Post by Max on Sept 1, 2023 15:14:43 GMT
I’m surprised that there is rarely speculation about Nixon winning in 1960 – after all, it was a very close race, and arguably only won for the Democrats by corrupt vote counting in Illinois and Texas.
I suppose it’s because Nixon did get into office eight years later and so we assume that we know what his presidency would have been like. But would it have been the same? We know that Nixon became embittered and was driven by his grudges, but might he have been different if he’d been elected in 1960 never knowing defeat? Maybe he would have been a more optimistic figure and as the first president born in the 20th century might he have assumed some Camelot mystique of his own?
I imagine that his economic policy wouldn’t have been too different from Kennedy’s, so would presumably have similarly benefitted from tax cuts and growth. I doubt he’d have made the same errors around the Bay of Pigs, and as a less callow figure would probably not have been tested by the Soviets with the Cuban Missile Crisis, but I assume he would have escalated Vietnam in the same way that we sadly know.
The real hinge difference might have been civil rights. Although Nixon wasn’t exactly a SJW, he was a smart politician who could sense social trends. And if he had won in 1960, he would have done it without the support of Dixiecrats who still made up the Democratic solid south. Kennedy did target black voters effectively and won about 70% of their support, but the possibility would have existed for President Nixon to pursue a civil rights agenda.
If he had done this (albeit I can’t imagine that it would have been as expansive as the legislation that LBJ was able to get through Congress), might Nixon have captured the moment and the enduring support of African Americans to the GOP? Might the segregationists have remained within the Democratic Party? Might even today there be a portrait of Nixon hanging in tribute over the mantle in many African American homes?
If Nixon rather than Kennedy/Johnson had become the legislative face of the civil rights movement it is impossible to imagine that the US party coalitions of today would look anything like they do. Could Nixon have followed this path, or would his personal demons, his bigotries and the challenges of passing civil rights legislation without the extraordinary opportunities of post-assassination LBJ have made this impossible?
And what might an America look like without the traumas of the JFK assassination and Watergate? Would there greater trust in politicians or was that erosion inevitable in a modernising media landscape?
I’ve probably thrown too many questions out, but I think this was a real moment where a different path could quite plausibly have been followed, with massive consequences.
I suppose it’s because Nixon did get into office eight years later and so we assume that we know what his presidency would have been like. But would it have been the same? We know that Nixon became embittered and was driven by his grudges, but might he have been different if he’d been elected in 1960 never knowing defeat? Maybe he would have been a more optimistic figure and as the first president born in the 20th century might he have assumed some Camelot mystique of his own?
I imagine that his economic policy wouldn’t have been too different from Kennedy’s, so would presumably have similarly benefitted from tax cuts and growth. I doubt he’d have made the same errors around the Bay of Pigs, and as a less callow figure would probably not have been tested by the Soviets with the Cuban Missile Crisis, but I assume he would have escalated Vietnam in the same way that we sadly know.
The real hinge difference might have been civil rights. Although Nixon wasn’t exactly a SJW, he was a smart politician who could sense social trends. And if he had won in 1960, he would have done it without the support of Dixiecrats who still made up the Democratic solid south. Kennedy did target black voters effectively and won about 70% of their support, but the possibility would have existed for President Nixon to pursue a civil rights agenda.
If he had done this (albeit I can’t imagine that it would have been as expansive as the legislation that LBJ was able to get through Congress), might Nixon have captured the moment and the enduring support of African Americans to the GOP? Might the segregationists have remained within the Democratic Party? Might even today there be a portrait of Nixon hanging in tribute over the mantle in many African American homes?
If Nixon rather than Kennedy/Johnson had become the legislative face of the civil rights movement it is impossible to imagine that the US party coalitions of today would look anything like they do. Could Nixon have followed this path, or would his personal demons, his bigotries and the challenges of passing civil rights legislation without the extraordinary opportunities of post-assassination LBJ have made this impossible?
And what might an America look like without the traumas of the JFK assassination and Watergate? Would there greater trust in politicians or was that erosion inevitable in a modernising media landscape?
I’ve probably thrown too many questions out, but I think this was a real moment where a different path could quite plausibly have been followed, with massive consequences.
