Does Johnson’s Withdrawal from the 1968 Election Have Anything to Teach Us About Biden’s Impending Withdrawal from Election 2024

I don’t know about you, but waking up to these headlines, leaves me feeling just a wee bit depressed. It looks like it is just a matter of time before Biden is out of the race. It defies all reasoning and logic to push Biden out of the race unless there is a VERY GOOD REASON. For the life of me, I can’t find one other than blind panic among the Democrats fueled by a few Rubles slipped to Lloyd Doggett and a couple of other early naysayers.

It does, however, bugger the question, what happened the last time the incumbent withdrew late in the election? That would be Election 1968 that was marred by assassinations, riots, and the election of one of the biggest crooks to ever shit in the Oval Office toilet, Slippery Dick Nixon.

You remember Election 1968. Even if you weren’t born then, even if you weren’t politically aware then, you remember it because it was one of the most pivotal elections in American history right up there with Lincoln’s in 1860 and FDR’s in 1932. It was an election that would change the course of American history.

Let’s see how Election 2024 stacks up against Election 1968 in ways profound, mundane, and ridiculous.

Election 1968: LBJ, Wallace, Nixon, Viet Nam, and National Strife

Disapproval Over the War in Viet Nam

The Viet Nam War hadn’t been going well. By 1968, the US had sent nearly 500,000 American troops there, we had dropped more explosives on them than all of the bombs dropped in World War II combined, and there was no sign of us winning. Instead, we had Water Cronkite — I really miss Walter Cronkite, don’t you? — somberly intoning, the number of missing and killed in action that day at the end of every broadcast. But, it was his withering February editorial that concluded the war was unwinnable, unloseable, and only negotiable that caused LBJ to have his Cronkite Moment, concluding, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.”

To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion. … [I]t is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.

Walter Cronkite quoted in 50 Years Ago, Walter Cronkite Changed a Nation by  Kenneth T. Walsh on 27 February 2018 in US News & World Report

In many ways, the war broke LBJ. He couldn’t bring himself to follow Cronkite’s recommendation and negotiate an end to the war as an honorable people. The war had thrown his administration and country way off course. There was widespread opposition to the war. It had bankrupted his Great Society programs. And, he would become the first of many American presidents to not win the war they were fighting. He just couldn’t do it.

In short, the Viet Nam War was a crisis for him personally and for the country. It was galvanizing public opinion against him. It overshadowed all of his monumental accomplishments as president.

It was as though they had forgotten that Johnson had pushed through two major pieces of civil-rights legislation: the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which made discrimination by race or religion or sex illegal, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which guaranteed the franchise to African-Americans in the formerly segregated South. Those were the greatest legal advances in race relations since the Civil War amendments. But by 1968 Vietnam had eclipsed them.

Lessons from the Election of 1968 by Louis Menand on 1 January 2018 in The New Yorker

The Challengers

On 30 November 1967, Eugene McCarthy declared his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for the presidency, challenging LBJ. Although losing to Johnson in the New Hampshire primary, he only lost by seven percentage points (42% to 49%), signaling the president’s weakness as a candidate.

On 16 March 1968, Robert Kennedy announced his candidacy, sealing both his and Johnson’s fates. RFK had the sympathy of his brother’s assassination ,and the support of his White House advisors and staff. RFK had close relationships with every constituency needed to win the election, blue-collar workers, college-educated professionals, the Black community, women, liberals, moderates.

Just fifteen days later, LBJ uttered that infamous line, “I shall not seek and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your President.” And, 82 days later, RFK would be dead on a hotel kitchen floor.

Conventional wisdom states that when an incumbent faces a strong primary challenger, they generally lose the election. LBJ probably could’ve beaten McCarthy, but he might not have beaten Kennedy. It didn’t matter, though. He saw that he didn’t have the support of the party and the American people, and he did the only thing he could, decline to run.

