Fear and Loathing On the Campaign Trail '72

“There is no way to avoid ‘racist undertones’ here.”

Thompson begins his coverage with a description of the changing racial demographics of Washington, DC. Throughout the book, he criticizes Richard Nixon’s racism, while not recognizing the implicit racism (at least, from a modern perspective) in his own comments. In doing so, he hints at a subtle similarity between himself and Nixon that emerges over the rest of the narrative. No matter how much Thompson claims to loathe the president, there is something of Thompson in Nixon and vice versa.

“It’s mainly a personal trip, a very hard thing to explain.”

Again, Thompson returns to his framing of politics as a narcotic. Like someone who is tripping on drugs, he is taking a personal trip in both senses of the word. He struggles to explain this in one comment to a new acquaintance because, at this point in the book, he does not yet know the depths that his addiction will reach. Thompson anticipates the transformative power of the trip, though he cannot yet describe it succinctly.

“My garb and general demeanor is not considered normal by Washington standards.”

Amid the other political journalists, Thompson stands out aesthetically as well as ideologically. His dress makes it clear that he is not like the other reporters. However, Thompson makes no attempt to moderate his behavior or his dress. This is his Gonzo style: He imposes himself on the story in a radically subjective manner rather than simply standing by and covering the story in some objective way.

“I was the only one in the press corps that evening who claimed to be as seriously addicted to pro football as Nixon himself.”

Thompson cannot help but allude to the subtle similarities between himself and Nixon. Their first meeting, for example, comes about as a result of their shared obsession with pro football. They share an addiction to football, and to politics. Their similarities and differences emerge as a series of intersecting and contrasting obsessions. Addiction humanizes Nixon to Thompson, much to his annoyance.

“We are not a nation of truth-lovers.”

Thompson is a cynical man and a critic of society. As McGovern’s campaign gathers steam, however, he foreshadows Nixon’s eventual victory through his cynical comment on the American public’s disinterest in the truth. In addition, the comment ironically foreshadows the success of Thompson’s own book, which exaggerates the truth to the point of mistruth on numerous occasions. Thompsons’s entertaining but untruthful version of events proves more popular than most traditional, truthful accounts of the campaign.

“If you want to sell yourself to a nation of TV addicts, you obviously can’t ignore the medium.”

By the 1970s, Thompson believes, the US has become a television nation. The population is addicted to television, so American politicians must cater their campaigns around this addiction. Television is the language of this America, and the politicians must learn the language. Nixon, not a natural televisual figure, wins the election, casting doubt on Thompson’s theory.

“I tend to travel heavy; not for any good reason, but mainly because I haven’t learned the tricks of the trade.”

Thompson joins the campaign with a heavy suitcase, while other journalists are traveling light. Once again, Thompson distinguishes himself from the other members of the press in subtle ways. He is literally burdened by his lack of knowledge of how traditional journalists operate.

“By nightfall of that day every journalist in Miami was laughing at Hart’s blunder but nobody published it.”

Thompson mistrusts the close relationship between press and politicians. When a politician makes an error, journalists who are trying to preserve their sources or perform favors to friends may not report on that error. Therefore, these journalists obfuscate the truth. They claim to present an objective, fact-based account of the world yet hide certain stories for personal reasons. Their subjective desires affect their supposedly objective coverage.

“If a candidate wants an organization he can count on, he has to build it himself.”

The irony of McGovern’s campaign is that he must build his institutional support from the ground up. He must construct a rival institution to the Democratic Party in order to take over the Democratic Party, building a competitor that will eventually be subsumed into the machine. This is how the Democratic Party (and the Republican Party) preserves power, by making its institutions seemingly insurmountably powerful.

“Jesus, these are the pigs who run the country. Nixon/southerners/Big Business.”

At points in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72, Thompson drops the pretense of prose and presents his raw, unchanged notes. This is the platonic ideal of his Gonzo approach, a form of journalism so immediate, honest, and direct that it derives from the unaltered, unedited version of events as Thompson experiences them in any given moment. He even drops conventions as seemingly necessary as sentences in favor of lists and profanities.

“Now that the Republicans are running The War, the Democrats are against it.”

The Vietnam War began in earnest during a Democratic administration. Now that Republicans are in the White House, many Democratic politicians are campaigning against the war. While Thompson agrees with them, he notes a cynical and self-serving attitude in these Democrats. They are not serious about finishing the war, only about winning votes. This is why McGovern stands out to him as someone who is sincere in his desire to end the war for moral reasons rather than to simply beat the Republicans.

“Is there no room at the top for a totally dishonest person?”

Thompson is scathingly sarcastic in his comments about Nixon and the Old Guard of the Democratic Party. To him, these figures are inherently untrustworthy, yet they are the people who seem to cling most rigidly to power. His implicit point is the opposite: that the top government positions do not seem to have any place for anyone as apparently trustworthy as McGovern. Those who are on top are dishonest because the system itself is dishonest.

“There was high ground to be seized on The Left, Lindsay felt.”

