Despite its political and ideological faults, the modern Democrat Party has ironclad discipline. No matter how outrageous or unpopular the Left’s issues with voters, the party bosses regularly keep the rank-and-file in line and impose the agenda.
But this is a relatively new phenomenon. Just several decades ago, the Democrat Party was in chaos. In fact, what is now the ideological core of the party started out as a revolutionary force that tore the party apart and then spent decades rebuilding it.
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The radical change in the Democrat Party was a two-step process. In 1968, the old order collapsed. The establishment lost the ability to define the party. Then, in 1972, the radicals took over and began to shape it into the party of Big Government Socialism, woke cultural values, and weakness and appeasement in national security and foreign policy.
The Republican transition from the old Eastern-establishment dominated party to the new conservative-dominated party was a decisive event in 1964. As I wrote in the last essay, the rise of Barry Goldwater and the disarray of his moderate opponents led to what Theodore H. White called “a coup.” The Goldwater movement had taken over the core of the GOP in one decisive campaign.
The Democrats, who had been the dominant party since 1932, had a longer, messier — and, in some ways, more painful — transition.
President Lyndon Johnson faced an increasingly complicated and widespread challenge to his leadership and to the party establishment that backed him. His strong support for civil rights alienated southern conservative Democrats and northern blue-collar workers who felt threatened by the rising power of the black community.
At the same time, despite all the progress Johnson had made in desegregation and strengthening the civil rights of African Americans, there was growing discontent with the lack of equal results (despite securing equal rights). Even Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was becoming more radical in his Chicago outreach than he had been while fighting segregation in the South. (READ MORE from Newt Gingrich: The Destruction of the Family Was Not Inevitable)
In some ways, Johnson had created a two-front war between white and black society — and he could not find a formula to satisfy either one. His support for the Vietnam War and his inability to articulate why it mattered was arousing a militant anti-war movement, which, at its margins, was beginning to shift from anti-war to anti-American.
Johnson’s Great Society program (with its higher taxes, bigger bureaucracy, expansion of government dependence, and greater centralization of power in Washington) was beginning to threaten and alienate small businesses, local government officials, fiscal conservatives, and Americans who believed deeply in self-sufficiency, opportunity, and the work ethic.
As an example of Washington-centered federal activism in the Johnson years, in the 89th Congress alone, the Johnson White House submitted 87 legislative proposals to Congress — and 84 of them became law. It was a level of activism and aggressive federal intervention that unnerved a lot of Americans while deeply pleasing specific interest groups.
Ultimately, Johnson simply could not explain what he was doing in a way convincing to most Americans. His cultural traditionalism — and even his Texan accent — grated on the emerging elements of the young emerging counterculture lifestyles, language, and attitudinal radicalism. They clearly weren’t part of his world, and he wasn’t part of theirs.
So, Johnson won one of the greatest electoral- and popular-vote majorities in history and created a huge structure of bureaucratic change under the Great Society. But backlash was beginning to grow that would eventually tear apart his Democrat Party, the oldest in the world (dating back to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison visiting Aaron Burr in New York in 1791).
Even in 1964, at the height of Democrat victory, there were glimmerings of the fight to come in 1968. On the one front, Gov. George Wallace of Alabama received 43 percent of the vote in the Maryland primary. On the other, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party organized an alternative slate of 68 delegates and alternatives (four of them white Mississippi activists).
The issue of whether to seat a black alternative to the traditional segregationist Democrat delegation from Mississippi became the most emotional drama of the 1964 Democratic National Convention. The debate over this delegation drove home the reality of segregation and how violently blacks had been blocked from voting in Mississippi.
Hubert Humphrey and other leaders forged a compromise that seated two black delegates and established a rule for the 1968 Democratic National Convention. No state that blocked blacks from voting could be seated. However, the compromise was overwhelmed by the invasion of the convention floor by the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party delegation, which had made counterfeit passes and illegally occupied the Mississippi delegation seats for three hours. The entire nation observed a party in conflict.
The problems in 1964 came when Johnson was at his strongest. His hallmark spending program was creating massive inflation. This led to a 1966 midterm election that showed a remarkable rebound for the Republicans. In the House, Republicans gained 47 seats. In the Senate, they gained three. They also picked up seven governorships, including attractive potential presidential candidates such as Nelson Rockefeller, George Romney, and William Scranton.
Things got worse for Johnson and the Democrats after the midterm elections. The Vietnam War created a bitter, emotional anti-war backlash pulling in young Americans. Johnson refused to win the emotional debate by rousing the country against North Vietnamese communism and its atrocities. He was afraid an all-out focus on the war would destroy his domestic efforts to develop the Great Society. Many young people found themselves engaged in a moral cause against killings they opposed and a war they regarded as a threat to their lives and their country’s moral standing. (READ MORE from Newt Gingrich: Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society Cripples America)
While Goldwater was propelled by a conservative movement, Sen. Eugene McCarthy found himself drawn into presidential politics by a grassroots movement on the left dedicated to ending the war and stopping the killing. Johnson initially shrugged off the McCarthy challenge because he was convinced the establishment system of people such as Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago would carry him to victory.
