In 1972 American voters overwhelmingly reelected Richard Nixon. That election remains one of the biggest, most decisive landslide victories in US history. Nixon garnered 520 electoral votes to Democrat candidate George McGovern’s 17. The popular vote, which maybe makes more sense to people, American or not, was split 61% to 38%.
Part of what precipitated such a huge win was backlash to the 1970 Kent State shootings. About 58% of Americans polled blamed the students themselves for being shot. Only 11% blamed the National Guard, who had fired the guns.
I was too young while all of this was taking place, so I don’t have real memories of these things. What I do have memories of, however, is how after 1974, after Nixon’s resignation from the Presidency, it was nearly impossible to find a single person who would confess to ever voting for that crooked bastard. The American people, who could blame unarmed students for their own deaths, would turn out to be equally deplorable when admitting to their own misjudgments, their own mistakes.
I think about 1974 quite often. It was a weird time in my childhood and in my education about the world. That year swirls like a kaleidoscope filled not with colored shards of glass but with bombs, storms, airplane crashes, and news clips about Patty Hearst. Even so, the main lesson I learned about the world, especially the world of politics and society, is that nothing is inevitable. A President, even one with a huge election victory, just might slither off into shame and disgrace. And all of his admirers will slink back into the greige background of ignominy with him.
Nothing is inevitable.