Trump makes no secret of using the Nixon playbook. But how do the crime rate and national mood back then compare with 2016’s?
Donald Trump has been cribbing from Richard Nixon’s 1968 playbook for weeks, and Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort has told reporters to expect more of the same when his candidate formally accepts the Republican nomination on Thursday.
“This was no exaggeration. The 1960s launched the most protracted rise in violent crime in the U.S. in more than a century.”
Hillary Clinton’s email controversy, murderous assaults on police and rising violent crime have given Mr. Trump an opportunity to hammer home a theme that helped Nixon win. But even if the New York developer can stay on message and not overplay his hand, is this a viable strategy for 2016?
Forty-eight summers ago the country was in a bad way, and Nixon wisely bet that voters didn’t trust his opponent, liberal Democrat Hubert Humphrey, to restore some level of sanity, especially with respect to civic order. In the final weeks of the 1968 campaign, Nixon worked these lines into nearly every stump speech. “In the past 45 minutes, this is what happened in America,” he would say. “There has been one murder, two rapes, 45 major crimes of violence, countless robberies and auto thefts.”
This was no exaggeration. The 1960s launched the most protracted rise in violent crime in the U.S. in more than a century. Disorderly protests, riots and acts of domestic terror became almost commonplace. Between 1960 and 1970, violent-crime rates doubled. Murder rates increased by 55% and robberies rose by more than 90%. As the decade progressed, things only got uglier. Between 1964 and 1971, there were more than 300 riots in more than 250 cities. The worst of the rioting was 1968, which saw the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. in April and Robert F. Kennedy in June.
“By the end of the 1960s, a great fear gripped America,” writes criminologist Barry Latzer in his new book, “The Rise and Fall of Violent Crime in America.” “It was largely a fear of crime, especially violent assaults, whose frequency had skyrocketed.” Surveys of big-city residents at the time showed that one of every two people was afraid to go out alone at night. “African Americans were even more frightened than whites, women were more afraid than men, and seniors were most terrified of all,” writes Mr. Latzer.
If you think the Black Lives Matter movement rhetoric today has been tragically irresponsible, try comparing it with what black militants were saying during the Nixon campaign. On Feb. 17, 1968, 6,000 people showed up at the Oakland Auditorium to celebrate the birthday of Huey Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party. Newton couldn’t attend because he was in jail for shooting dead an Oakland police officer. The gathering doubled as a Free Huey rally. H. Rap Brown called Newton “our only living revolutionary in the country today” adding, “He has paid his dues. How many white folks did you kill today?”
James Forman, another Black Panther leader, went even further. In the event of his assassination, he said, “I want 30 police stations blown up, one southern governor, two mayors and 500 cops, dead. . . . And if Huey is not set free and dies, the sky is the limit.” Free Huey rallies were held that year in major cities across the country.
In his nomination remarks, Nixon appealed to the “great majority of Americans, the forgotten Americans—the non-shouters, the non-demonstrators.” He empathized with their fears and frustrations. “As we look at America, we see cities enveloped in smoke and flame. We hear sirens in the night. We see Americans dying on distant battlefields abroad. We see Americans hating each other; fighting each other; killing each other at home. And as we see and hear these things, millions of Americans cry out in anguish.”
It was a message directed mainly at the same voters that Donald Trump has targeted: downscale whites. And it worked. In 1960, Democrat John F. Kennedy had received 61% of blue-collar whites’ votes and won. In 1968, Humphrey got only 38% of those voters and lost.
“I am the law and order candidate,” Mr. Trump declared earlier this month, clearly hoping to capitalize on the fact that race relations have deteriorated under President Obama and that Democrats spend more time indulging lawbreakers than denouncing them.
Still, the law-and-order situation in the U.S. today is not nearly as dire as it was in 1968. Riots of the kind we saw in Ferguson, Mo., and Baltimore are rare. The murder rate has risen in recent years in large cities but remains far below its peak in the early 1990s. Nixonian rhetoric may win Mr. Trump some additional votes, but unlike in 1968, polls show that voters this year are more concerned about jobs and the economy.
This piece originally appeared in The Wall Street Journal
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Jason L. Riley is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a columnist at The Wall Street Journal, and a Fox News commentator.
Photo by Hulton Archive / Getty Images
This piece originally appeared in The Wall Street Journal