Go
Saints!

Friday
March 29th, 2024
L&T Opinions Page

PUBLISHER

Earl Watt

One of the closest elections in American history took place in 1960 when John F. Kennedy defeated Richard Nixon by about 100,000 votes.

Irregularities were widespread, including concerns in Illinois and elsewhere, but Nixon opted to accept the results without a challenge, and he even went to JFK’s political headquarters to congratulate him in person, the last presidential candidate to do such a thing.

We know that JFK was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963, and Lyndon Johnson became president.

What would have happened if Nixon won in 1960?

How would America be different?

The differences between the Democratic and Republican parties in 1960 were subtle unlike the massive divide we see today. It is quite possible that JFK today would fit better in the Republican Party, and Nixon might still be a Republican, but a very moderate one considering he later would support the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration as well as the National Endowment of the Arts.

Whether Nixon or Kennedy in 1960, their policies would have been very similar, and it is unlikely any major changed would have occurred.

That’s not true, however, if you would see what happened after the assassination of Kennedy.

It is highly likely that Nixon would have been assassinated by Oswald. After all, Oswald was a communist sympathizer was opposed to capitalism and detested American democracy.

His assassination of Kennedy was not partisan. It was an attack on the American system.

At some point in his presidency, Nixon would have made his way to Dallas or close proximity, and Oswald would have carried out his attack.

Once Nixon was assassinated, Henry Cabot Lodge, not LBJ, would have become president.

Lodge was Nixon’s running mate, and as a Republican from Massachusetts, he would have been moderate as well.

Lodge was a favorite of Eisenhower, and he almost became his vice president, but Eisenhower settled in Nixon instead.

Lodge’s presidency would have been much different than Johnson’s.

Johnson served the final year of JFK’s term before earning a sweeping victory over Barry Goldwater in 1964. That victory was mostly a nation supporting the replacement of the assassinated Kennedy. 

The same would have been true for Lodge had Nixon been the victim instead.

LBJ’s one full term as president was tattered with divisiveness that may have fit in the modern political era more so than the 1960s.

Lodge would not have been the lightning rod.

While many of LBJ’s policies remain as part of his vision for a “Great Society,” history has shown many of those to have had an adverse effect on minorities they were intended to help.

LBJ was instrumental in convincing African American voters to support the Democratic Party, but statistics show that since this move, African American families have had higher rates of split families and also have suffered more poverty than before the Great Society initiatives.

Lodge would not have expanded social programs like LBJ did. But he probably would have supported the changes to Medicaid and Medicare.

Lodge probably would not have trickled soldiers away in Vietnam the way LBJ did, either. Kennedy was already working to withdraw troops from Vietnam, but LBJ reversed that.

Lodge would have likely ended the Vietnam conflict before the escalation as Kennedy was trying to do and Nixon surely would have supported, saving thousands of lives.

The African American family would undoubtedly have fewer split families that were an unintended consequence of LBJ’s Great Society.

LBJ had a strong relationship with Congress, and that allowed him to push through his far left agenda. Lodge also had senate experience, but it is unlikely he would have been able to move the needle very far in any direction.

Like Eisenhower, Lodge would have been supportive of civil rights protections. It was Eisenhower that forced integration of the University of Alabama, nd it is highly likely Lodge would have continued the effort. It might be unlikely that Lodge and Nixon would have wiretapped Martin Luther King, Jr., the way Kennedy and LBJ did.

Since it would have been a Republican president at the time, it is highly likely African Americans might be committed to the Republican Party rather than the Democratic Party just because of who was president when civil right legislation was passed.

It is highly likely that JFK would have become president in 1972, and it would have been interesting to see how he would have handled space exploration at that point as well as how he would have handled the Soviet Union and energy crisis.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan would have been elected, but JFK and Reagan would have operated in a much different world left by Lodge than the one left by Johnson.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR, Reita Isaacs, Liberal

 

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