Fear and Loathing On the Campaign Trail '72

The 37th US president, Richard M. Nixon served from 1969 to 1974. He gained national prominence as vice president under Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953 to 1961. Despite losing the 1960 presidential election to John F. Kennedy, Nixon made a political comeback and won the presidency in 1968. In Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72, he is in the process of winning reelection. For Thompson, Nixon is a symptom of everything that is wrong with America. Thompson portrays Nixon as corrupt, venal, and cruel, a cynical man who is willing to do anything to consecrate his own political power. Part of Thompson’s motivation for entering into the sphere of political journalism is his intense dislike for Nixon and his desire to see whether anyone can possibly challenge Nixon for the presidency. Ostensibly, Nixon is a conservative Republican. As evident in his behavior at the convention, however, his ideology is much more malleable. He is prepared to do and say anything in a quest for power. This is immensely unpalatable for Thompson, whose radical left-wing beliefs make him a natural target for politicians like Nixon. As such, Thompson presents Nixon as the antagonist of Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72, the great villain who must be defeated by the emerging McGovern.

Despite Nixon’s importance to the narrative of Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72, he rarely features in it. He most often appears during flashbacks or memories in which Thompson reflects on their meetings and disagreements. The Nixon of 1972 is an occluded figure, shut up in the White House, having cynically decided that his margin of victory is large enough that he need not campaign in a traditional manner. He shields himself from scrutiny and criticism by hiding, which Thompson presents as a cowardly decision but also a winning strategy. When Nixon does appear, such as at the Republican National Convention, Thompson resolves to deduce the true cynicism of his appearance. He realizes that by carefully selecting a radically right-wing running mate and devoting time to radical right-wing speakers at the convention, Nixon is making an implicit trade with the Democratic Party. He wants an assured victory in 1972 for himself in exchange for the Democrats winning in 1976 (and likely 1980), when he will not be allowed to run. Nixon orchestrates the next two decades of American politics, apparently, to hold onto power for himself. Then, he vanishes again.

Part of Nixon’s villainy, from Thompson’s perspective, is his alignment with the more negative aspects of the American psyche. Nixon represents the cynicism and prejudice that Thompson sees throughout the US; Nixon’s ability to perceive, react to, and manipulate the American psyche is why Thompson sees him as a symptom of a more profound American sickness, the rotten symbol of a society that would vote in massive numbers for a man like Nixon over a man like McGovern. In this respect, however, Thompson recognizes something of himself in Nixon. At numerous points, the book presents them as somewhat similar. Thompson is unique among the press pool as the only journalist who shares Nixon’s addiction to pro football and is thus chosen from the other journalists to spend time chatting to Nixon about the sport during a car ride. In this moment, Nixon (with his similar addictions, similarly jaded view of the world, and meticulous knowledge of pro football) is almost humanized in Thompson’s eyes. This humanization of Nixon horrifies Thompson, who cannot abide the idea that his enemy is human at all. The similarities between Nixon and Thompson terrify him into a radical realization: He is more like Nixon than he ever feared.

If Richard Nixon is the villain of Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72, then George McGovern emerges as a potential hero. McGovern was an American politician, historian, and World War II veteran, best known for his role as the Democratic candidate for president in 1972. Born in Avon, South Dakota, McGovern grew up in a working-class family and later served as a bomber pilot in the US Army Air Forces during World War II. After the war, McGovern earned a PhD in history and government and entered politics, first as a US congressman for South Dakota in 1957 and then as a US senator in 1963. A staunch liberal, he championed causes such as anti-poverty programs, civil rights, and especially opposition to the Vietnam War, which became central to his political identity. As Thompson witnesses this, particularly as McGovern begins to win votes from Hubert Humphrey and George Wallace, McGovern emerges as the potential counterpoint to Nixon’s cynical conservatism. McGovern is an outsider, someone who is not beholden to the Old Guard of the Democratic Party. This outsider status fills Thompson with such a feeling of optimism that it is momentarily enough to revitalize his interest in electoral politics. Thompson frames this as a classic good-versus-evil fight in which the righteous McGovern is the sole candidate who can take on and defeat the evil Richard Nixon.

This framing of McGovern as the hero outsider adds an element of tragedy to what follows. McGovern wins the California primary and, in doing so, wins enough votes to secure the Democratic nomination at the convention. This occurs at the midway point of the book and, for Thompson, this is the high point of McGovern’s campaign. Everything after this is a tragic collapse, resulting from McGovern’s betrayal of his ideas. At the convention, he tries to make amends with the same Old Guard Democrats who backed Humphrey. He selects Eagleton to appeal to them and signals to the broader public that he might not be as much as an outsider as he claimed to be. Then, as the crisis surrounding Eagleton takes hold, McGovern’s reaction is cold, pragmatic, and conventional. He responds like any other politician would. The outsider, the insurgent, the McGovern of the primaries who campaigned on being someone else completely, is gone. In trying to rectify his differences from traditional party insiders, he betrays everything that made him interesting (at least to Thompson). Nixon crushes McGovern in the election. The villain destroys the hero, seemingly as punishment for betraying the same idealism and radicalism that raised him to hero status. McGovern’s story becomes a cautionary tale as Thompson tells it, a tale of a sincere and good man who destroys himself in his attempts to ally himself with a broken system.