Deleted member 87099
1961-1965: John F. Kennedy (Democratic)
1960 (with Lyndon B. Johnson): Richard Nixon (Republican)
1965-1969: Barry Goldwater (Republican)
1964 (with William Scranton): John F. Kennedy (Democratic), Ross Barnett (Dixiecrat)
1969-1975: Eugene McCarthy (Democratic)
1968 (with John Connally): George Wallace (Freedom), Barry Goldwater (Republican)
1972 (with George McGovern): John Wayne (National Alliance), Nelson Rockefeller ('Moderate' Republican)
1975-1981: George McGovern (Democratic)
1976 (with Hubert Humphrey): Evan Mecham (National Alliance), John Connally (Moderate)
1981-0000: George L. Rockwell (National Alliance)
1980 (with Ronald Reagan): George McGovern (Democratic), Hugh Carey (Moderate), Jerry Brown (Libertarian)
Perhaps Kennedy should have made an earlier push for civil rights, or perhaps he shouldn't have pushed at all. Maybe it doesn't matter. He could get nothing done once the Baker and Rometsch scandals blew up anyway. All there was left for him to do was run limply in the general election and lose to the Republican nominee. But that Republican nominee would be Barry Goldwater. Now the campaign would be competitive. But it was not to be. Texas was called for Goldwater in the early hour of the morning, giving him the election, as President Kennedy suffered from his worsened appeal, a Dixiecrat splinter, and (alleged) meddling by scorned VP Lyndon Johnson.
The Presidency of Barry Goldwater was as bad as Democratic campaigners had warned. Although Democratic congressional majorities prevented him from cutting FDR's New Deal to pieces, his executive policy of 'benign neglect' and his refusal to sign the 1967 budget, which led to a government shutdown, would degrade public trust in government and the efficacy of existing social services. With Kennedy having been forced out before he could make significant progress, it was up to Goldwater to deal with civil rights. The 1965 Civil Rights Act, which exempted private businesses from integration, was passed even over the opposition of southern stalwarts and liberals decrying it as a half-measure. The 1966 Voting Protection Act empowered state attorney generals to protect potential voters but explicitly established the issue as one of "states' rights." African-Americans and civil rights groups were livid. Martin Luther King Jr. denounced President Goldwater as a "craven coward" and Walter Reuther even considered a general strike as the grueling administration wore on. Both men were assassinated by far-right gunmen just weeks apart in the early months of 1968. On the more militant side of things, Malcolm X's Muslim Mosque Inc. and Stokely Carmichael's African People's Party absorbed a generation of young black men who were enraged at a dysfunctional status quo and sought war with the government in the streets. And then there was Vietnam. With a presence winding down during the Kennedy administration, Goldwater doubled down on the American military commitment to Southeast Asia. Using a recent naval battle as leverage, Goldwater got Congress to grant him war-powers in Vietnam. Tens of thousands of American GI's were sent over and the subsequent military draft drew the ire of the nation's youth. The war would turn into a meatgrinder. By late-1967, North Vietnamese offenses had brought upon untold casualties to American forces and crippled American morale at home. To Goldwater, he was left with no choice. In February, 1968 orders were initiated for Operation Fracture Jaw. Within weeks nuclear weapons were utilized by American forces in combat. The outrage back home was intense. Combined with the racial situation and the draft, opposition to the use of nuclear weapons in combat would galvanize American protesters to the streets in the summer of 1968.
Although he would defeat a primary challenge from Michigan Governor George Romney, Goldwater was not looking good going into the election of 1968. Taking advantage of his perceived weakness on the right was former Alabama Governor George Wallace. In late 1967 Wallace worked closely with Bill Shearer of California and his rump 'Freedom Party.' The Freedom Party was the remnants of the Dixiecrat political apparatus set up for Ross Barnett's independent run in 1964. Wallace was virtually guaranteed the nomination and, alongside the (comparably) moderate Happy Chandler, campaigned on economic populism and law and order. On the Democratic side of things was the rejuvenated campaign of Lyndon Johnson. Apologizing for his (alleged) role in the Bobby Baker scandal and for the Kennedy administration's inaction on civil rights and poverty, the liberal Lyndon Johnson began to establish a rapport with African-American voters and poor whites and cleaned up against candidates like Scoop Jackson, Hubert Humphrey, and George Smathers. He promised further action on civil rights and a new left-wing domestic reform package billed as the 'New Society.' His biggest challenge would be from Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy. Running on a platform largely based around his strong opposition to the Vietnam War, McCarthy sweeped the youth vote and the left fringe of the Democratic Party. The Democratic race would narrow down to Johnson and McCarthy as the primaries wore on. McCarthy won the early contests and Johnson was the only one who was able to rally against him later on. It would not be enough for Johnson. McCarthy, despite the initial opposition he faced from the party establishment, used his less strident economic and social stances to form necessary alliances in the lead up to the DNC. Johnson meanwhile, seeing that his influence in the party had degraded after five years, fought to make up for lost ground. A (survived) heart attack on the night before the convention was the nail in the coffin for Johnson and Eugene McCarthy was declared the narrow victor on the first ballot. With a profoundly split conservative front (Wallace dominating the south, and Goldwater dominating the west), the Democrats' McCarthy/Connally ticket achieved victory in November as chaos blazed.
