Democrats, Republicans, Wars and History

Kennedy's main opponent in the primaries, until very late in 1960, was Stuart Symington, also a Senator (from Missouri, endorsed by retired President Truman). He was relatively liberal and later critical of the Vietnam War, though former first Secretary of the Air Force (1947-50); he'd been prominent in standing up against McCarthy's redbaiting. He refused to speak to segregated audiences in the South, while Kennedy did, so Symington lost the South to Kennedy and Johnson--as well as doing less well than Kennedy in the rest of the country.

Symington lost primarily because he was outclassed in charisma, and in organization, but Kennedy was to his right, politically. Johnson was even more conservative--until he became President--but no more warlike. Kennedy campaigned, in the general election, on "the missile gap." Supposedly, the USSR had more and better missiles. Multiple Independently targeted Re-entry Vehicles (MIRV's) were something everyone talked about: reportedly, the Soviets had missiles with 9-10 warheads; we only had 3 on most of ours. Later, we found out: the Soviets didn't have so many, and what they did have were vulnerable (on the ground), while ours were invulnerable (at sea), and way more accurate (that's one of the things my Army duty in Turkey was about finding out--retrieving Soviet missile data, through intercepting their telemetry in missile tests).

Point is, Kennedy was a liberal hawk, who may have deliberately miss-represented the issue to get votes. Symington--and Stevenson--were less hawkish, and didn't compete with Nixon on Defense; Kennedy did, and he succeeded. Probably, that's why we got into Vietnam. Early as President, Kennedy began to meddle in South Vietnam, continuing Eisenhower's policy even more aggressively. In retrospect, people say he would not have dived headfirst into the Vietnam War, as Johnson did in 1964, but that may be a romantic gloss appended after JFK's assassination.

After all, Democrats were more militaristic than Republicans in WWI and II, and also started the Korean intervention, as well as Vietnam. They only became less hawkish with McGovern in 1972 and since--less hawkish than Republicans, anyway.

Carter turned away from McGovern's anti-war policy when the USSR invaded Afghanistan. It's why I voted for a third party candidate in 1980--and regretted it since: Reagan won, of course, and Carter was dubbed "a failure." Reagan began the Republican assault on the New Deal, Fair Deal and Great Society. The assault has been going on ever since, and Democrats are still in retreat, resisting, being only a little less retrograde than the continually more warlike, pro-corporate, anti-union, anti-worker and socially reactionary Republicans.

Reaction has taken the Republicans back to the 1920's, at least: "Taking America back," the Tea Partiers say. That's "back" before WWII created most of the American Empire; it's now in decline, like Rome in the fifth century.