A campaign that makes the political turmoil of 1968 look good

[Lodestar]

“History doesn’t repeat itself,” Mark Twain is supposed to have said, “but it does rhyme.”

There is rare agreement, on the left and the right, that the 2016 presidential election season is looking to be a repeat of Democratic Party’s 1968 race.

There was a bitterly fought primary campaign that year, with fierce public debates over the Vietnam War, race relations and law and order. The campaign led to a divisive and volatile Democratic National Convention in Chicago, with clashes between antiwar protesters and club-swinging cops in the streets outside the arena, and protests inside the hall over both the war and the mayhem outside.

The resulting split in Democratic ranks, plus the widespread public belief that the country was coming apart at the seams, led to Republican Richard M. Nixon’s win in November. The GOP went on to win the White House in all but one of the next half-dozen elections.

This time around, however, it is Republicans who seem most vulnerable to splintering after a fevered primary season. The Donald Trump insurgency is defying the best efforts of the GOP establishment to steer primary voters to other candidates. This seems a dire threat to Trump’s adopted party’s prospects — not only in the November election, but also potentially for decades to come.

Trump’s supporters, like many liberal anti-war Democratic primary voters did in 1968, view the race in apocalyptic terms. They will not easily be persuaded to cast their votes strategically for another nominee should a “brokered convention” in July deny the current GOP front-runner the nomination.

cont'd
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2016/03/08/a-campaign-that-makes-the-political-turmoil-of-1968-look-good/

[merrily]

1. What led to Nixon's victory was selection of Humphrey by party bosses and the decision to market him

as a conservative in a misguided attempt to hold onto Southern States, even though Wallace was running third party. Plus, Humphrey was associated with Johnson's Vietnam War policies.

Humphrey entered the race too late to enter primaries. Robert Kennedy was shot immediately after winning the California primary. His run had taken away from McCarthy. Badda boom badda bing. Victory to Nixon, a World War II vet, a former Congressman and a former Senator from California, with two terms as VP under a World War II hero.

What do you expect when party bosses deceive and force a "conservative" warrior prince on the people?

[bemildred]

2. +1. Yes, indeed.

That led to Eugene McCarthy and split the Democrats badly. Many at the time thought that was done intentionally in order to keep control of the party apparatus, which they would have lost for good.

[bemildred]

3. Citizens United is only 15% of the political cash problem

Campaign finance is arguably the breakout issue of this election year. Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton both rail constantly against Citizens United, the Supreme Court decision that opened up election spending to corporations and super PACs. On the GOP side, candidates' super PACs have garnered as much news media scrutiny as the candidates themselves.

This might seem like music to the ears of those who worry about how money dominates politics. But Citizens United is only the harmony, not the melody of that tune. The much greater threat to America's hallowed system of self-government remains the day-to-day routine of “hard money” fundraising.

Hard money refers to contributions given directly to a candidate's campaign, not to “outside” political groups such as super PACs. Even with a cap on these contributions of $2,700 per individual, such donations constitute the bulk of political spending. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, of the $3.7 billion spent in the 2014 congressional midterms, super PACs, nonprofits and other outside spenders made up around $560 million, or roughly 15%. In contrast, $1.5 billion, or 42%, was spent by candidates themselves, with the rest left to party committees.

Two other inside-the-Beltway terms — call time and the cash committee — illustrate why hard money is the core problem.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-penniman-potter-political-campaign-finance-reform-20160308-story.html#nt=barker&bn=Barker%2006%20-%20In%20Case%20You%20Missed%20It

[merrily]

4. Agree that campaign finance is a sea change issue in this election. There are several sea change

issues, including the frontrunner copying from the underdog!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1280109865

[bemildred]

5. People babble on about the supremacy of the profit motive, and then they SOMEHOW don't understand

that that applies to political money too. If you want a fair political process, you must prevent people from buying and selling it.

[merrily]

6. They understand just fine.

[bemildred]

7. Yeah they do. nt

[Peace Patriot]

8. This is such rot, from Rotters!

The Democratic Convention in Chicago in 1968 came unglued for one reason and one reason only: OUR BEST CANDIDATE WAS ASSASSINATED!

Just like his brother, only five years earlier.

Robert Kennedy, once a "Cold Warrior," was leading the anti-war movement in the Democratic Party and in the country. He was running a world peace and pro-social & economic justice campaign like his assassinated brother would have run in 1964, if he had lived.* Robert was even more charismatic than his brother, and was absolutely on his way to the White House after winning the California primary, the night he was shot.

So, in a period of only five years, we were deprived, by assassination, of our best leaders--including, in between the first two, Martin Luther King who was also assassinated, and had also come out against the war a year before.

The sick fucks who did this*, and who were slaughtering TWO MILLION people in Southeast Asia, with nearly 60,000 U.S. soldiers killed and tens of thousands wounded and disabled for life, tried to shove THEIR war candidate down our throats--that part is true--and we had nobody--NOBODY--to champion the creation of a better country. There was nothing TO do but PROTEST. There was literally nothing else we could do.

To compare this crushing, heartbreaking loss of an entire generation, and all of its hopes and dreams, and the loss by assassination of its three most important, most viable, most admirable political leaders, to the bilious billionaire Donald Trump and his nazi rallies of privileged white men is the height of cynicism. I've come to expect nothing less from Rotters, but I still find it disgusting.

The Democratic Party establishment abandoned the people of this country at that time. That WAS the split that we are seeing now. It took about of decade for the abandonment to be complete, which, among other things (Reaganomics, union-busting, et al) has resulted in this, today: Hillary Clinton now has Henry Kissinger as her adviser! Kissinger, the architect of the second half of the slaughter in Vietnam, spread to Cambodia and Laos. And not only Kissinger, Clinton also has Robert Kagan, architect of the Bushwhack "Project For a New American Century" as her adviser! Given these advisers, it is no surprise to me that Clinton supported the war on Iraq, and created further disasters (Libya, Syria, Honduras) as Secretary of State.

And we are supposed to choose this because of Trump? I guarantee you that when my generation (in our 60s and 70s now) finds out who is advising Hillary Clinton, it's all over for her. Even I didn't know this before a few weeks ago, though I try to stay informed. There are plenty of good reasons to oppose Clinton, but this beats all: The 1960s all over again, with a Democrat once again throwing our young people as "cannon fodder" into a war that is nothing but war profiteering, and throwing our treasury and our democracy into the flames after them.

History may repeat itself, but it never does so exactly. Themes recur, and each time we are presented with choices for the greater good, or not. The choice this time is to reject the Democratic Party establishment, as it is now constituted, and send Bernie Sanders to the White House, to reform our government and our political system. And if the DNC establishment continues to blockade this choice, they are ASKING either for 1968 to happen again, this year or soon, or--more likely on this turn of the wheel--to become irrelevant--a mere Tory party with a liberal tinge.

Our children and grandchildren want to be part of a good and decent society, as we did when we were young. From what I've seen, they may succeed where we failed.

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*(Very important book: "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters," by James Douglass (2007).)