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There was a lot of anger at the radicalism of much of the New Left and Student types protesting all the time in the early 70s. Nixon was absolutely right about the Silent Majority, it was a tangible thing and a lot of people were really getting sick of protesters waving North Vietnamese flags.

This manifested itself in the Hardhat riots, when blue collar construction workers with ties to labor just lost it, and charged a bunch of protesters, driving them from the streets of New York City. What was interesting about this in particular was that while it was labor that started the riot and was the most pissed off, they were joined by white collar workers, many of which worked on Wall Street, who were just as pissed, and the group grew as the riots went on with people of all backgrounds joining in to kick some protester ass.

An interesting proposition would be for this kind of thing to spread around the country. New York was not the only city beset by the constant demonstrations and collapse of civil order. And it is not as if the authorities really hated this sentiment, either. Nixon appointed the Union Boss who helped organize this counter action as his Secretary of Labor, I think, and the Police who were there did absolutely nothing to stop the charge and were said by some to be shouting words of encouragement.

How would you get the Hardhat Riots to spread beyond New York City? Do you see it as possible to get a sort of national movement of labor against the long hairs who show up at future protests and do this kind of thing again? And how far do you think the Nixon administration would allow these groups to go, if they were to form? Could they affect the elections in 1970 to 1976? If I am remembering correctly, the one election where the Democrats did not have Labor on their side, in 1972, they got killed.
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