George McGovern, an unabashed liberal voice, is dead

[robbob]

134. I was 12 years old

I was 12 when McGovern lost to Nixon. Living in Winnipeg, Manitoba, my main view into American politics was the "Canadian edition" of Time magazine that we received every 2 weeks. After the election I read with great disbelief something that I heard again on NPR today in their eulogy of Senator McGovern; that he lost in a landslide to Nixon because he was against the war in Vietnam.

I had seen the graphic bloody images of the war in the pages of Time; what 12 year old wouldn't be simultaneously fascinated and repulsed by such imagery, and it was on reading this analysis of the Nixon victory that I had an early political epiphany that has followed me throughout my life; American politics and to some extent the American populace was/is completely fucked up.

It was beyond my comprehension how someone could lose an election by being AGAINST such a savage and terrible war. With the graphic evidence right in front of them, a majority of people voted to continue the march into madness. Even to a 12 year old boy it didn't make any sense.

R.I.P., Senator; history will vindicate you, even as it has already.