Ghost of McGovern haunts Democratic foreign policy stance

The most antiwar presidential candidate in my lifetime was Democrat George McGovern in 1972. He ran against pro Vietnam War president Richard Nixon, who claimed America could achieve peace with honor there. McGovern said ‘Bunk’ and pledged to end the war without, as Nixon’s policy guaranteed, getting hundreds of thousands more Vietnamese, and tens of thousands more U.S. soldiers killed. Result? The U.S. electorate rejected McGovern’s vision overwhelmingly, giving Nixon 49 states and a 23.2% vote margin. Democrats, traditionally less militaristic than Republicans, learned a hard lesson: never campaign for peace over war.  

In the 12 presidential elections since, including this one, Democrats dared not champion peace against war loving Republicans. In 2004, former Vietnam peace advocate John Kerry had the chance to call out George W. Bush for his illegal, immoral and criminal Iraq war. Instead he bailed, campaigning on winning the war, which was in tatters, by fighting it more intelligently. In 2008 and 2012, Barack Obama hinted at withdrawing from senseless wars. Once in office, he not only didn’t fully end them, he added to America’s Wars of Shame, intervening in Libya, Yemen and Syria; helping turn them into failed states, with hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of refugees.  

Trump also campaigned against America’s forever wars, but has dropped more bombs than Obama, assassinated a high ranking Iranian general, and nearly started massive wars against both Iran and North Korea. But rather than call out and campaign against this military bellicosity, Joe Biden campaigns for more military spending, more confrontation with China and Russia, adversaries he calls “near peer powers”. What’s tops Biden’s foreign policy agenda on January 21, 2021? “First thing I’m going to do, if elected, is get on the phone with the heads of state and say… America’s back”. Biden is no fool. He knows peace doesn’t sell with a war obsessed government and military fueled by companies selling hundreds of billions in weapons of mass civilian destruction.  They ply their madness over a clueless, compliant and complicit electorate. And astride Biden’s shoulder every war tinged step of the way is the ghost of George McGovern.