Eugene McCarthy's withdrawal from Vietnam proceeded as swiftly as possible. By the end of the year, US personnel had completely left the beleaguered nation. While McCarthy would be blamed by conservatives for South Vietnam's fall in 1971, he received enough support for following through on his campaign's most prominent plank and solidified support for his re-election. Outside of foreign affairs, McCarthy played a careful balancing act in trying to satisfy the many wings of the Democratic Party in the lead-up to presidential consideration. Although he would empower the federal government to handle the cause of voting rights in 1970, many would be disappointed in the administration's seeming retreat from social issues. Protests continued, but they would never reach the ferocity they had achieved under Goldwater. Arguably McCarthy's biggest achievement on the economic front would be the passage a $2,000 yearly basic income in early 1972. This would have significant electoral implications as well. Seeing as his relationship with Vice President Connally had finally fallen apart (two egos in a house built for one), McCarthy chose the bill's senate sponsor, Senator George McGovern, as his new running mate. Connally was livid but due to the quick nature of his firing was unable to do much immediately outside of withholding his endorsement. McCarthy's opposition stumbled worse than he did. With the assassination of George Wallace in January, 1972 by a black nationalist, the Freedom Party was left moribund and without a leader. That was until California Governor John Wayne entered the scene. The Republican candidate was dominating the Republican primaries against a divided field of Nelson Rockefeller, Charles Percy, William Scranton, Jim Rhodes, and Gerald Ford. After a meeting with Shearer in the spring, Wayne promised that if he won the Republican nomination he would work to fuse the two parties together. Now, once Wayne did become the Republican nominee, the process would become much more difficult. As Wayne's faction (bolstered by alleged "Freedomite" delegates) made it so that an article merging the two parties narrowly passes, Nelson Rockefeller lead a walkout of moderate Republicans. The New 'National Alliance' Party had now lost a substantial amount of support to a renegade 'Moderate' Republican ticket and throughout the fall campaign were never able to make up lost ground against McCarthy. The President had won re-election.
But on what basis? A bombshell report from the New York Times would ask in the fall of 1973. A whistleblower from a high-ranking post in the McCarthy White House had revealed that the President had illegally ordered a wiretapping of the National Alliance Party's makeshift party headquarters in Bar Harbor, Maryland shortly after the events of the RNC. The whistleblower, soon revealed to have been White House Counsel Ramsey Clark, was quickly fired bringing greater attention to the developing scandal. McCarthy would fight the charges for over a year. The National Alliance Party and their Moderate Republican congressional allies had waited until the 1974 elections before formally moving towards articles of impeachment, in order the reap the benefits of a midterm crowd hostile to President McCarthy. And reap they would, bringing the Democrats down to scant majorities in both chambers. In April, 1975 the House of Representatives would pass articles of impeachment against President Eugene McCarthy. Weeks later, he would resign from the presidency in order to avoid a senate trial over his removal. Just days earlier he had been confronted by Vice President George McGovern and Senator Mike Gravel to resign in order to save the country and the party from a nasty senate trial. McCarthy would be sentenced to 4 years in prison in 1977 although he would be released on the orders of President McGovern in 1979.