Hubert Humphrey and the 1968 National Democratic Convention

Nearly a month after Johnson shocked the nation by withdrawing from the presidential race, his vice president, Hubert Humphrey declared his candidacy on 27 April 1968. In a clear demonstration of how much the presidential nomination process has changed, Humphrey didn’t run in a single primary, yet he won the nomination on the first ballot.

At the convention, all of Johnson’s delegates and half of Kennedy’s delegates voted for him. Those plus the ones pledged to him by the party bosses, like Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, gave him an overwhelming victory on the convention floor.

Yet, the party was not healed. Humphrey still supported Johnson’s attempts to bomb the North to the negotiating table, and Eugene McCarthy refused to endorse him. He started way behind in the polls.

In September, he announced he would halt Johnson’s bombing campaign. The October surprise was McCarthy’s endorsement. He came close, but he did not get a cigar or the presidency. Okay, maybe he got a cigar. I don’t know.

National Lawlessness and Disorder

1968 was a tumultuous year in American history. Two major assassinations, Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy. National protests against the war in Viet Nam. Race riots in nearly all of America’s major cities. The dissatisfaction was palpable.

Nixon knew he could exploit that dissatisfaction, but so could another challenger for the office, George Wallace. Wallace had entered the race as a candidate for his American Independent Party. It formed because of the racial backlash to Johnson’s Civil Rights legislation. Back in those days, being openly jaw-droppingly racist wasn’t a liability. Wallace went on to win five Southern states, the only modern independent candidate to ever win Electoral College votes and nearly 14% of the popular vote.

Wallace was the ex-governor of Alabama who uttered the immortal words, “Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!” He ran on the openly racist platform.

Nixon realized that he could exploit Wallace’s naked white supremacy by dog whistling his way through the election campaigning on Barry Goldwater’s law and order theme. Of course, we all know that law and order means Bull Connor setting the dogs on the darkies marching across the bridge, but we don’t even have to think about. We can vote for it with a clear conscious. Isn’t cognitive dissonance grand? But, that is a blog post for another day.

Large numbers of white Americans did not interpret this disorder in terms of social justice. They interpreted it as a breakdown of civil society. The rioters were not black or white; they were arsonists and looters (who happened to be black). Nixon showed that political advantage came from steering clear of the underlying issues. He gave people respectable reasons to vote for a candidate they favored for what they might have worried were not such respectable reasons.

Lessons from the Election of 1968 by Louis Menand on 1 January 2018 in The New Yorker

With lawless disorder raining chaos across the country, Nixon and the Republicans didn’t have to openly oppose civil rights, they just had to talk about law and order. The white public would do the calculus in their heads. They would put two and two together and come up with Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever! without having to offend themselves with their own racist stench.

Douglas Kiker [a reporter following the Wallace campaign], tried to explain the phenomenon. “It is as if somewhere, sometime a while back, George Wallace had been awakened by a white, blinding vision: they all hate black people, all of them,” Kiker wrote in New York. “They’re all afraid, all of them. Great God! That’s it! They’re all Southern! The whole United States is Southern! Anyone who travels with Wallace these days on his Presidential campaign finds it hard to resist arriving at the same conclusion.”

Lessons from the Election of 1968 by Louis Menand on 1 January 2018 in The New Yorker

That was Election 1968. It was a wholly dissettling disturbing disruptive time in American history. No one who lived through the year came away without being shaken. In many ways, it feels like what we’ve been going through since 2016 when the Felonious Rapist Traitor condemned Mexican immigrants as rapists and criminals.

Election 2024: Biden, Trump, Chaos

Let’s see how much our situation now, with pressure on Biden to withdraw from the race is to the situation in 1968.

The Disappearing Incumbent

We’ve seen lots of pressure, increasing pressure, on Biden to withdraw from the race. So much so that we should be anticipating his withdrawal any day or week now. Anyone who thinks otherwise is just fooling themselves. His candidacy, rightly or wrongly, is no longer tenable.

