“History Is Bunk!”—Henry Ford

Progressives forgot that their beloved 60s student protests, for all their nobility and well intentioned motives, not only failed in their goal (Vietnam continued) but also doomed Democrats at the national level to more than two decades of failures.

1968-1992 consisted of… https://t.co/zJ37YOIw0U

— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) April 23, 2024

Not that many progressives in charge of the Democrats, actually. Daley was responsible for the police riot in ‘68 (hey! They were on private property, right? Or something.) Conservatives nominated Humphrey over McCarthy (who was hardly seen as being as radical as McGovern). I’ll give you the assaults on LBJ over Vietnam (he was terrible), and not giving him any credit for civil rights and his Great Society legislation (Medicare was a small part of it). 

But Reagan was the snake oil salesman Trump wanted to be. His career was little more illustrious than Trump’s TeeVee stint, but Reagan hosted “Death Valley Days,” which increased his name/face recognition. And frankly, the Democratic nominees between Carter and Clinton weren’t that memorable.

Reagan also launched his campaign from Philadelphia, Mississippi, rather than California. A clear sign he wasn’t going to continue the legacy of civil rights, especially when there were welfare queens to blame for excessive government spending on the “wrong” people.

It was a reaction to the’60’s, not the legacy of blinkered progressives. It carried right through Clinton’s eight years, where he carefully disavowed being a “child of the ‘60’s,” and Gingrich claimed Reagan’s mantle. And the heir of Gingrich is…Trump. And MTG. Except Reagan and Gingrich both knew how to make government work.

Yes, we had only one Republican President between 1932 and 1968. But by ‘68 the differences between the Democrats and the GOP were truly academic.(HHH ran more like Gore 30 years later, than LBJ ran like the heir to JFK.) And the American public didn’t really like all the radical changes in American life between ‘45 and ‘67. I wouldn’t blame that on college students on a few campuses. I mean, you might as well blame Beatniks, Daddy-O.