If you find yourself with some free time on your hands, try imagining how American history would be different if Richard Nixon had been elected President in 1960. Here are some of the questions; my responses are in parentheses.
1. The Civil Rights Movement: Would Nixon have embraced the movement? (He would have been ambivalent, but mostly negative). If he had, what would it have meant for today’s politics? (The two parties would be completely different). If not, what would it have meant for the movement? (There would have been more violence, and real progress would have occurred only after the election of President Humphrey in 1968).
2. Vietnam: Would Nixon have been able to resist escalating in Vietnam? (He would have been more sceptical about it, but no). Would the Democrats have made the war a partisan issue in 1968? (Absolutely). Would the outcome of the war have been different? (No)
3. The Great Society: Would Nixon have supported the Great Society? (Absolutely not). What would have happened with the Great Society legislation? (President Humphrey and the Democrats would have pushed it through after the big Democratic victory in 1968).
4. Cuba: Would Khrushchev have tested Nixon the way he did Kennedy by putting missiles in Cuba? (Probably not). If he did, would Nixon have responded with Kennedy’s quarantine, or with air strikes? (Air strikes). Would nuclear war have ensued? (No. Khrushchev would never have risked annihilation over Cuba–it wasn’t a vital interest of the Soviet Union).
5. Watergate and the 1970’s: Would there have been a Watergate scandal, or anything like it? (No). What would that have meant to American politics in the 1970’s? (No one would have ever heard of Jimmy Carter, and if Reagan ever got elected, it would have been in 1976, after President Humphrey’s two terms. Reagan consequently would have been President during the Iran crisis, and would have suffered the same political consequences. The GOP and the conservative movement, as a result, would be completely different).
If you somehow think of American history as being an unbroken line, therefore, consider how different things might have been if a few thousand dead people in Cook County hadn’t voted for Kennedy.