Nixonland: America's Second Civil War and the Divisive Legacy of Richard Nixon 1965-72

by Rick Perlstein

Stokely’s commitment to ordinary politics ended for good. “This proves,” he cried, “the liberal Democrats are just as racist as Goldwater.”

“You don’t imitate white politics because white politics are corrupt,” Carmichael pronounced. “Negroes have to view themselves as colonies, and right now is the time for them to quit being white men’s colonies and become independent.”

“Where are you going to get all the money for these federally subsidized programs you’re talking about?” one inquired in a put-upon tone. “From you,” the candidate shot back, and pointed out how few black faces he saw. “You are the privileged ones…. You sit here as white medical students, while black people carry the burden of fighting in Vietnam.”

Even conservatives agreed. Milton Friedman, in the 1962 book that brought him to Barry Goldwater’s attention, proposed a “negative income tax”: people declaring income on their returns below a certain minimum would receive a remittance from the government to bring them up to the minimum.

He spoke of enemy “sanctuaries,” right there on the South Vietnamese border. To eggheads it might have sounded logical, until they realized the North Vietnamese already had a sanctuary along the border of South Vietnam. It was called North Vietnam.

It is a lesson of the sixties: liberals get in the biggest political trouble—whether instituting open housing, civilian complaint review boards, or sex education programs—when they presume that a reform is an inevitable concomitant of progress. It is then that they are most likely to establish their reforms by top-down bureacratic means. A blindsiding backlash often ensues.

But some would say that purity and power don’t mix.

“Every senator in this chamber is partly responsible for sending fifty thousand young Americans to an early grave. This chamber reeks of blood.” Senators averted their eyes or stared at their desks or drew their faces taut with fury; this was not senatorial decorum. “Every senator here is partly responsible for that human wreckage at Walter Reed and Bethesda Naval and all across our land—young men without legs, or arms, or genitals, or faces, or hopes…. “Do not talk about bugging out, or national honor, or courage. “It does not take any courage at all for a congressman, or senator, or a president to wrap himself in the flag and say we are staying in Vietnam, because it is not our blood that is being shed. But we are responsible for those young men and their lives and hopes.”

“Milk is a sedative,” the commander in chief awkwardly contributed,