Relevant history from 1968? [View all]
Lyndon Johnson had been a Senator before be became VP in 1960. He had a reputation for getting things done by wheeling and dealing negotiations in the Senate. That skill served him well as President after the JFK assassination. Johnson got legislation passed on behalf of civil rights for Black Americans, for all poor Americans, and for seniors.
But Johnson had opposition due to Vietnam. I was not voting age yet, but I also opposed the war. But I thought that there was a possibility that Johnson could be persuaded to at least pull back our involvement there. However, Johnson had some very hawkish military brass to deal with, some of the same ones who had tried to push JFK into invading Cuba during the Missile Crisis.
I was 17 years old when I watched President Johnson announce on national TV that he would not seek or accept the nomination for 1968. I remember thinking that he had the body language and demeanor of someone who had been told to announce that decision. Publicly the media said that Johnson declined to run because he was so disturbed by the war himself, which made no sense to me. Why not run again and try to end the war if he was so disturbed by it? Some media pundits said that there was a lack of support in the party for him to run. That made sense to me because there was talk of Dems ready to challenge him as the incumbent.
McCarthy and RFK were the two leading candidates and RFK was murdered when he was in the lead. Humphrey ran instead. He, too, was in favor of winding down our involvement in Vietnam, but the negatives about Johnson from within the party stuck with Humphrey.
With all that party division and chaos, we ended up with Nixon as president.
Party divisions are hurting us now. The opponent today is much worse than Nixon was. The stakes are much higher. But we persist in party disunity AGAIN, as in 1968.
And for weird coincidence, the Dem convention is in the same city this year as it was in 1968. I am not suggesting that there would be the same violence that occurred then. I am only noticing the coincidence of disunity and the same convention location. Is it an omen to get our act together and not switch in midstream?
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