HIST 2600 Lecture Notes - Lecture 24: Silent Majority, Hubert Humphrey, Glasnost
Document Summary
The beginnings of the ascendancy can be found in the election of 1968. In some ways, its a false starting, as there had been a streak of conservatism throughout history, and in the early 1960s, there had been an active conservative movement. In 1964, a senator named barry goldwater had run as a republican nominee, and he highlighted that he had voted against eh civil rights act, and against censoring mccarthy. He also advocated for social security, and hinted that he would be willing to use nuclear weapons to end conflicts. In 1964, these ideas were seen as too radically conservative, so he went down to overwhelming defeat. He struggled against what the democrat party had done, and the public discontent that people had with it. He was a republican, who promised a return to law and order. He castigated the supreme court for protecting the rights of criminals. He portrayed the us as a sort of war zone.