Constructing Nixon’s Majority: Winning Rhetoric in the Presidential Election of 1972

Frank Kusch reframes Nixon's landslide election win in 1972 as a pivotal moment in American politics, the result of a masterful campaign strategy based on the exploitation of national anxieties. This book reframes the 1972 election as a masterclass in political messaging, strategy, and the manipulation of national divisions. Drawing on extensive archival research, it reveals how Nixon's campaign reshaped American conservatism, laying the groundwork for modern political polarization. Frank Kusch argues that Nixon’s landslide was the product of a carefully orchestrated campaign that capitalized on the fears of a conservative electorate uneasy with the social upheavals of the 1960s. By presenting Nixon as a steady leader amid turmoil, his campaign forged a coalition defined less by polices it championed than conditions it opposed— radicalism, protest, and chaos.