How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America

by Heather Cox Richardson

The Kent State shootings in May 1970, when the Ohio National Guard opened fire on college students, killing four and wounding nine others, committed Nixon fully to the notion of holding power by inflaming Middle Americans against “the media, the left, [and] the liberal academic community.” Vice President Spiro Agnew deliberately exacerbated this division before the midterms that year, riling audiences with attacks on “avowed anarchists and communists,” “thieves, traitors and perverts,” and “radical liberals.” Nixon’s people were aiming to break the liberal consensus and swing working-class white men to the Republican Party. Agnew later explained that he was working for “positive polarization”: positive in the idea that it would bring voters to Nixon. “Dividing the American people has been my main contribution to the national political scene since assuming the office of vice president,” he admitted, adding, “I not only plead guilty to this charge, but I am somewhat flattered by it.”