Today's political climate reminds me of the Sixties, but with the political roles reversed. If history repeats itself, maybe sometimes it does so in a mirror. As with any comparison of such divergent eras and parties, however, the notion that Republicans of 2010 resemble Democrats of 1968 is only valid in very limited ways. I acknowledge in advance that the contrasts between the two are far greater than the similarities.
Please do not misunderstand what follows. My point is not who is right or wrong. I believe Democrats and liberal/progressive ideas are right. What I do see are some possible similarities in the political effects of having a major political party associated with violence in the minds of a majority of Americans. Whether that association is rightly or wrongly applied is not the issue I am focusing on.
That said, there's more below the crease.
In 1968, Democrats found themselves in a mess. The conservative "Dixiecrat" wing of the party was falling away as the South morphed from blue to red after the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of the Johnson presidency. The country was in a mess. We were embroiled in an unpopular and costly war (both in human and monetary terms) that was caused by the lies of a Democratic administration. At the same time we were embarking on an ambitious and (IMHO) necessary, but often flawed, Great Society agenda. LBJ, the sitting president and presumed nominee of the Democratic Party after his landslide 1964 victory, read the handwriting on the wall (and within the Democratic Party it was written by the left hand and said, "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?") and declined to run for a second term. The party was polarized between its left and its center and right, and the country was polarized, with frustration over Vietnam beginning to boil over on the left while dissatisfaction in the center and on the right grew over the racial, cultural, and sexual revolutions that were permeating society.
Ultimately, it was the left that seemed to produce most of the "domestic terrorists" (bombers and violent splinter groups) that marked the era--Kent State, Jackson State, "hard hat" rioting, Nixon war crimes, and the Milk assassination notwithstanding. In the mind of the American public, fairly or unfairly, liberals came to be associated with the likes of the Weather Underground, the Symbionese Liberation Army, and the Black Panthers. Much of the country dismissed the left as a bunch of dirty, f*#king hippies (DFHs).
After narrowly losing in 1968, the Democratic Party lurched to the left in response to "law and order" Nixon, who, far from ending the war as promised, secretly expanded it into Laos and Cambodia. The result was the nomination of George McGovern, seen--again--fairly or unfairly, by the vast majority of the country as too far to the left, out of touch with the mainstream, and a captive of those radical, terrorizing DFHs. Republicans have stuck with that meme ever since, always associating liberals with William Ayers (although not always in his name). Ask Obama and Kerry.
Now before anybody has an aneurysm, let me say that I was a DFH then, I voted for McGovern, and I was (and am) a liberal. I am also non-violent. So was practically everyone else in America who agreed with me. I didn't own a gun then (or now) and I certainly wasn't making bombs. The number of people who did that were miniscule.
I did, however, engage in violent, profane, and threatening rhetoric. So did lots and lots of other people. Sometimes the anger was so great (like whenever Tricky Dick appeared on TV) that for me there was no holding back. I said some pretty nasty things. And I often heard similar ugly comments made in public by others. And I often said, "Right on!" Most Americans, however, did not feel as strongly about things as I did. They saw the rantings by me and others as somewhat deranged and definitely threatening. They didn't like it--mainly, I think, because they didn't see what all the fuss was about--and they reacted to it.
And, as a result, the Rethugs had attack ads for the next forty years.
Now let's fast forward to more recent history.
After eight years of Republican "government," in 2008 the country and the GOP found themselves in disarray and polarized. Engaged in two Middle Eastern wars (one of which we were clearly lied into) and an economy rapidly plummeting into a deep recession, the country repudiated the conservative agenda and elected Democrats.
The hard-core wing nuts on the right, much as the militant left of '68, found itself "cheated" out of control of the majority meta-agenda. "Conservative Values" had been rejected, and progressive values adopted. Used to controlling the political climate since Reagan, much as '68 Dems had controlled theirs since FDR, it was inconceivable to the Limbaugh/Beck base that they could lose, just as many on the hard left became myopic in the late sixties.
The frustration of the hard core teabaggers, it seems to me, is somewhat similar to that experienced by the hard core left in the sixties. And that frustration is erupting into some violence and into lots and lots of vitriol.
And, just as in 1968, when liberals and Democrats were attached in the minds of many Americans to the violent acts of a few and the incendiary rhetoric of many on the hard core left, so are Republicans, who are rapidly becoming synonymous with teabaggers, engaged in making their own sticky, ugly baggage that they will have to carry before the American people in elections for decades to come.
As the Tea Party and its alter ego the Republican Party become more and more associated with violent acts (however isolated) and violent rhetoric (however pervasive), the more tarred and scarred they become. And, trust me, Democrats will be happy to point out where the blisters and stitches were for years to come.
But I guess it's still good news for John McCain.