History often remembers elections by who won and who lost.
But some elections matter because they reveal deeper changes taking place beneath the surface.
The election of 1972 was one of those moments. Many of us consider it to be the landslide that changed America.
Those of us who witnessed that time period remember that only four years earlier, America had experienced one of the most turbulent periods in its history. The assassinations of Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, riots in cities across the nation, anti-war protests, and the bitter divisions of the Vietnam era left many Americans wondering what had happened to the country they thought they knew.
By 1972, those wounds had not healed. In fact, in many cases, they seemed to have gotten worse.
The war continued.
Protests continued.
The arguments over race, culture, and the future of America continued.
Yet something important had changed.
Many Americans were no longer simply reacting to the turmoil.
They were choosing sides.
And in November of 1972, they made their choice overwhelmingly clear.
The Long Shadow of 1968
For myself, the years between 1968 and 1972 felt unsettled.
In 1968 I had graduated from high school in Houston and in 1969 I had enlisted in the Coast Guard amid one of the most turbulent periods in modern American history. By 1972, many of the arguments that had erupted during the 1960s were still raging. Yet something had changed. Americans were no longer simply arguing about the future. Increasingly, they were choosing sides.
The Vietnam War remained a constant presence in American life.
Young men continued to receive draft notices.
Families continued to watch casualty reports on the evening news.
College campuses became centers of protest.
Then came May 1970.
At Kent State University, National Guard troops opened fire on student demonstrators. I was serving as a radio man at the Coast Guard Radio Station in San Francisco. Emotions ran high as people found out that:
Four students were killed.
The images shocked the nation.
For some Americans, the protests represented necessary dissent.
For others, they symbolized disorder and disrespect.
The divide widened.
The same events were producing entirely different reactions depending on who was watching.
Nixon's Appeal
Richard Nixon understood something many politicians had missed.
Millions of Americans were exhausted.
They were tired of violence.
Tired of unrest.
Tired of uncertainty.
In speech after speech, Nixon spoke of what he called the "silent majority."
These were Americans who were not marching in the streets, not appearing on television, and not leading protests.
They were raising families.
Working jobs.
Paying mortgages.
Watching the evening news and wondering whether anyone was still in control.
Nixon promised stability.
Order.
Gradual change rather than revolution.
Whether one agreed with him or not, his message resonated with millions of voters.
George McGovern and a Different Vision
The Democrats nominated Senator George McGovern.
McGovern represented a very different vision of America.
He opposed the Vietnam War.
He appealed strongly to younger voters, activists, and many who believed the country needed more dramatic social change.
His campaign energized parts of the Democratic Party.
But it also exposed growing divisions within the coalition that had dominated American politics since Franklin Roosevelt.
Many working-class voters who had once been reliable Democrats felt increasingly disconnected from the party's direction.
The old alliance was beginning to crack.
The Great Realignment Begins
The election results were stunning.
Nixon carried forty-nine states.
McGovern won only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia.
Even many states that had supported Democratic candidates for generations voted Republican.
It was one of the largest electoral victories in American history.
Yet the significance of 1972 was not simply the size of Nixon's victory.
The election revealed new political fault lines that would shape the decades ahead.
White Southern voters continued moving toward the Republican Party.
Many suburban voters became increasingly Republican.
Working-class ethnic voters who had once formed the backbone of Democratic strength began drifting away.
The New Deal coalition that had dominated American politics for nearly forty years was weakening.
A new political map was emerging.
The Contradictions
Yet even as Nixon celebrated victory, trouble was already brewing.
Just months earlier, operatives connected to Nixon's reelection campaign had been caught breaking into Democratic headquarters at the Watergate complex. At the time, almost nobody imagined that a minor break-in would eventually bring down a president.
After all, at the time, the incident seemed minor.
Few Americans paid much attention.
The landslide victory overshadowed everything.
But history would soon reveal that one of the greatest electoral triumphs in American history carried within it the seeds of one of the greatest political scandals.
For the moment, however, most Americans saw only the victory.
The scandal was still hidden in the shadows.
Closing
Looking back, 1972 was more than a landslide election.
It was a snapshot of a nation searching for stability after years of upheaval.
The arguments that had erupted during the 1960s had not disappeared.
But voters were beginning to sort themselves into new political coalitions.
The old Democratic dominance was fading.
A modern Republican coalition was taking shape.
The political map Americans recognize today was beginning to emerge.
And while Watergate would soon shake the nation once again, the deeper story of 1972 was not simply about Richard Nixon.
It was about millions of Americans trying to decide what kind of country would emerge from the turmoil of the previous decade.
In many ways, that debate continues to this day.
"At the time, none of us knew how this story was going to end."
Looking back, 1972 was more than a landslide election.
I still have a Presidential Certificate of Appreciation from those years, signed by Richard Nixon during my service in the Coast Guard. At the time, it was simply a certificate from the Commander-in-Chief. Like most Americans, I had no way of knowing how dramatically the story of that presidency would unfold.
History has a way of doing that.
We live through events one day at a time, rarely seeing where they will lead. Only years later do we begin to understand how the pieces fit together.
And in many ways, the America that emerged from 1972 is still the America we live in today.
