His crushing defeat became the catalyst for a whole generation of Democratic politicians who rejected both the basic elements of New Deal liberalism and the dovish foreign policy of the New Left. McGovern’s popular image these days is as the avatar of a bunch of deluded leftists who seized the Democratic nomination, ran a far-too-left-wing race, and paid the price. George McGovern has long been known as the man who got steamrollered by Richard Nixon in the 1972 presidential election-the fourth-worst loss by popular vote in American history. McGovern’s foreign-policy ideas not only offered a critique of an earlier era of hawkish liberalism they also provide an excellent foundation for a badly needed new approach by the American left. One perspective worth dusting off in this context is that of George McGovern, who is the subject of a new biography by Thomas J. The party’s conservatives and moderates remain in thrall to a liberal internationalism that has, at times, not looked much different from Republican hawkishness, while its left wing-still marginalized after decades out of power-has failed to put forward a compelling alternative. The Democrats’ majority support for Trump’s cruise-missile strike is emblematic of just how at sea they are in terms of foreign policy.
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