In the early days of the Democratic primaries, McGovern was not alone in identifying the vacancy available to anyone who is nominally on “The Left” side of the political spectrum. Like McGovern, Lindsay recognizes this vacancy. Like McGovern, however, Lindsay finds himself at the mercy of the Democratic Party. The Old Guard of the party represent institutional power; they cling to this power and try to shut down opposition any way they can. As such, the primary is a case of who can weather the attacks from the party’s institutional representatives.

“It’s the first time in the history of this country that the presidential nominating speech was given at three o’clock in the morning.”

According to many people in the book, McGovern’s acceptance speech is one of the best that they have ever heard. Unfortunately, due to the machinations of the convention, it is broadcast in the early hours of the morning. From this moment, McGovern’s campaign seems doomed by missed opportunities and bad decisions. McGovern is literally not on the same wavelength as the American electorate, and he misses a chance to communicate his best ideas directly to his audience.

“His staff people, both in Washington and South Dakota, began to speak more freely about the ‘disaster’ confronting them and even the inevitability of Eagleton withdrawing.”

As the Eagleton affair gathers steam, a sense of crushing inevitability pervades the McGovern camp. At first, they direct this sense of inevitability toward dropping Eagleton from the ticket. As events gather pace, however, the inevitability extends to the race itself: McGovern never recovers from the crisis.

“Nixon has a keen understanding of these things.”

Thompson presents McGovern as a good man caught in a difficult situation, leading to a series of terrible decisions. In contrast, Nixon has a keen understanding of events. Nixon is a cynical man for a cynical time, someone who can tune the populace’s general cynicism to the needs of the moment.

“Nixon has never made any secret of his feelings about the press.”

Nixon does not like the press and does not hide his dislike. Thompson does not like Nixon and—in stark contrast to the supposedly objective members of the press—does not hide his dislike. Once again, Thompson and Nixon are uncannily alike, even if they situate themselves on opposite ends of the political spectrum.

“It is Nixon himself who represents that dark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character almost every other country in the world has learned to fear and despise.”

Nixon is not a disease in American society but a symptom. Nixon’s rise to power is, according to Thompson, a product of his ability to correctly identify the dark, venal desires of the American mind and to present himself as the mirror of these urges. Nixon wins because he matches the electorate; he embodies an American psyche that US citizens would like to pretend does not exist, but that is recognized around the world. Rather than some great, unique, individual villain, Nixon is the perfect product of a specific American mindset.

“The Watergate thing came about as close as anything.”

For the modern reader, Thompson’s book is laden with dramatic irony. Thompson and others gesture toward the seriousness of the Watergate scandal, even though the full scandal has not yet broken. Watergate is regarded as one of the most notorious scandals in American political history; the journalists who broke the story are hailed as journalistic paragons. However, the story breaks too late to prevent Nixon’s election. Nixon is forced to resign in the future, yet—through another cruel twist of fate—it’s too late for George McGovern. Instead, Jimmy Carter, whom Thompson criticizes for representing the Old Guard of the Democratic Party, eventually replaces Nixon in 1976 and does nothing to address the problems Thompson, McGovern, and others identified.

“Frank and I had been part of a panel discussion on ‘The Role of the Media in the Campaign.’”

When Thompson began writing the book, he insisted that he was a political outsider. In the wake of the failed McGovern election, however, he found himself a member of the official post-mortem. Just like Frank Mankiewicz, he is now a part of the institution in some capacity. Thompson has been enveloped into the political fold, regardless of how much he treasures his outsider status.

“And so that what seemed to be powerful and moving and eloquent to us was terrifying to many people.”

McGovern reflects on his defeat, empathizing with Thompson’s beliefs but recognizing that the American public does not hold these views. This is a difficult admission for McGovern, who has come so close to the most powerful position in the country. Though he sincerely believes in his capacity to help people, they would rather align themselves with someone like Richard Nixon for reasons beyond his control. McGovern is saddened by his loss and his country’s pessimism.

“Do you think that original leak to the press, Frank, and Gary came from the FBI?”

In their post-mortem of the election, Thompson spins a theory that the FBI was behind the leak of the Eagleton medical records. The theory is never confirmed (or even mentioned again), but the discussion speaks to Thompson’s need to find some sort of explanation for McGovern’s failure beyond his own pessimism. He would rather engage in conspiracy theory than believe that the American public sincerely considers Nixon a better man who represents better politics than McGovern. Thompson may present himself as a cynic, but his desire for an alternative explanation hints at his hope that the American people might be victims of a broader conspiracy rather than unforgivable supporters of Nixon.

“Nixon, who has never been good under pressure, was never put under any sort of pressure.”

Thompson despises Richard Nixon and presents the campaign as a failed opportunity to interrogate the morality of the US president. Nixon effectively dodged scrutiny, which an outspoken critic like Thompson finds incredibly frustrating. Later, Nixon would be forced to resign because of his scandal. This is what Thompson considers a tragedy: that McGovern’s failure helped insulate Nixon from well-deserved scrutiny.