During the 60s and 70s, the U.S. seemed to split in two, the “elite doves” who were college educated and not involved in war efforts, and the “reactionary hardhats” who were for the war. These stereotypes were drastically exaggerated, the U.S. was split into more than just two categories, and not hardhats were for the war for the reasons we were told. Though, politicians still used these stereotypes to win over the people of the U.S. Governor George Wallace used fancy speeches and persuasion to convince many “elite doves” to favor his campaign while he ran for president. Former President Nixon also catered to the “middle group, ” the Silent Majority. This category of people was the ones who were not active in protests and not public with their political views. Nixon addressed the silent majority in one of his speeches to persuade those not sold on either side to believe him and what he stood for.
There were lots of people against the white working class in the U.S. The main one that comes to mind is the politicians who ran this country during the war. In this class, we discussed how “rigged” the draft was. It caused many poor young men to go train and fight in the Vietnam War. This ties back in with the Anti-war left, because those related to the men overseas thought that they left did not support the men fighting. This caused a true separation between the two and would lead to an inner war back home in the U.S. The working class felt attacked during this time because they thought they were being used to fight the war and that the citizens did not support them while over there.
The democratic party possibly could have stopped the political realignment in two different ways. The first is if they would have just pulled out of the war from the start, then the citizens would not have focused their issues in that field. Instead, the civil rights movement could have possibly been sped up and led to desegregation more quickly. The second way they could have prevented the realignment was by making the draft fair in the sense that anyone could get chosen and you could not use school as an excuse to get out of the war. This would have led to the working class not being upset about the unfairness and possibly keeping them on the democrats side of politics.
Will Wright 