Nixon Versus McGovern 2.0? Not so Fast!

In early August, I wrote an essay posted in Brownstone Journal entitled, “Nixon vs. McGovern 2.0.” I sought to demonstrate that the most useful way of looking at the just-ended 2024 election cycle was to compare Trump vs. Harris with Nixon vs. McGovern in 1972. Back then, progressive leftists, having recently taken over the colleges and universities in this country, succeeded in choosing the Democrat Party’s presidential candidate, George McGovern. The result was the greatest landslide victory for Republicans at the presidential level that had ever been seen up until that time. 

In comparing 2024 with the 1972 election cycles, the question I raised was whether the left’s grip on colleges and universities (and the Democrat Party) for more than 50 years had changed the electorate to the point where an extremely progressive candidate could finally be chosen President of the United States, and permanently end our Constitutional Republic. Note that I use the word chosen deliberately, given the selection process that unfolded. Personally, I believed that the chances of a Democrat victory were greater than 50%, so I left things in the LORD’s very capable hands.

Looking back at that previous post, my description of the likely chain of events leading up to Election Day 2024 tracked very closely with 1972. More importantly, the result of the election has been described using similar terms, such as landslide or blowout. Based on that election outcome, many Republicans (and a few dinosaur centrist Democrats) are already writing the obituary for the current, very progressive iteration of the Democrat Party. In effect, they’re saying that the 50+ year effort to remake America has imploded…to which I say: Not so fast! 

In order to demonstrate that the purported similarities between the outcomes of the 1972 and 2024 election cycles are barely skin deep I will examine, in a more granular way, the election results from a couple of different perspectives. First, while both elections have been described as a landslide or a blowout, a look at the data shows significant differences. 

In 1972, Nixon won 49 states and received 61% of the popular vote. In 2024, Trump won all seven battleground states by an average of just over 2%, and his overall popular vote percentage will be approximately 10% lower than Nixon. Had Harris increased her popular vote by a mere 2% in each of the battleground states, she would have won the Electoral College. In sum; Nixon’s margin of victory was an order of magnitude greater than Trump’s. 

Second, we need to look at the respective Democrat Party candidates in 1972 and 2024; McGovern and Harris. George McGovern, as I’ve previously described, was a well-respected Senator with a very distinguished World War II service record, who went back to the Senate for another decade after his defeat. His landslide loss was entirely a repudiation of his message, not a repudiation of him. 

On the other hand, Kamala Harris was the poster child for what is known as a DEI (diversity/equity/inclusion) candidate, as demonstrated by the criteria by which she was chosen to be Joe Biden’s running mate in 2020, and the fact that she had rarely gone through the fire of seeking competitive elective office. She was ill-equipped, both temperamentally, and in her work ethic for the positions she sought. To me, she was barely qualified to run for Senior Class President at a poorly performing high school.

How can someone like this make a case for her party’s message when she couldn’t make a case for herself? As a result, the VP’s political career is now over, and she will not be heard from again at the national level. Should she try to remain relevant by inserting herself into the political fray, the real power players within the Democrat Party will quickly cancel her.

Speaking of Joe Biden, he was nothing but a corrupt, decrepit, and increasingly demented old man that history will describe as an accidental President at best, and a fraudulently elected President, if the truth about the 2020 election shenanigans is finally revealed, at worst. Given this set of circumstances, it is obvious to me that the electorate rejected the Democrat messenger(s) in 2024, rather than the message. As such, I firmly believe that Dylan Mulvaney (of Bud Lite fame) would probably not have fared much worse than VP Harris in the Electoral College, had she been the candidate.

Be assured that the Democrats will not be engaging in any sort of self-reflection. Once the political recriminations and shooting within the tent by the various factions is complete, which won’t take very long at all, they will use all of their energy to obstruct the Trump agenda, and, more importantly, find Obama 2.0 to run for President in 2028. 

To repeat, don’t let the noise and invectives fool anyone into thinking that 50+ years of educational indoctrination will be reversed by one election. Make no mistake: the far-left progressive message is alive and well. Those who oppose them better be ready for the onslaught. While time is short for our side, the progressives can bide their time, since their armies have been in place for a long time, and are well entrenched in the administrative state.

Those of us at Brownstone, whose prime objective is to expose the atrocities committed by the public health Gestapo during the so-called Covid response, need to be very strategic in approaching this matter, since a substantial majority of the public will be incredibly resistant to hearing the truth. This means that when it comes to the 3-letter healthcare agencies (CDC, FDA, NIH, etc.), trying to amputate them will not be received positively. 

My experience tells me that if the professionals chosen to lead these agencies are solid, the corrupt, the incompetent, and the stragglers will fall away rather quickly, while telling themselves that they are indispensable. Good riddance! This will create an atmosphere where the competent professionals within these agencies will feel supported enough to rise to the occasion.

If I may be allowed to wax theologically, I believe that the 2024 election cycle, rather than being compared to 1972, is best compared to the Book of Esther. A unique feature of that Book is that the LORD is never mentioned, yet HIS impact is evident throughout.

Other than when the LORD deflected an assassin’s bullet with HIS finger on July 13^th, HIS actions during this election cycle were subliminal but totally determinative of the outcome. It’s now up to seekers of truth to seize the opportunities that have been given in order to restore the nation’s founding covenant, consisting of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.