When George McGovern became President in April, 1975 he was immediately faced with a difficult situation. Although he was currently benefiting from a honeymoon period, his predecessor was hated (McCarthy had a 22% approval rating at the time of his resignation). So, McGovern immediately set about repairing the White House's frayed relations with congress. By the end of the year he would pass landmark administration increasing yearly basic income to $4,000. Meanwhile, his opposition was ready to destroy themselves. As 1975 turned into 1976, the rump moderate faction of the Republican Party formally created the Moderate Party, absorbing the growing number of dissident Democrats in the process. This served to embolden their image as the National Alliance Party commenced a vicious primary between former nominee John Wayne, Representative John Ashbrook, Representative John Schmitz, Louisiana Governor John Rarick, Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo, and Arizona Governor Evan Mecham, among other less popular candidates. The candidates were individually savaged but it would be the theatrical Mecham who rose victorious following several ballots at the convention. The Mecham/Rizzo ticket set about to continue the party's theme of a 'law and order' platform. On the Moderate side of things, former Vice President John Connally, with the aid of party leader Richard Nixon, triumphed over his many intraparty 'Rockefeller Republican' opponents and seized the nomination alongside Elliot Richardson. On the opposite side of the ideological aisle stood the incumbent President George McGovern, who overcame bare opposition in his party's primaries and was paired up with the elderly Senate Majority Leader Hubert Humphrey. The election would end up an easier fight than the DNC had initially thought. The odious Mecham and untrustworthy Connally largely attacked eachother as President McGovern remained above the fray, practicing a Rose Garden strategy. So despite the Democrats' incumbency fatigue and widespread unpopularity, they would be granted an electoral victory in November, 1976.
It was 1977 and segregation still persisted in the United States of America. And not just the school segregation and housing segregation that had come to dominate American suburbia, real legally defined segregation. The Goldwater civil rights bills were considered jokes by those who supported the very concept of civil rights, let alone by those whose lives were directly impacted by their ramifications. Black leaders from the more moderate like Congressman John Lewis and Mayor Tom Bradley, who regularly demanded legal action on the issue, to the more radical like Louis X of Muslim Mosque Inc. and African People's Party Women's Leader Assata Shakur, who used it as reason to condemn the United States, kept the issue in conversation. But President McCarthy didn't really care, similar to how he didn't care to help abolish the poll tax. After all, the black vote went to his primary opponent, Lyndon Johnson, and African-Americans had been a lock for the Democratic Party since the days of FDR. But George McGovern did care. Although it may have not seemed like it based on the inaction of his first year and a half in office, George McGovern was willing to evangelize for the cause of civil rights. He did so in congress and he was willing to do so in front of the notoriously stubborn Eugene McCarthy. His platform had featured an article calling for the end of "legalized discrimination in all its remaining forms" but he really didn't run on the issues. However, now was the time to focus on the issues. So, knowing this about the President, it should not have been a surprise to see him in the Rose Garden with Vice President Humphrey, Congressman Lewis, Ambassador Young, and Speaker Udall, in February, 1977 announcing that his administration was going to end discrimination by private businesses.
It would have been better if Goldwater, or even Kennedy or Eisenhower, ended business discrimination. In the more than decade since Goldwater's bill passed segregation had continued to fester and it had become a right of passage for many southern businesses to throw out black customers. The initial patchwork of integrated/segregated businesses across the South had given way to a bizarre system by the mid-70s. Chain stores and restaurants were almost universally expected to be integrated establishments while small businesses, in near parallel uniformity, were expected to be whites only. The vast majority of integrated southern small businesses were fractured by boycotts and many were forced to change policies or close entirely by the time 1977 rolled around. This toxic social environment was beginning to sink in as a regional peculiarity for the American South. And a large number of southern citizenry wanted to keep it that way. So as the Democratic-dominated House and Senate passed the 1977 Civil Rights Act in quick succession, even breaking a National Alliance filibuster with the help of Moderate senators, and got the bill signed by President McGovern in May, white southerners went up in arms. Enter stage left, George Lincoln Rockwell.
