Why did Watergate, the Vietnam War, and the distrust of Richard Nixon push the country towards the left?
I’m not sure it did as you put it. The Vietnam war and The Nixon Administration/Watergate are two separate issues. Vietnam was in large part a direct result of JFK’s White House (61-63) and LBJ’s White House (63-69). Contrary to other opinions on this board, Eisenhower (53-61) had nothing to do with Vietnam accept the adoption of the US Policy of “Containment of Communism”. I think if you asked Eisenhower where Vietnam was, he would have said “Viet Who?” It is a myth that the Vietnam War was something the republican’s conjured up. In fact, Richard Nixon won the Presidency on a platform that promised to end the war — and that is just what he did. Having said that, the move of the activist left in that era was not the same as the political left. JFK, JBJ were classical democrats. They were consider liberal (as in liberty) not Liberal (as we define it today) These are the same word — but entirely different ideas. Personally, I think the Far left hi-jacked the term and used it to describ
