Resilient America: Electing Nixon in 1968, Channeling Dissent,

Resilient America: Electing Nixon in 1968, Channeling Dissent, and Dividing Government (American Presidential Elections)

To look at the partisan polarization that paralyzes Washington today is to see what first took shape with the presidential election of 1968. This book explains why. Urban riots and the Tet Offensive, the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, the politics of outrage and raceâ€”all pointed to a reordering of party coalitions, of groups and regions, a hardening and widening of an ideological divideâ€”and to the historical importance of the 1968 election as a watershed event.

Resilient America captures this extraordinary time in all its dramaâ€”
the personalities, the politics, the parties, the events and the circumstances, from the shadow of 1964 through the primaries to the general election that pitted Richard Nixon against Hubert Humphrey, with George Wallace and Eugene McCarthy as the interlopers. Where most accounts of this pivotal yearâ€”and the decade that followedâ€”emphasize the coming apart of the nation, this book focuses on the fact that because of measures taken after the election the country actually held together. An esteemed scholar of the American presidency,

Michael Nelson turns our attention to how, in spite of increasing (and increasingly vehement) differences, the parties of the time managed to make divided government work. Conventional political processesâ€”peaceful demonstrations, congressional legislation, executive initiatives, Supreme Court decisions, party reforms, and presidential politicsâ€”were flexible enough to absorb most of the dissent that tore America deeply in 1968 and might otherwise have torn it apart. This fraught time, as Nelsonâ€™s work clearly demonstrates, produced unity as well as results well worth noting in our current predicament.

Country	USA
Brand	University Press of Kansas
Manufacturer	University Press of Kansas
Binding	Hardcover
ItemPartNumber	black & white illustrations
UnitCount	1
Format	Illustrated
UPCs	884617756457
EANs	9780700619634
ReleaseDate	0000-00-00

Resilient America: Electing Nixon in 1968, Channeling Dissent, and Dividing Government (American Presidential Elections)

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