Splitting with Matthias Koehl's occultist 'New Order' organization, George Lincoln Rockwell established the nationalistic and conservative American Citizens' Group in 1968. While initially criticized as "the same old American Nazi Party with a fresh coat of paint" (ACG still used ANP slogans like "White Power") Rockwell simultaneously tried to ingratiate himself to the nation's radicalizing right-wing. Affiliating with candidates backed by groups like the John Birch Society, Rockwell would soon become well respected enough within the burgeoning National Alliance Party to become a delegate at the 1976 convention (Rockwell was initially supportive of John Schmitz but would switch his vote to Evan Mecham alongside much of the convention hall). After that initial credibility Rockwell's stock rose rapidly. He even opened for Evan Mecham at an ACG event in September of that year. With that behind him he announced that he was running for Governor of Virginia in February of 1977. Condemning the civil rights action of the McGovern administration, and Governor Henry Howell's willingness to go along with it, Rockwell would destroy his opposition for the Republican nomination. Rockwell would be elected Governor of Virginia with nearly 60% of the vote. He could attribute nothing but a well-oiled rightist political machine and an enraged bigoted populace to his victory. Rockwell's victor, and his past as leader of the American Nazi Party, grabbed headlines. To many in the national press it was an indication that southern opposition to President McGovern's policies had reached a critical point, but to Governor Rockwell and his backers it merely showed that a decade of work had been enough to scrub away the PR sin of his Nazi involvement. George Lincoln Rockwell had big plans.
The 1978 midterms were a disaster for George McGovern. Like in Virginia, southern opposition to his civil rights policies had led to the rejection of congressional Democrats en masse. But that was not his only problem. The overthrow of the American-backed regime in Iran over the summer had cast a dark haze over the midterms nationwide. The subsequent establishment of the Revolutionary Socialist Republic of Iran aided the President's foreign policy detractors. The revolutionaries' impromptu guillotining of the Shah didn't help matters much either. The National Alliance would claim majorities in both congressional chambers. They vowed to permanently obstruct the agenda of President McGovern. Despite this setback, President McGovern still vowed to run for another term. As 1979 dragged on and the summer's racial and social turmoil worsened as the economy entered a recession, primary challengers entered the fray. California Governor Jerry Brown blamed the President's "big government solutions" and "lack of big ideas" for the nation's current state of disarray while New York Governor Hugh Carey blamed the President's "left-wing radicalism." Brown's challenge would win him several states against McGovern (including the early primary of New Hampshire) while Carey would drop his challenge in October and switch parties to the Moderates to continue his run there. As President McGovern finally defeated Governor Brown, Carey would rise above a fractured field filled with John Connally, John Anderson, Larry Pressler, and Howard Baker. On the National Alliance side, 19 candidates would come to prominence in the party's first national primary. While they ranged from relative moderates to hardline rightists, policy wonks to demagogues, none would stand out like Virginia Governor George Rockwell. Rockwell dominated polling throughout the contest, first with pluralities and then with majorities, and remained the first frontrunner through the first few primaries. Rockwell's "Make America Great Again" slogan and the viciousness of his campaign led by the competitive Roger Stone and Lee Atwater and based on nationalism, social conservatism, and economic populism, captivated National Alliance voters and overcame a hastily assembled "Anybody But Rockwell" coalition to triumph on the convention's first ballot. Rockwell's selection of a National Alliance moderate, California Senator Ronald Reagan was enough to quell the concerns that many in the party had with him. Meanwhile, Hugh Carey selected Representative John Anderson as his running mate at a convention where he welcomed a worryingly small number of fleeing National Alliance supporters. President McGovern attempted to rally Democrats with his selection of the more moderate Senator Ed Muskie to fill the VP role vacated in the wake of Hubert Humphrey's death. But McGovern would face yet another complication. Former opponent Jerry Brown was nowhere to be found at the 1980 DNC because he was planning on becoming the Libertarian Party's presidential nominee alongside a young wealthy donor named Ed Koch. For the entire race McGovern and Rockwell were neck-and-neck as Carey pulled a very strong third and Brown vied for contention. The candidates swapped strong debate performances. McGovern began to pull ahead with just weeks before the election after warning voters in his closing statement in the final debate that Rockwell's ideology was one "we defeated on the beaches of Normandy" and victory appeared just within his grasp until the 'Fort Wayne story' broke. Affairharbor, released by operatives from the Rockwell campaign just days before the election brought the revelation that McGovern had had an affair that produced a child. The backlash was enormous and as the public woke on election day, 1980 the polls showed McGovern and Rockwell were tied.
Rockwell's narrow victory over a divided field brought the National Alliance to power for the first time. Emboldened with congressional gains in both houses, Rockwell was ready to put his plan into action: Singlaub at State, Rarick at Justice, Paul at Treasury, LaRouche at Interior, Buchanan at Communications, Carto running the White House... they would end welfare as American knew it while emboldening Yearly Basic Income, break with weak foreign allies who couldn't fend for themselves, and a lot more than he said on the campaign trail, that's for certain. Finally, George Lincoln Rockwell had made it to the White House.
