A SHORT HISTORY OF RIGHT WING DESTRUCTION PART 21

The Vietnam war became a kind of flypaper and the United States couldn't extricate itself.  The growing opposition to the war forced President Johnson from the presidential race and persuaded Senator Robert Kennedy to announce his candidacy.

The country was polarized.  Kids burning draft cards and protests against the war got major media attention.  But there was also a backlash from people who considered themselves patriots and who continued to support the Vietnam war.

Martin Luther King, who had always advocated non-violence, was the victim of an assassin's bullet when he went to Memphis, Tennessee, to support striking garbage workers.  Just weeks later Robert Kennedy was shot down in Los Angeles after winning the California primary.

There was more than a little irony in Richard Nixon getting the Republican nomination for president.  Nixon, who represented himself as a law and order candidate, would become the first president to resign from office a few years later.  Hubert Humphrey, who served as vice-president for Lyndon Johnson, got the Democratic nomination for president.  Humphrey was saddled with the Vietnam war and Nixon promised to end the war.

The country was appalled at the violence in the streets at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.  It represented a clear demarcation between people who considered themselves loyal to the establishment and the opponents of the war.  The Chicago violence also hurt Humphrey in the presidential race.

Humphrey came surprisingly close to winning the election when you consider the baggage he was carrying.  Had the Johnson administration succeeded in ending the war, Humphrey might have won the election.  But operatives for Richard Nixon, from all appearances, sabotaged the peace talks.

More to come