Conservatives were not waiting to be enlightened by a radical vanguard. What moved them, what their attitudes were, could not have been more different. They decorated their hard hats with flag decals and the motto, “FOR GOD AND COUNTRY.” They built the schools that protestors wanted to burn down. They felt deep antipathy toward elites, especially radical elites with college draft deferments. Many of them had served in World War II or Korea and viscerally despised antiwar protestors. They watched family, friends, and neighbors drafted to fight for America in a vicious and unpopular war, only to
...more