Then, on Jan. 30, 1968, the North Vietnamese and their Vietcong allies used the Tet holidays to launch a nationwide offensive across all of South Vietnam. Americans who had been told we were winning the war suddenly saw horrifying scenes on television as the Communists attacked throughout the country, including the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. This convinced millions of Americans that they had been misled about progress in the war. The North occupied the key historic city of Hue, and it took a month of urban warfare for the Americans to finally recapture it.
The most respected American newsman, Walter Cronkite, went to Vietnam. In a special report on Feb. 27, 1968, he concluded:
[I]t seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate….
[I]t is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.
Johnson was shattered by Cronkite’s direct, clear repudiation of the prospect for victory. As the president said, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.” Suddenly the anti-war movement exploded.
Just two weeks after the Cronkite report, on March 12, 1968, Sen. McCarthy did surprisingly well in the New Hampshire primary (42 percent for McCarthy to 48 percent for Johnson). McCarthy’s strong vote was powered by college students from across the country who had come to New Hampshire to campaign for the anti-war candidate. It was a sign of things to come as students increasingly mobilized against “Lyndon Johnson’s War.”
Nineteen days after the New Hampshire primary, Johnson announced that he would not be a candidate in 1968. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy promptly entered the race, splitting the anti-war movement and embittering McCarthy and his student allies, who saw themselves as having done all the hard work. In a sign of the scale of the student rebellion, more than 8,000 students campaigned for McCarthy in Wisconsin alone. An army of dissent was growing. In Wisconsin, McCarthy beat Johnson 56.2 percent to 34.6 percent. The Democrat establishment was losing the next generation.
Hubert Humphrey, who had been a crusading liberal long before McCarthy or Kennedy had gotten into politics, now found himself trapped as Johnson’s vice president. His natural allies on the left were all anti-war. They wanted an acknowledgement that only a negotiated peace was possible. The source of Humphrey’s power, Johnson, distrusted him and kept him on a short leash. The president was willing to ensure Humphrey would be the Democrat presidential nominee — but only if he stuck with Johnson on the war.
The gap between the grassroots anti-war forces and Humphrey grew larger. Someone once commented that the television cameramen were virtually all anti-war. It was almost impossible to find attractive photos of Humphrey because they deliberately took pictures to make him look bad.
In the spring, human disasters sent the national into further division and turmoil. First, Martin Luther King was murdered in Memphis on April 4, 1968. His death sparked a week of riots in many cities. Then, on June 6, 1968, just as he was winning the California primary, Sen. Bobby Kennedy was killed by a Palestinian communist in the kitchen of Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California.
In a glimpse of the future, Sen. George McGovern, whose state of South Dakota had voted for Kennedy the day he was killed, became the candidate for the Kennedy delegates as the Democrats moved toward their convention in Chicago. As the convention approached, Democrats faced a three-way split in the 36-year dominant Roosevelt coalition.
The surging anti-war movement gained increasing energy and popularity. It was challenging head on the policies of the Democrat president. The emotional appeal to millions of Americans threatened to split the Democrat Party and deprive its nominee any chance to win the general election. Democrats also had a growing element of the news media on their side and sympathetic to their cause. Some journalists were skeptical of or hostile to the forces that opposed the Democrats.
The traditional establishment of party bosses and leaders was mostly still supporting President Johnson and, therefore, his leadership on Vietnam. Since most of that establishment had power bases independent of national public opinion, it was not particularly concerned by or sympathetic to the anti-war movement. This was the foundation for Humphrey’s nomination. He could not accommodate the anti-war movement too overtly without losing the support of President Johnson and the establishment base.
In addition to the anti-war movement, there was substantial opposition to the liberalism of the Democrat Party on issues of race, crime, and supporting the unemployed. The resentment was largely among Southern whites, but it was growing among working-class whites in the North — and especially in the Midwest. Gov. Wallace was the symbolic leader of this mood. He was totally unacceptable to the larger Democrat Party and the national news media, but he was increasingly attractive to working-class Democrats who would not vote Republican but no longer wanted to vote for an increasingly liberal Democrat Party.
The Democratic National Convention in Chicago unfolded — and then exploded — in ways that made Humphrey’s campaign vastly more difficult. America was changing, moving toward more openness, popular engagement, and citizen input.
Further, Humphrey really had no standing in the primaries. McCarthy had won six primaries and 2.9 million votes (38.7 percent). Kennedy had won four primaries before his death (including California) and received 2.3 million votes (30.6 percent). By contrast, Humphrey had won contested primaries and received only 116,463 votes (2.2 percent). The rest of the votes had gone to favored sons such as Sens. George Smathers in Florida and Stephen Young in Ohio.
