I remember. The emerging modern conservative movement was blamed for a "climate of hate" and violence that led to the assassination of JFK.. we were blamed for lots more than that -- and no Internet plus the "Fairness Doctrine" made it risky for radio to air conservative responses -- we were the silenced generation.
New Biography of CBS Newsman Walter Cronkite Dents His Halo
"Barry Goldwater distrusted him from the start, and with good reason. On the day of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Cronkite nodded his head in thinly veiled contempt when handed a note on air that the Arizona senator had said “no comment.” Goldwater was attending his mother-in-law’s funeral that day.
"'Whether or not Senator Goldwater wins the nomination,' Cronkite told viewers another day, 'he is going places, the first place being Germany.' Although Goldwater had merely accepted an invitation to visit a U.S. Army facility there, correspondent Daniel Schorr said he was launching his campaign in 'the center of Germany’s right wing.' During Goldwater’s speech at the 1964 convention, some conservatives fed up with the networks gave Cronkite the finger."
I remember that.. other accounts had Cronkite reporting on his evening news show the item about Goldwater's remark. I did not remember that but I do remember Cronkite on 22 November 1963 and I remember Schorr's report on the evening CBS "news."
If only the liberals, progressives, and RINOs would come up with something new.. it's always screams of "RACIST!" "HATE!" "NAZIS!" -- though Mitt Romney's father and other Rockefeller Republicans did come up with yelling "purveyors of hate" at us. That was kind of neat.. also I remember the photo of Nelson Rockefeller at the podium (San Francisco convention 1964) giving the finger to the Goldwater delegates. Wish I could find that photo.
In what would become an iconic photo of the 1976 campaign, Rockefeller famously responded to hecklers at a rally in Binghamton, New York with a raised middle finger.