Cameroon timber Perhaps the most challenging thing about having written a book about the 1968 presidential election is that every time there is political violence or student protests in America, people compare those events to that ill-fated year — and they are pretty much always wrong.
Take, for example, the increasingly omnipresent talk about how the pro-Palestinian anti-war protests roiling American college campuses today bear similarity to those protests 56 years ago opposing the war in Vietnam. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., even suggested that the war in Gaza “may be Biden’s Vietnam.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders suggested that the war in Gaza “may be Biden’s Vietnam.”
These comparisons, like all the others made over the years, are wildly off base. In 1968, there were half a million U.S. troops fighting in Southeast Asia. That year, close to 17,000 Americans were killed in Vietnam, and more than 87,000 were wounded. Moreover, there was a national draft scooping up 18-year-olds into the military, and many of those protesting on campuses were taking advantage of college deferments that ensured they wouldn’t be forced to join the army.
Today, not only does America have an all-volunteer army, but no U.S. troops are fighting in Gaza — or are at any serious risk of being deployed there. College students might be enraged about the situation in Gaza, but unlike their generational predecessors who had to worry about being sent into conflict, virtually none of them has that kind of skin in the game.
But the false comparisons to 1968 don’t end there. More than a half-century ago, Vietnam was one of the pre-eminent issues on the minds of American voters. Outrage and frustration over the conduct of the war spurred Sen. Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy of New York to launch primary challenges against incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson. After an underwhelming performance in the New Hampshire primary and Kennedy’s entry into the race soon after, Johnson shocked the nation by bowing out and ending his bid for re-election. Throughout the summer and fall of 1968, eventual Democratic nominee Vice President Hubert Humphrey, was hounded on the campaign trail by anti-war protesters.
Not only is the war in Gaza not a primary issue of concern for voters; it doesn’t even crack the top 10. Indeed, according to the recent Harvard poll of voters aged 18-29, Israel/Palestine ranked 15th out of 16 on their list of the most important issues facing America. (Oddly the only issue that ranked lower was student debt.) Remember, this is the group of Americans that is supposedly the most concerned about the situation in the Middle East. However, even among Democratic voters 18-29, Gaza ranks 13th — far behind abortion, gun violence, health care and protecting democracy. In fact, only 2% of young voters consider the war in Gaza their top concern.
It’s also far from clear that young people are disproportionately partial to the Palestinian cause. A nearly equal percentage of young people sympathize with the Israeli and Palestinian people — while holding far more negative views of their leaders.
But perhaps most telling is that close to 45% of those polled say they don’t know enough about the situation in Gaza to form an opinion. It’s very difficult to imagine a similar poll result in 1968 about the Vietnam War.
For all the coverage that campus protests are receiving, the reality is that we’re talking about a tiny number of students on a tiny number of elite university campuses and on an issue that the vast majority of young voters either don’t care about or don’t understand.
Ironically, this is one place where the situation in 1968 is similar to today — though not in the way that most people would assume.
History has lionized anti-war protesters as the voice of a generation — and while those protesters were right about the wrongness of the war in Vietnam, they did not speak for their generation.
Indeed, the demographic group most supportive of the war in Vietnam were those aged 18-29 (the group most opposed were those who came of age during WWI and WWII). In addition, anti-war protesters were among the most unpopular group of Americans in the country — even among those opposed to the war in Vietnam.
According to a recent Morning Consult poll, a plurality of Americans would like to see colleges ban both pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
Back then, Americans disliked the chaos and disorder that came from anti-war protests — and here again, not much has changed.
According to a recent Morning Consult poll, a plurality of Americans would like to see colleges ban both pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian demonstrations. In addition, the overwhelming majority of Americans support college administrators asking the police to protect their campuses from violence.
But here the slight similarities swiftly come to an end. Unlike Johnson and later Humphrey, there’s very little indication that President Joe Biden is paying much of a political price for the war in Gaza.
Even though Biden has publicly criticized the Israeli government, pressured Israel not to launch a military offensive in the Hamas-held city of Rafah and even sanctioned Israeli military units, he has been vilified by pro-Palestinian activists as “Genocide Joe.”
As a result, it’s become practically pro forma among media commentators to suggest that Biden’s perceived support for Israel is a political liability.
But, again, the data doesn’t support this view. As CNN’s polling guru Harry Enten recently pointed out, Biden’s declining support among young voters predates the war in Gaza — and the war has had practically no effect on 2024 presidential polling. Even though Biden’s favorability rating is at a measly 31% among young voters, he is still leading Trump by 19 points with this cohort. Considering Biden’s terrible numbers among young people, one would expect him to be doing even worse.
Granted, that’s worse than his approximate 25-point margin in 2020 with those aged 18-29, but we are also six months away from Election Day. In other words, there’s plenty of time for Biden to convince younger voters that whatever their problems with him — the alternative is far worse.
Of course, a lot can happen between now and Election Day. Perhaps Biden will pay a price with Arab voters in the crucial swing state of Michigan. It’s quite possible that Chicago, the site of this year’s Democratic convention (like the one in 1968), will be witness to protests and even violence (also like the one in 1968). But based on what we know now, the likely political fallout from the war in Gaza looks nothing like what the country experienced 56 years ago over the war in Vietnam.
Not that these obvious distinctions will stop people from making the comparisons.
Michael A. Cohen
Michael A. Cohen is a columnist for MSNBC and a Senior Fellow and co-director of the Afghanistan Assumptions Project at the Center for Strategic Studies at the Fletcher School, Tufts University. He writes the political newsletter Truth and Consequences. He has been a columnist at The Boston Globe, The Guardian and Foreign Policy, and he is the author of three books, the most recent being “Clear and Present Safety: The World Has Never Been Better and Why That Matters to Americans.”