This Isn't Just Like 1968
I’ve heard and seen several people compare today to 1968 and to suggest that Trump, like Nixon, will benefit from the social unrest to win the election. But this is very different.
Among other things, Trump is not comparable to Nixon. 1968 Nixon was outside of government and capitalized on that, promising to step back in to restore the “law and order” he claimed the current government had failed to provide. He was running against the sitting vice president and, by proxy, the incumbent president, whom he painted as responsible for and unable to contain or correct the mess they created.
Conversely, 2020 Trump is the sitting president who is seen by pretty much everyone as deeply involved in and largely responsible for the chaos. Unlike Nixon, he’s not running against the current regime. He IS the current regime. He can’t promise to give us law and order or to step in and fix the mess because he’s already in position to solve the problem but has failed and refused to do so.
Not only that, but unlike in 1968, it is impossible for him to successfully employ Nixon’s tactic of painting this as anti-American hippies and violent blacks threatening a peaceful, patriotic “silent majority.” That won’t work because the right is widely and correctly seen as a hostile group, prone to violence and disruption just as much and, in fact more than, those on the left.
In 1968, Nixon was able to convince frightened white people that he could protect them. But any white person who believes Trump can protect them is already wearing a MAGA cap. But I am pretty sure that very few white people who feel frightened about what’s going on but haven’t decided to vote for Trump are likely to vote for the man who has proven himself incapable of protecting them from all of this because he himself has caused all of this.
On the other hand, Joe Biden is much more in the position Nixon held in 1968: a former vice president who has stepped back into the arena. He is offering an alternative to the madness we’re engulfed in.
But Biden’s no Nixon – he doesn’t have to fear monger or divide or demagogue about law and order because Trump has already done that and has led us to the brink of disaster. He needs only show us how he plans to return us to decency and competence and honesty and voters on the fence will flock to him.
This is not just like 1968.
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