2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forum1972: Back to the future to unify Democrats via economic justice
1972 was remarkable in American politics because the most liberal candidate ever to win the Democratic nomination had the chance to really change America at a time when many FDR Democrats were still around to support him.
Take a look at George McGovern's platform:
Single Payer healthcare (Kennedy's Health Security plan)
Income redistribution through changing the tax laws to make corporations and the ultra rich pay their fair share.
Guaranteed minimum incomes for the nation's poor.
End racism.
not to mention ending the Vietnam War immedately.
Here is a link to his platform:
http://www.4president.org/brochures/mcgovern1972brochure.htm
Even more enlightening is McGovern's 1972 article on redistributing income and economic justice http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1972/05/04/george-mcgovern-on-taxing-redistributing-income/
One of his ideas was the The Minimum Income Grant:
"I propose that every man, woman, and child receive from the federal government an annual payment. This payment would not vary in accordance with the wealth of the recipient. For those on public assistance, this income grant would replace the welfare system. It has also been suggested that the national income grant could replace certain social security benefits."
Why bring this up now. Well Bernie Sanders clearly has similar ideas to those that McGovern ran on, and both Bill and Hillary Clinton ran McGovern's campaign in Texas that year. Their hearts were in the right place, and although both Clinton's drifted to the middle, there is hope that they are open to the idealism that motivated them to enter politics and support McGovern in the first place.
Land of Enchantment
(1,217 posts)it was the first year I voted. Nixon crushed him by STEALING his plan to end the Vietnam War and of course, Nixon was lying. Protests were everywhere and a lot of good people basically gave up on politics for a while until we were resurrected by watching the impeachment hearings....he resigned and slithered away. McGovern would have been a great president buy he had one of the most powerful machines in history collaborating against him. Deja Vu?
andym
(5,445 posts)about Vietnam. Nixon was a clever politician who had few if any principles. He managed to scare folks away from McGovern, who was one of the most decent men ever to run for President. The politics of division are Nixon's legacy.
TheBlackAdder
(28,222 posts).
Nixon's crowd really played him as someone who would have risked the country.
Then McGovern told a heckler to kiss his ass days before the election.
.
Armstead
(47,803 posts)Now they just want to encourage Corporations to do a few nice little things, while supporting their rapacious behavior