And a white house it would be.
1960 (with Lyndon B. Johnson): Richard Nixon (Republican)
1965-1969: Barry Goldwater (Republican)
1964 (with William Scranton): John F. Kennedy (Democratic), Ross Barnett (Dixiecrat)
1969-1975: Eugene McCarthy (Democratic)
1968 (with John Connally): George Wallace (Freedom), Barry Goldwater (Republican)
1972 (with George McGovern): John Wayne (National Alliance), Nelson Rockefeller ('Moderate' Republican)
1975-1981: George McGovern (Democratic)
1976 (with Hubert Humphrey): Evan Mecham (National Alliance), John Connally (Moderate)
1981-0000: George L. Rockwell (National Alliance)
1980 (with Ronald Reagan): George McGovern (Democratic), Hugh Carey (Moderate), Jerry Brown (Libertarian)
Perhaps Kennedy should have made an earlier push for civil rights, or perhaps he shouldn't have pushed at all. Maybe it doesn't matter. He could get nothing done once the Baker and Rometsch scandals blew up anyway. All there was left for him to do was run limply in the general election and lose to the Republican nominee. But that Republican nominee would be Barry Goldwater. Now the campaign would be competitive. But it was not to be. Texas was called for Goldwater in the early hour of the morning, giving him the election, as President Kennedy suffered from his worsened appeal, a Dixiecrat splinter, and (alleged) meddling by scorned VP Lyndon Johnson.
The Presidency of Barry Goldwater was as bad as Democratic campaigners had warned. Although Democratic congressional majorities prevented him from cutting FDR's New Deal to pieces, his executive policy of 'benign neglect' and his refusal to sign the 1967 budget, which led to a government shutdown, would degrade public trust in government and the efficacy of existing social services. With Kennedy having been forced out before he could make significant progress, it was up to Goldwater to deal with civil rights. The 1965 Civil Rights Act, which exempted private businesses from integration, was passed even over the opposition of southern stalwarts and liberals decrying it as a half-measure. The 1966 Voting Protection Act empowered state attorney generals to protect potential voters but explicitly established the issue as one of "states' rights." African-Americans and civil rights groups were livid. Martin Luther King Jr. denounced President Goldwater as a "craven coward" and Walter Reuther even considered a general strike as the grueling administration wore on. Both men were assassinated by far-right gunmen just weeks apart in the early months of 1968. On the more militant side of things, Malcolm X's Muslim Mosque Inc. and Stokely Carmichael's African People's Party absorbed a generation of young black men who were enraged at a dysfunctional status quo and sought war with the government in the streets. And then there was Vietnam. With a presence winding down during the Kennedy administration, Goldwater doubled down on the American military commitment to Southeast Asia. Using a recent naval battle as leverage, Goldwater got Congress to grant him war-powers in Vietnam. Tens of thousands of American GI's were sent over and the subsequent military draft drew the ire of the nation's youth. The war would turn into a meatgrinder. By late-1967, North Vietnamese offenses had brought upon untold casualties to American forces and crippled American morale at home. To Goldwater, he was left with no choice. In February, 1968 orders were initiated for Operation Fracture Jaw. Within weeks nuclear weapons were utilized by American forces in combat. The outrage back home was intense. Combined with the racial situation and the draft, opposition to the use of nuclear weapons in combat would galvanize American protesters to the streets in the summer of 1968.
Although he would defeat a primary challenge from Michigan Governor George Romney, Goldwater was not looking good going into the election of 1968. Taking advantage of his perceived weakness on the right was former Alabama Governor George Wallace. In late 1967 Wallace worked closely with Bill Shearer of California and his rump 'Freedom Party.' The Freedom Party was the remnants of the Dixiecrat political apparatus set up for Ross Barnett's independent run in 1964. Wallace was virtually guaranteed the nomination and, alongside the (comparably) moderate Happy Chandler, campaigned on economic populism and law and order. On the Democratic side of things was the rejuvenated campaign of Lyndon Johnson. Apologizing for his (alleged) role in the Bobby Baker scandal and for the Kennedy administration's inaction on civil rights and poverty, the liberal Lyndon Johnson began to establish a rapport with African-American voters and poor whites and cleaned up against candidates like Scoop Jackson, Hubert Humphrey, and George Smathers. He promised further action on civil rights and a new left-wing domestic reform package billed as the 'New Society.' His biggest challenge would be from Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy. Running on a platform largely based around his strong opposition to the Vietnam War, McCarthy sweeped the youth vote and the left fringe of the Democratic Party. The Democratic race would narrow down to Johnson and McCarthy as the primaries wore on. McCarthy won the early contests and Johnson was the only one who was able to rally against him later on. It would not be enough for Johnson. McCarthy, despite the initial opposition he faced from the party establishment, used his less strident economic and social stances to form necessary alliances in the lead up to the DNC. Johnson meanwhile, seeing that his influence in the party had degraded after five years, fought to make up for lost ground. A (survived) heart attack on the night before the convention was the nail in the coffin for Johnson and Eugene McCarthy was declared the narrow victor on the first ballot. With a profoundly split conservative front (Wallace dominating the south, and Goldwater dominating the west), the Democrats' McCarthy/Connally ticket achieved victory in November as chaos blazed.
