Have the Democrats Come Back To Earth?

Of all the speeches at the 1984 Republican National Convention, Jeane Kirkpatrick’s was probably the only one that was remembered 24 hours after it was given. Her attack on Democratic foreign policy made “Blame America First” the most memorable phrase of the campaign. The reason seems fairly simple: It rang true, or close enough to true to unnerve some Democrats. The Democrats’ 15- year charge to the left, lately spearheaded by younger leaders who had attained political consciousness in the era of Mylai and napalm, had finally become a scandal.

Vietnam hadn’t done it: Everybody opposed the war in the end. The McGovern campaign probably struck most Americans as incidental: It was not reason enough to doubt the party that had fought the cold war, and all the hot wars. But in the past few years the younger McGovernites—including many congressmen first elected in the Watergate year of 1974—had made increasingly obvious their inability to believe that America was a force for good in the world. The uncontrolled Democratic disgust over a Grenada invasion overwhelmingly approved by most Americans was merely the best symbol of American alienation from Democratic leftism. Even The New Republic remarked, two months before the election, “We find ourselves more in agreement with the foreign-policy principles set forth in the Republican platform than in the Democratic.”

FG

About the Author

Frank Gregorsky

Featured Tags

Of all the speeches at the 1984 Republican National Convention, Jeane Kirkpatrick’s was probably the only one that was remembered 24 hours after it was given. Her attack on Democratic foreign policy made “Blame America First” the most memorable phrase of the campaign. The reason seems fairly simple: It rang true, or close enough to true to unnerve some Democrats. The Democrats’ 15- year charge to the left, lately spearheaded by younger leaders who had attained political consciousness in the era of Mylai and napalm, had finally become a scandal.

Vietnam hadn’t done it: Everybody opposed the war in the end. The McGovern campaign probably struck most Americans as incidental: It was not reason enough to doubt the party that had fought the cold war, and all the hot wars. But in the past few years the younger McGovernites—including many congressmen first elected in the Watergate year of 1974—had made increasingly obvious their inability to believe that America was a force for good in the world. The uncontrolled Democratic disgust over a Grenada invasion overwhelmingly approved by most Americans was merely the best symbol of American alienation from Democratic leftism. Even The New Republic remarked, two months before the election, “We find ourselves more in agreement with the foreign-policy principles set forth in the Republican platform than in the Democratic.”