In contrast, there was no pressure on Johnson to withdraw. In fact when he declared that he would not seek the nomination, the nation was shocked.

In some ways, Johnson was much more politically savvy and disciplined than we are now. He sized up his situation, weighed his options, and made his choice. In contrast, the hair fire of Democrats is spreading faster than a July wildfire in California. The Democrats have only just now begun muttering about plausible alternative candidates with Kamala Harris now making preparations and Nancy Pelosi endorsing an open convention should Biden withdraw — like he has a choice now.

Johnson’s withdrawal was a political calculation. The Democrats is a panicked route. No similarity.

The New Standard Bearer

In 1968, it was presumed that the vice president would step in and seek the nomination after Johnson’s shocking withdrawal. It was an orderly transfer. Johnson made his announcement with time enough for Humphrey to get his act together, and he very nearly pulled it off.

Democrats are afraid of a Harris candidacy. In fact, I still maintain that if Harris had proven herself at all capable of managing a successful campaign — do you remember the debacle that was her 2020 campaign? — or be a successful two term president, Biden wouldn’t be running and would’ve handed it off to her.

When questions about Biden’s age and competence were no longer ignorable, had Harris been seen as a viable candidate, everyone would be talking about her as the natural successor. The most disturbing thing about the whole #BidenSoOld thing is that it is being done with absolutely no plan or consideration for what comes next. The focus is on getting Biden to withdraw.

Johnson’s handover was orderly. Biden’s is an implosion. No similarity.

The Kennedys, Third Party Candidates, and Assassinations

Two things that both campaigns have in common are the Robert Kennedys and the assassinations. It’s spooky, isn’t it?

In 1968, Robert Kennedy, Sr runs for the nomination and in 2024, Robert Kennedy, Jr (Spoiler: that’s RFK’s son) is running for the nomination. Of course, RFK is probably spinning like a battling top in his grave, but, you know, there is no denying the Kennedy connection.

In 1968, Kennedy was gunned down in cold blood on 5 June and Trump was shot at and grazed by shrapnel on 14 July 2024. Now, that’s also a coincidence that cannot be denied. We just can’t make too much of it because it insults the memory of RFK and his sacrifice even more than Junior’s nutty self-serving run.

RFK changed the 1968 race. Arguably it was his candidacy that pushed Johnson to get out of the race. Junior is going to be an asterisk on the 2024 race. No similarity.

George Wallace ran as a third party candidate. While he didn’t change the outcome of the race (his 46 electoral votes couldn’t change the outcome of the election), he did quicken the realignment of the parties and demonstrated the power of the Southern Strategy. Junior will be lucky to have his asterisk. No similarity.

RFK’s assassination was a national tragedy that shook the foundations of the nation when coupled with MLK’s assassination and resulting riots and the anti-war protests. Trump being grazed reified his Messiah complex. Fucking great. No similarity.

Dominating Issues: the Viet Nam War versus Civil Rights Legislation; #BidenSoOld versus Climate Change Legislation

One of the things that did LBJ in was the war in Viet Nam. Being the first president to tie in a war was more than his ego could take. While waging a war was outside his area of expertise, so he left it to his generals and experts. He got screwed.

The towering transformational accomplishments of his presidency, the Civil Rights Legislation and Great Society Programs, could not counter-balance the damage the war was doing to his chances of re-election. Looking at from the vantage point of almost sixty years later, it doesn’t seem possible. But, that’s how electoral politics works.

Biden is arguably one of the most consequential presidents since Reagan. He literally remade the economy and pulled us out of the debacle that Trump made of the #COVID19 pandemic. He has done more to counter climate change than anyone else on the planet. It should be a no brainer to re-elect the man, right? Right?