Eugene McCarthy's withdrawal from Vietnam proceeded as swiftly as possible. By the end of the year, US personnel had completely left the beleaguered nation. While McCarthy would be blamed by conservatives for South Vietnam's fall in 1971, he received enough support for following through on his campaign's most prominent plank and solidified support for his re-election. Outside of foreign affairs, McCarthy played a careful balancing act in trying to satisfy the many wings of the Democratic Party in the lead-up to presidential consideration. Although he would empower the federal government to handle the cause of voting rights in 1970, many would be disappointed in the administration's seeming retreat from social issues. Protests continued, but they would never reach the ferocity they had achieved under Goldwater. Arguably McCarthy's biggest achievement on the economic front would be the passage a $2,000 yearly basic income in early 1972. This would have significant electoral implications as well. Seeing as his relationship with Vice President Connally had finally fallen apart (two egos in a house built for one), McCarthy chose the bill's senate sponsor, Senator George McGovern, as his new running mate. Connally was livid but due to the quick nature of his firing was unable to do much immediately outside of withholding his endorsement. McCarthy's opposition stumbled worse than he did. With the assassination of George Wallace in January, 1972 by a black nationalist, the Freedom Party was left moribund and without a leader. That was until California Governor John Wayne entered the scene. The Republican candidate was dominating the Republican primaries against a divided field of Nelson Rockefeller, Charles Percy, William Scranton, Jim Rhodes, and Gerald Ford. After a meeting with Shearer in the spring, Wayne promised that if he won the Republican nomination he would work to fuse the two parties together. Now, once Wayne did become the Republican nominee, the process would become much more difficult. As Wayne's faction (bolstered by alleged "Freedomite" delegates) made it so that an article merging the two parties narrowly passes, Nelson Rockefeller lead a walkout of moderate Republicans. The New 'National Alliance' Party had now lost a substantial amount of support to a renegade 'Moderate' Republican ticket and throughout the fall campaign were never able to make up lost ground against McCarthy. The President had won re-election.
But on what basis? A bombshell report from the New York Times would ask in the fall of 1973. A whistleblower from a high-ranking post in the McCarthy White House had revealed that the President had illegally ordered a wiretapping of the National Alliance Party's makeshift party headquarters in Bar Harbor, Maryland shortly after the events of the RNC. The whistleblower, soon revealed to have been White House Counsel Ramsey Clark, was quickly fired bringing greater attention to the developing scandal. McCarthy would fight the charges for over a year. The National Alliance Party and their Moderate Republican congressional allies had waited until the 1974 elections before formally moving towards articles of impeachment, in order the reap the benefits of a midterm crowd hostile to President McCarthy. And reap they would, bringing the Democrats down to scant majorities in both chambers. In April, 1975 the House of Representatives would pass articles of impeachment against President Eugene McCarthy. Weeks later, he would resign from the presidency in order to avoid a senate trial over his removal. Just days earlier he had been confronted by Vice President George McGovern and Senator Mike Gravel to resign in order to save the country and the party from a nasty senate trial. McCarthy would be sentenced to 4 years in prison in 1977 although he would be released on the orders of President McGovern in 1979.
