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...and it was both a symptom of, and a catalyst to, the near-fatal flare-up of the Democratic Party's permanent, chronic illness.
There were two entrenched, determined factions struggling for control of the Party and neither gave a rat's ass about the damage they did. One faction was the young upstarts: One-issue youngsters who wanted to use control of the Party as a tool to end American involvement in Viet Nam. It was a life-and-death issue to them since they were going there and dying in great numbers, so they weren't prepared to give an inch. While many of them as individuals had concerns beyond Viet Nam (civil rights, anti-poverty programs, the nascent planet-preservation movement, proto-feminism, etc.) collectively they were utterly tone-deaf to the whole rest of the political process, the history, the function of the Party and it's capabilities, etc. If it didn't advance the cause of getting us out of Viet Nam, it didn't matter.
The best of them were inspired, and inspiring, people who had their eyes firmly on the prize and would, if they had gained their point, have looked beyond that to a larger (very appealing and very progressive) agenda-- an agenda they used to attract a lot of support from those who weren't as viscerally concerned with Viet Nam but considered themselves progressives in the broader sense. Some might have ultimately been very effective in government, as they really believed in the promise of government as a tool to make a more equitable, just society.
The worst of them were, I am sorry to say, immature, drug-addled, self-indulgent adolescents and post-adolescents who were temporarily wrested out of their narcissistic self-involvement by the threat of being drafted, plus the promise of a limelight that would let them acheive coolitude on a massive scale.
The other faction was the coalition of Old Lefties and Union Trogs who had controlled the Party since the post-FDR days. Keep in mind, they were a coalition. They were united by a common goal to keep the Party powerful, but did a lot of infighting amongst themselves. The Old Lefties (always a small minority) were the remnants of the socialist movements of the 30s and 40s; the Trogs were the same red-necked, wool-headed working class white males who've moved "machine" politics ever since the Constitution was ratified. They'd come back from WWII and put their muscle into the big union organizing drives of the 40s and 50s, but to them, the Unions were less an expression of ideological inspiration than a means to grab a slice of the economic pie. The Trogs were a huge majority in the Party, and most were essentially conservative about anything that didn't directly (and obviously) benefit working class white folks and their families. They split with the Old Lefties for a time over the whole anti-commie hysteria, but patched it up in the wake of the HUAC debacle to take advantage of the GOPpies' weakness. But it was never more than an alliance of convenience, the Trogs and the Old Lefties never really got along when it came to the anti-commie hysteria. The Trogs chugged that particular Kool-Aid enthusiastically.
However, over time they'd managed to patch together a decent working coalition that kept the Party chugging along pretty effectively. The Old Lefties supplied intellectual capability, strategic expertise, and a veneer of ideological inspiration that attracted the smart young folks in each new generation. The Trogs provided the fundraising, tactical muscle, and trench-level discipline that kept the machine on the rails.
The Old Lefties had been very active in the civil rights struggles and the nascent anti-poverty movement, and as the anti-war movement started to organize, they lent their expertise to that as well. In the early days, they worked side by side with the young upstarts and found a lot of common ground. That helped split the coalition and made possible the rule changes that led to a massive influx of upstarts into the Party machinery. Once they were there, they started to muscle aside not only the Trogs, but their Old Lefty allies as well. Any Old Lefty who advocated to them the value of keeping a power base open, negotiating, building bridges, being patient to gain their ends, etc., got written off as a deviationist, or worse, a Trog, and was shoved out of the loop. By the time that had happened enough during the 1970 midterms, most of the Old Lefties were fed up with the youngsters and were seeing eye-to-eye (albeit regretfully) with the Trogs on the score of preserving the Party's effectiveness in the broader sense.
So the stage was set for a rumble in 1972, and a rumble is what they got. Both sides were deeply committed to their goals for the Party: The youngsters as, first, the means to get out of Viet Nam, and then to build a progressive agenda on a larger idealistic vision, and the oldsters as the means of keeping political (and hence, economic) power in the hands of people other than GOPpies.
And the Old Lefties, bless their ethical little hearts, were determined to uphold the rules they'd helped the youngsters bring into being to make the Party more "transparent" and "inclusive" and "responsive to the will of the people," ("functional" and "effective" never entered into it, unfortunately,) and were unwilling to participate in the coup that the Trogs hoped would 'bring things under control' again. The result was that everybody flapped in the breeze, the press had a field day, the corporate moguls seized the opportunity to spin it, and the GOPpies capitalized on it.
And the growing mass of Democrats who cared about Unions but were a little concerned about corruption and racism/sexism in their ranks, felt that Viet Nam was a mistake but that there might be something to be said for keeping the commie menace at a manageable level, and approved of a slow, steady march toward more progressive government but were wary of fast, wrenching change, sat on their hands or voted for ::gag:: Nixon.
If this all sounds eerily familiar to you, even if you weren't alive then to see it, don't be too weirded out. It's a syndrome endemic to the Democratic Party and integral to its structure. If you want consistency, predictability, and "unity," join the GOPpies or start yer own party.
cynically,
Bright
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