Still, Humphrey was clearly the candidate of the conventions and the boss-controlled states. The year 1968 was the last time the insiders would be able to nominate a candidate. Their power was being diluted by changes by the Convention Rules Committee. The establishment-insider nature of the 1968 convention was further reinforced by where it was being held.
Chicago was the last great political machine, and Mayor Richard Daley was the last clearly dominant political boss in office. As one reporter from New York commented when sent to cover Daley’s operation, “I have seen the past, and it works.”
Daley ran the city with an iron fist. He was proud of his police force and determined to crush any anti-war demonstrators who wanted to undermine the positive impact of the convention. Unfortunately, Daley was a pre-television politician who had no idea how barbaric crushing dissent would look to people in their living rooms.
The anti-war effort was led by brilliant tacticians who understood the communications world that was emerging. They wanted to force confrontations with the police. They knew that the news media would inevitably favor them over the authorities. People back home simply would not understand the police beating students.
Starting the weekend before the convention, the anti-war activists were heckling and maneuvering around and against the police. With each passing day, the tension and anger grew. The Chicago police were not used to being confronted by people who challenged their authority instead of obeying it. What ultimately occurred after several nights of heckling and demonstrating was what came to be called “a police riot.” Policemen were running down streets beating and arresting demonstrators and sometimes innocent bystanders. The American people, courtesy of television, were experiencing tension inside the convention and bloody chaos outside the building.
Sen. Abraham Ribicoff of Connecticut captured the reaction to the Chicago Police violence when he nominated McGovern: “[W]ith George McGovern as President of the United States, we wouldn’t have to have Gestapo tactics in the streets of Chicago! With George McGovern we wouldn’t have a National Guard.” His words aroused boos from much of the convention, including Daley, who was gesturing and yelling. Ribicoff responded, “How hard it is to accept the truth.” All of this was captured on camera. The country was watching the Democrat Party come apart at the seams.
The establishment that had largely governed the party from 1932 through 1968 was now discredited and in complete retreat. It no longer had respect or authority. In fact, the emerging energetic and morally driven leftist wing of the party despised, actively undermined, and wreaked the establishment. The age of party bosses as national leaders was over — although they retained power in their local communities.
Vice President Humphrey limped out of the convention with a party that had lost its right wing. At the same time, its establishment center and anti-war Left were bitterly angry at one another. While Humphrey had to focus on bringing together the Democrats who had not defected, he was also confronted with the growing possibility of defeat. Gov. Wallace was mounting a nationwide third-party candidacy on a scale not seen since Theodore Roosevelt led the Bull Moose ticket in 1912.
Wallace and his team were professional, dedicated, and hard-working. They were mastering the challenge of getting on ballots as a third party. They were the first refuge for a surprising number of Robert Kennedy’s supporters after his assassination. Their anti-government rhetoric attracted a far wider audience than an appeal to racial politics would have acquired.
For a while in September, it looked as though Wallace would grow into a genuine third-party threat. At the end of September, Humphrey broke with Johnson on Vietnam and came out with a much more anti-war, pro-negotiation, and pro-peace position in a speech in Salt Lake City. Humphrey’s own liberalism and close ties to many of the anti-war Democrats led him naturally to a more anti-war position than Johnson wanted. In effect, Humphrey was moving from the establishment that had nominated him toward the energy and drive of the anti-war movement that had opposed him.
The strength and emotions of the anti-war Democrats began to give Humphrey a real boost going into October. It was clear where the future of the Democrat Party lay. The establishment had been shattered, and President Johnson was its last effective national leader. Humphrey’s shift toward the left also guaranteed that more moderate Democrats and independents would begin to consider supporting Nixon.
Wallace’s strong campaign in September began to fade in October as people realized that his vice-presidential nominee, Gen. Curtis LeMay, was willing to use nuclear weapons with a frighteningly cavalier attitude. (The Wallace–LeMay press conference where this came out is worth watching just to see the horror on Wallace’s face as he listens to the calm acceptance of nuclear war by his running mate.)
In the end, Humphrey simply could not overcome the chaos of his own party; nation-wide exhaustion with the war, big bureaucracy, and inflation; and the bitterness that had split up many friendships.
On Election Day, Richard Nixon won by 511,944 votes out of a total of 72.9 million. He received 43.4 percent to Humphrey’s 42.7 and Wallace’s 13.5. The margin was stronger than it looked. Virtually every poll showed that if Wallace had not been in the race, the majority of his vote would have gone to Nixon.
If 1964 had been a coup in which conservatives took over the GOP, 1968 began a revolution in which the left wing collapsed the Democrat establishment. The second phase would come in 1972, when the left wing completely dominated the Democrat Party.
But that story is for the next essay.
This is the 11th installment in a series by Speaker Gingrich on American despotism. Listen to The American Spectator’s exclusive interview with the Speaker here. Find the first in the series here, the second here, the third here, the fourth here, the fifth here, the sixth here, the seventh here, the eighth here, the nineth here, and the 10th here. For more commentary, visit Gingrich360.com.