When George McGovern became President in April, 1975 he was immediately faced with a difficult situation. Although he was currently benefiting from a honeymoon period, his predecessor was hated (McCarthy had a 22% approval rating at the time of his resignation). So, McGovern immediately set about repairing the White House's frayed relations with congress. By the end of the year he would pass landmark administration increasing yearly basic income to $4,000. Meanwhile, his opposition was ready to destroy themselves. As 1975 turned into 1976, the rump moderate faction of the Republican Party formally created the Moderate Party, absorbing the growing number of dissident Democrats in the process. This served to embolden their image as the National Alliance Party commenced a vicious primary between former nominee John Wayne, Representative John Ashbrook, Representative John Schmitz, Louisiana Governor John Rarick, Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo, and Arizona Governor Evan Mecham, among other less popular candidates. The candidates were individually savaged but it would be the theatrical Mecham who rose victorious following several ballots at the convention. The Mecham/Rizzo ticket set about to continue the party's theme of a 'law and order' platform. On the Moderate side of things, former Vice President John Connally, with the aid of party leader Richard Nixon, triumphed over his many intraparty 'Rockefeller Republican' opponents and seized the nomination alongside Elliot Richardson. On the opposite side of the ideological aisle stood the incumbent President George McGovern, who overcame bare opposition in his party's primaries and was paired up with the elderly Senate Majority Leader Hubert Humphrey. The election would end up an easier fight than the DNC had initially thought. The odious Mecham and untrustworthy Connally largely attacked eachother as President McGovern remained above the fray, practicing a Rose Garden strategy. So despite the Democrats' incumbency fatigue and widespread unpopularity, they would be granted an electoral victory in November, 1976.
It was 1977 and segregation still persisted in the United States of America. And not just the school segregation and housing segregation that had come to dominate American suburbia, real legally defined segregation. The Goldwater civil rights bills were considered jokes by those who supported the very concept of civil rights, let alone by those whose lives were directly impacted by their ramifications. Black leaders from the more moderate like Congressman John Lewis and Mayor Tom Bradley, who regularly demanded legal action on the issue, to the more radical like Louis X of Muslim Mosque Inc. and African People's Party Women's Leader Assata Shakur, who used it as reason to condemn the United States, kept the issue in conversation. But President McCarthy didn't really care, similar to how he didn't care to help abolish the poll tax. After all, the black vote went to his primary opponent, Lyndon Johnson, and African-Americans had been a lock for the Democratic Party since the days of FDR. But George McGovern did care. Although it may have not seemed like it based on the inaction of his first year and a half in office, George McGovern was willing to evangelize for the cause of civil rights. He did so in congress and he was willing to do so in front of the notoriously stubborn Eugene McCarthy. His platform had featured an article calling for the end of "legalized discrimination in all its remaining forms" but he really didn't run on the issues. However, now was the time to focus on the issues. So, knowing this about the President, it should not have been a surprise to see him in the Rose Garden with Vice President Humphrey, Congressman Lewis, Ambassador Young, and Speaker Udall, in February, 1977 announcing that his administration was going to end discrimination by private businesses.
It would have been better if Goldwater, or even Kennedy or Eisenhower, ended business discrimination. In the more than decade since Goldwater's bill passed segregation had continued to fester and it had become a right of passage for many southern businesses to throw out black customers. The initial patchwork of integrated/segregated businesses across the South had given way to a bizarre system by the mid-70s. Chain stores and restaurants were almost universally expected to be integrated establishments while small businesses, in near parallel uniformity, were expected to be whites only. The vast majority of integrated southern small businesses were fractured by boycotts and many were forced to change policies or close entirely by the time 1977 rolled around. This toxic social environment was beginning to sink in as a regional peculiarity for the American South. And a large number of southern citizenry wanted to keep it that way. So as the Democratic-dominated House and Senate passed the 1977 Civil Rights Act in quick succession, even breaking a National Alliance filibuster with the help of Moderate senators, and got the bill signed by President McGovern in May, white southerners went up in arms. Enter stage left, George Lincoln Rockwell.
