over the party! So, basically, the democratic establishment not only sabotaged their own party, but in response to their own defeats, blamed the voters (sound familiar?) and changed the rules to ensure the the "right" people had more power to make all the decisions and override the will of the people when necessary. And that's how we got the cluster**** that we ended up with today. And they still lost, outside of Bill Clinton and Obama.
So what can we learn from this?
Well, the democratic establishment clearly has a case of revisionist history here. And quite frankly, I think they're full of crap and need to shut up already. Yes, McGovern was too far left in some ways, but you need to understand the context of the times. The democratic party was falling apart after 1968, and there was an increased demand for right wing politics not seen since before FDR (remember when I made that comparison to Hoover earlier in the thread? and how appealing to someone who ran 44 years ago isn't relevant?). And America was very socially conservative back then. A radical anti war person who wanted people to be able to smoke pot and get abortions went over like a led balloon with the socially conservative populace. But notice how his economic policies, the part of his platform Sanders gets flak for, had little to do with his defeat. It was a different time. Both parties were debating basic income in the early 70s, and they both undermined each other on the issue and nothing got done. The real problems with McGovern's platform aren't that radical by today's party's standards. Being anti war is seen as a plus, and is arguably what propelled Obama to office. People didn't want to stay in Iraq. They wanted out. McCain was talking of being there for 100 years and we didn't want anything to do with that. If you aren't pro choice as a democrat these days you're probably not going to be very popular. And marijuana, while controversial, is supported by some democrats. I think many of us are willing to admit that the war on drugs is a failure.
The real lesson to learn is for us lefties. Never underestimate how badly the democrats can screw up and then blame their voters. I admit, in 1972 the democrats probably didn't have a chance. People liked Nixon. The democratic party was in shambles. And it was shambles long after they implemented superdelegates to ensure they control the party too. But the democratic establishment had a hissy fit because they didn't control the show, so they did everything they could to sabotage McGovern. They tried to stop his nomination at the convention, and then the high profile figures who could have added something to the ticket refused to turn out for him. The democratic party did to McGovern more or less something similar to what they did to Sanders, except in 1972, the "Sanders" figure won. Next time some establishment shill brings up McGovern, make sure you shove that in their face. That they sabotaged their own candidate and then, in the long term, blamed the voters for it. Even though that didn't work out for them either.
I mean, think about it. Did Mondale win? No. Did Dukakis win? No. Clinton won by running to the center, sure, and Hillary Clinton seemed to try to cash in on her husband's legacy here. But that seemed to be a one time thing in a long history of failures. I mean Gore and Kerry did the same thing and it didn't work out for them. The democrats didn't win again until 2008 when we finally got a charismatic candidate the people could get behind. Gee, imagine that. They won because a candidate actually appealed to their voters. And as someone who spent the first 2 years of his presidency demonizing him, let me just say how controversial he was at the time. The dude had little experience, and he came off as very far left. Many people legitimately saw Obama as a threat to the American way of life. He was, by any measure, "too far left". But he WON. TWICE. And people loved him, until they got fed up with him being a doormat to the republicans, which is where we are now.
Charisma wins elections. Having a message that resonates wins elections. It wasn't that the people had too much power, and it wasn't (too much, at least after Bill Clinton) that the party had to move to the right. This election should show the opposite, that people hate how oligarchical that the democratic party has become, and how it doesn't serve our interests. And you know what? Many of us stayed home or voted third party. But back to the past. The democratic losing streak continued for a whole decade after they implemented superdelegates, and they lost about half the elections since 1992, so even WITH the establishment in charge, the democratic party didn't fare any better.
The democrats acting this way is why we can't have nice things. The democratic establishment has to do things their way, or we get nothing at all. It's always the voters' fault, never their fault. The big message of McGovern seems to be this: the democratic establishment treats their voters with contempt. And this isn't new. This is actually a process that's been going on for decades. The democrats blamed their voters back in the 70s for giving us McGovern. As if it's our fault he lost when they outright sabotaged him, and Nixon winning a second term was inevitable anyway. And then they blamed us for 2000, when Gore lost. And now they're trying to blame us again.
This history lesson really makes me think the democrats don't want to learn. That they are corrupt. That they will sink their own party if they don't get their way. They can't have a peoples' candidate. They have complete and utter contempt for their voters. And this is one of the reasons why they lose. They try to pin it on us, but it's really on them. So no, the lessons we should be drawing from 1972 aren't the lessons aren't the lessons the democratic party framed it as. It wasn't that he was too far left on economics. If he was too far left on anything it was social issues, which are far less controversial today. When the democrats tell us we can't run a far left candidate, they're not really saying it for electability reasons. They're actually saying "we won't run a far left candidate and if you try we'll sabotage him, so sit down, shut up, and settle for what we are willing to give you, or else." They're basically using McGovern as an excuse to tell you that you can't have someone to the left of them, when in reality, they won't LET you have anyone to the left of them. Don't give in, guys. We need to reform the democratic party to be a party for the people again, or the democratic party needs to be replaced with a party that actually does care about their voters.
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