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Have all or most of the elections generated this much bitterness and hatred between parties or even between members of the same party? If so, which one stands out in your mind as the most divisive or vicious?
The first election I can remember with much real clarity was Carter/Reagan. So, no I cannot remember anything this wild. I'm interested in what more mature posters will have to say.
Have all or most of the elections generated this much bitterness and hatred between parties or even between members of the same party? If so, which one stands out in your mind as the most divisive or vicious?
Nothing in my memory. I'm 43 years old. If you think this is bad, wait until the Repubs. enter the equation!
Skye
When I was growing up in the 60s and 70s we were divided by war, by corruption, by cynicism and by race and gender. You are now seeing the teenagers who stood on both sides of the lines, now grown men and women in power. Maybe now that there is power behind the rhetoric, change can be achieved.
As someone in his 50's, things are clearly more partisan. It really started more in Congress and spilled over into the presidential elections in the late 90's.
1968. A Candidate being assassinated during the primary is a bit radical.
Yes, 1968 was definitely a more "spirited" contest. It had everything: riots at the Chicago Dem convention, a sitting president (LBJ) dropping out, an angry 3rd party (Wallace), and an assasination of probably the best candidate from either party.
I didn't like Bobby Kennedy at all back then, but in the years since I've come to admire what he intended for the country.
1968. A Candidate being assassinated during the primary is a bit radical.
Wow, does that bring back memories.
I was in the infantry in Vietnam, and I can remember so clearly coming in one sunny spring morning in early April from an all-night ambush patrol. I remember the soft sandy soil of the village just northwest of Saigon where we had set up our company perimeter. I remember the faces of the villagers we had befriended, and with many of whom we had grown close in the months since the terrible Tet offensive that had decimated their families. I remember most of all that I was the only caucasian on that patrol (there were six of us). Word had already spread from "the world" (America)that Martin Luther King had been murdered in Memphis. My last memories of that day were the stricken faces and slumped shoulders of my five black platoon mates. For a while, nobody said anything. Nobody could. They just put down their packs and weapons, joined the other black guys in the platoon in quiet conversations, and faded out of sight as the morning turned into day and we all sought to sleep for a few hours.
Jump ahead a couple of months, and we had a replay. We came in from another ambush, in the red-clay country near the Cambodian border this time, and were met by our buddies with the news that it was Bobby Kennedy who had been shot down this time -- back in "the world."
It was with a feeling of total desolation, compounded of our surroundings in the death-smelling part of Vietnam that we had been fighting over for the past couple of weeks and our feeling that things back home were no better than they were here, that we set down our heavy packs, our ammo belts, our claymore bags, our rucksacks, and our weapons.
"World is f*cked up just like here, dude, " one of my black friends finally told me. Then he added something that haunts me to this day: "Now you hurt like we do."
1968. Bad year. I've never seen one worse. The current bickering is as nothing compared to that miserable time.
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posters will have to say.