Splitting with Matthias Koehl's occultist 'New Order' organization, George Lincoln Rockwell established the nationalistic and conservative American Citizens' Group in 1968. While initially criticized as "the same old American Nazi Party with a fresh coat of paint" (ACG still used ANP slogans like "White Power") Rockwell simultaneously tried to ingratiate himself to the nation's radicalizing right-wing. Affiliating with candidates backed by groups like the John Birch Society, Rockwell would soon become well respected enough within the burgeoning National Alliance Party to become a delegate at the 1976 convention (Rockwell was initially supportive of John Schmitz but would switch his vote to Evan Mecham alongside much of the convention hall). After that initial credibility Rockwell's stock rose rapidly. He even opened for Evan Mecham at an ACG event in September of that year. With that behind him he announced that he was running for Governor of Virginia in February of 1977. Condemning the civil rights action of the McGovern administration, and Governor Henry Howell's willingness to go along with it, Rockwell would destroy his opposition for the Republican nomination. Rockwell would be elected Governor of Virginia with nearly 60% of the vote. He could attribute nothing but a well-oiled rightist political machine and an enraged bigoted populace to his victory. Rockwell's victor, and his past as leader of the American Nazi Party, grabbed headlines. To many in the national press it was an indication that southern opposition to President McGovern's policies had reached a critical point, but to Governor Rockwell and his backers it merely showed that a decade of work had been enough to scrub away the PR sin of his Nazi involvement. George Lincoln Rockwell had big plans.
The 1978 midterms were a disaster for George McGovern. Like in Virginia, southern opposition to his civil rights policies had led to the rejection of congressional Democrats en masse. But that was not his only problem. The overthrow of the American-backed regime in Iran over the summer had cast a dark haze over the midterms nationwide. The subsequent establishment of the Revolutionary Socialist Republic of Iran aided the President's foreign policy detractors. The revolutionaries' impromptu guillotining of the Shah didn't help matters much either. The National Alliance would claim majorities in both congressional chambers. They vowed to permanently obstruct the agenda of President McGovern. Despite this setback, President McGovern still vowed to run for another term. As 1979 dragged on and the summer's racial and social turmoil worsened as the economy entered a recession, primary challengers entered the fray. California Governor Jerry Brown blamed the President's "big government solutions" and "lack of big ideas" for the nation's current state of disarray while New York Governor Hugh Carey blamed the President's "left-wing radicalism." Brown's challenge would win him several states against McGovern (including the early primary of New Hampshire) while Carey would drop his challenge in October and switch parties to the Moderates to continue his run there. As President McGovern finally defeated Governor Brown, Carey would rise above a fractured field filled with John Connally, John Anderson, Larry Pressler, and Howard Baker. On the National Alliance side, 19 candidates would come to prominence in the party's first national primary. While they ranged from relative moderates to hardline rightists, policy wonks to demagogues, none would stand out like Virginia Governor George Rockwell. Rockwell dominated polling throughout the contest, first with pluralities and then with majorities, and remained the first frontrunner through the first few primaries. Rockwell's "Make America Great Again" slogan and the viciousness of his campaign led by the competitive Roger Stone and Lee Atwater and based on nationalism, social conservatism, and economic populism, captivated National Alliance voters and overcame a hastily assembled "Anybody But Rockwell" coalition to triumph on the convention's first ballot. Rockwell's selection of a National Alliance moderate, California Senator Ronald Reagan was enough to quell the concerns that many in the party had with him. Meanwhile, Hugh Carey selected Representative John Anderson as his running mate at a convention where he welcomed a worryingly small number of fleeing National Alliance supporters. President McGovern attempted to rally Democrats with his selection of the more moderate Senator Ed Muskie to fill the VP role vacated in the wake of Hubert Humphrey's death. But McGovern would face yet another complication. Former opponent Jerry Brown was nowhere to be found at the 1980 DNC because he was planning on becoming the Libertarian Party's presidential nominee alongside a young wealthy donor named Ed Koch. For the entire race McGovern and Rockwell were neck-and-neck as Carey pulled a very strong third and Brown vied for contention. The candidates swapped strong debate performances. McGovern began to pull ahead with just weeks before the election after warning voters in his closing statement in the final debate that Rockwell's ideology was one "we defeated on the beaches of Normandy" and victory appeared just within his grasp until the 'Fort Wayne story' broke. Affairharbor, released by operatives from the Rockwell campaign just days before the election brought the revelation that McGovern had had an affair that produced a child. The backlash was enormous and as the public woke on election day, 1980 the polls showed McGovern and Rockwell were tied.
Rockwell's narrow victory over a divided field brought the National Alliance to power for the first time. Emboldened with congressional gains in both houses, Rockwell was ready to put his plan into action: Singlaub at State, Rarick at Justice, Paul at Treasury, LaRouche at Interior, Buchanan at Communications, Carto running the White House... they would end welfare as American knew it while emboldening Yearly Basic Income, break with weak foreign allies who couldn't fend for themselves, and a lot more than he said on the campaign trail, that's for certain. Finally, George Lincoln Rockwell had made it to the White House.
And a white house it would be.
