1972 vs. 2008, "Anti-War" and the Elections

Last Sunday's NY Times included a particularly telling article on the Democratic Party and anti-war candidates. In it, George McGovern argues that the time is ripe for an anti-war presidential candidate in 2008. Rather than viewing the '72 experience as a debacle for anti-war politics, Democrats should take advantage of the sea-change in how the public views the parties and the war in Iraq. McGovern claims, "I would love to be running if I were 25 years younger. I think I would win." At present, it has become increasingly common to draw parallels between the post-9/11 and Vietnam eras, with even George Bush admitting similarities with the Tet offensive. But, in our rush to call Iraq a quagmire and to see Rumsfeld as the second-coming of McNamara, we've increasingly lost sight of precisely what sets these two periods apart.

The conventional wisdom is that McGovern lost because of his anti-war stance. Yet, by November '72 virtually everyone was anti-war. In fact, Nixon's "peace with honor" would not be all that different from many views espoused by Bush's critics. At election time, the countdown had already begun to American withdrawal, and by the middle of the following year the war had ended for all intents and purposes.

At stake in the McGovern candidacy was not simply the war, but the future of a set of commitments that linked the civil rights project to anti-war activism. In the late 60s and early 70s, a sustained effort was made to merge two distinct social movements and to present a unified vision of domestic and foreign policy that represented labor, churches, civil rights groups, and students. Martin Luther King and others situated their critique of war directly in the social problems at home--issues of race and class equality. In other words, opposition to the war was part of a larger, structural opposition to the policies and power of political elites.

McGovern was not part of these movements. His campaign stances, including a commitment to full employment and an end to the war, were responses to the social pressures exerted by mobilized groups. Thus, his defeat in '72 was the electoral defeat of these forces. The Democratic Party which had long built its strength on working and middle class support among white southerners, was unable to successfully include new social groups and activists while retaining its base. As Johnson famously remarked to his aide, Bill Moyers, after signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, "I think we just delivered the South to the Republican Party for a long time." Thus, a vote for Nixon wasn't about the war as a stand-alone issue, it was about how one's view of the war related to these social movements and their future role in American politics.

In a sense, McGovern may well be right that an anti-war candidate can win in 2008. But that position wouldn't have nearly the resonances that it did during the Vietnam era. This is because no similar social movements exist to link domestic and foreign policy, and to compel politicians (today's McGoverns) to respond directly to their goals and aspirations.

One final point. 1972 and 2008 are alike and dissimilar in a further respect. No matter who wins, the next president will be trying desperately to exit Iraq, just as Nixon was in 1972. If all we want is an end to the war, the election might make no appreciable difference. But, if opposition is based on a more substantive rejection of not just the Iraq war, but the war on terror and the domestic policies that maintain it, real cleavages can form. When McGovern ran, those cleavages were obvious and compelling. Today, they've been submerged under a political consensus that refuses to question the basic assumptions of the post-9/11 climate. In other words, 1972 might not be a winning electoral strategy for Democrats, but it is certainly a critical image of the political organizing and social bases necessary for ordinary citizens to shape elite discourse and policy.