Hardhats and Doves: Political Realignment

Nixon would create a divide between the working class and the new college educated white collar class. The working class were the blue-collar laborers and workers who worked in jobs such as construction. These “hardhats” as they were known would gain the name during the hardhat riots of 1970 when construction workers clashed with antiwar protesters (Lewis). The working class was thought to be supportive of the war and having a conservative slant, although this wasn’t true as statistics from the time show a range of opinions present within the working class. Nixon would use this stereotype to show the hardhats as a silent majority who supported the war. At the same time he criticized the “elite doves”- the middle and upper class Americans who were usually college educated – as antiwar sentiment was most prominent in educational institutions. According to Lewis, “an ‘us,’ white workers, was posited against a ‘them,’ liberal bureaucrats and protesters” he states referencing to George Wallace’s attacks on the college educated and catering to workers was to start a divide amongst Americans. Nixon would go on to use the strategy which had been used Wallace albeit in a more subtle away as he believed working class democrats were a group who could be convinced to vote for him.

“Alienation, defensive feelings about traditional values, anger at economic instability, an aggrieved sense that the system was not treating them fairly, and a growing distrust of government” were all reasons for the antagonism of the white working class American (Lewis). The economic instability of the time and a general feeling that the middle and upper class had everything handed to them created a sense of antagonism. While many workers didn’t support the war, they couldn’t bring themselves to align with the hippie counterculture which was also supported by the antiwar movements. They felt alienated by both parties as the democrats had aligned with the civil rights movements and they had traditionally been represented by the democratic party but after the support for the civil rights movement they felt more isolated. More rights for marginalized groups meant white workers no longer enjoyed as much privilege as they had previously, which meant they felt their place in society had diminished. Overall, their antagonism was mostly caused by factors other than the antiwar movement such as economic instability and changing position in society.

The democrats could have stopped the political realignment if they had countered Nixon’s attempts at creating a “silent majority”. Nixon greatly widened the class divisions which had been stirred by George Wallace’s class populism. Had they attempted to appeal to their traditional base rather than aligning completely with the liberal movements they would have had better chances of preventing the political realignment. Regardless, it would have been challenging to appeal to both the ideas of traditional workers and the new ideas of the civil rights movement at the same time. In my view it would be unlikely for political realignment to be halted completely as the vast changes in American society which would occur over the 1960s and 70s were bound to create some level of realignment.