The Democrats, ever the expert of pulling defeat out of the jaws of victory, have managed to shoot themselves in the gonads… AGAIN. What a colossal own goal. It is just unbelievable. Why the Democrats didn’t circle the wagons and pull a demented Reagan, I don’t know. If he really was that bad, they could’ve organized a 25th Amendmenting of him right now. Or they could’ve quietly organized it for early in 2025. It could’ve been another Goldwater and Rhodes telling Nixon that they could no longer prevent his impeachment in the Senate.

The Viet Nam War destroyed Johnson’s chances of winning. #BidenSoOld have all but destroyed Biden’s chances of winning. Neither person could overcome the setback. Very similar.

Racism

Wallace ran on open naked racism; Nixon, the Southern Strategy; Humphrey, Civil Rights Legislation. The racial animus of white America won the day in 1968. The Blacks were getting too uppity after MLK’s assassination unlike when that bad old Bull Connor set the dogs on those nice Negros and the terrible Alabama (there’s that Wallace connection again) state troopers beat that nice John Lewis nearly to death on Edmund Pettus Bridge. Now, they were acting like garden variety white supremacists wanting revenge for the outrages perpetrated upon them.

We’ve got Trump ringing every race bell he can reach. The Republicans aren’t even trying to use dog whistles, they are singing it loud and proud for everyone to hear. White racial animus carried Trump in 2016 and nearly in 2020. It very well could do so again in 2024.

The Democrats have been failing the Communities of Color since their zenith in 1965 with the passing of Johnson’s Civil Rights legislation. Black support of Biden and the Democrats is wavering and incredibly, Trump is making gains among Communities of Color.

In 1968, race was a very open and obvious issue with Nixon and Wallace playing their cards skillfully. In 2024, race remains an open and obvious issue, with Trump blundering his racist ass over all of our fragile white-people racial norms — don’t talk about skin color because calling a Black person Black is racist — to make a secret ballot for the racist satisfying to white people again. Very similar.

The Press

The press is played an outsized role in 1968. Covering the riots after MLK’s assassination and at the violent police repression of the anti-war protesters at the DNC, although, very little actual news coverage was given to the Battle of Michigan Avenue. Then, as now, there was an inherent bias towards the police and against the protesters.

George Wallace also commanded outsized attention from the press, reminding us of the role the press has played in Trump’s success.

By late September of 1968, election polls showed Wallace with 21 percent of the vote. Wallace’s campaign was well-funded, but he was also helped by the fact that he got a lot of free press. “He had this ability to seize upon issues to capture public attention,” Dan Carter says. “And very quickly newspaper reporters and the broadcast media realized that he was good copy.” Many professional commentators derided Wallace (Tom Wicker of the New York Times referred to him as “the Alabama demagogue”), but still he appeared frequently on major television news shows.

George C. Wallace: Powerful Third-Party Candidate on APM Reports

Sensationalism in the press is nothing new, and the ability of the focus and slant of press coverage also is nothing new. In 1968, it the nation was beset by riots and protests, civil order seemingly breaking down. When Walter Cronkite, the middle-class whisperer, turned against the war effort, Johnson knew he was done. When Wallace ran, the white nationalist, he made for “good copy.”

We’re seeing the same thing now with Trump. Political violence is the province of the right, but bothsidesism wouldn’t let you know that. Crime has fallen drastically across the country, but you wouldn’t know it from reading the MSM. Trump’s dementia is evident in his every speaking engagement, including the debate that set off #BidenSoOld, but the media doesn’t report it that way.

The role of the media in 1968 and 2024 are very similar. How they cover the change from Biden to whoever will be pivotal to how the race turns out.

Just like in 1968 when Humphrey started his campaign after the DNC nomination, he was behind Nixon in the polls, whoever becomes the Democratic nominee instead of Biden, they will be starting way behind. Hopefully, the election will be similar enough to 1968 with Humphrey catching up by election day. Hopefully, it will differ with the Democratic nominee actually winning on election day.

Image Attribution

The feature image is a screenshot of the front page of NBCNews taken on Saturday 20 July.