There was NO internet/social media, cable T.V. when Nixon was Veep, running for president, nor when he WAS president.
But the "WHISPER CAMPAIGNS", radio and T.V. news( as well as televised House and Senate shown LIVE ), and newspapers were all there and and beating up/trashing Nixon constantly.
Nixon held great rallies! Though smaller ones than Trump has, they were just as stirring, lots of fun, singing, entertainment ( live bands ), and yes, the ones in NYC were huge, by that day's standards.
There was also "merch"...buttons! And the buttons were in every language.
And there was a song: NIXON'S THE ONE.
So our side WAS fighting back...even in what today are BLUE cities.
And as you state, they are STILL beating up on Nixon; he is the perennial "boogieman"! :-(
Re Vietnam............
No damned way would Nixon have gotten us involved, had the '60 election NOT been stolen from him!
Yes, Ike had a few "advisers" there, very Sub Rosa", which, of course Nixon knew about. But Ike wasn't about to send troops in and Nixon was NOT one to have done that at all, had the fraud not taken place.
And all of the supposed "BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST", that were around JFK and LBJ would not be there either, nor, Jackie, the Frankophile, telling JFK had BETTER help out the French there and send money and troops down a deep hole.
OTOH...should things had somehow evolved, where something had to be done, Nixon, unlike LBJ ( who micromanaged it all to our defeat and McNamara, et al ) would have fought to win!
Reagan wasn't ready to be president earlier than he was.
I saw on eBay a lampoon pin of “Nixon’s The One” with a heavily pregnant woman (implying he was the father). So you could see the types of mean-spirited crap directed his way.
Vietnam was going to be a catch-22, regardless. Although we can say in hindsight that it probably would’ve been better to have stayed out of what was a civil war, the march of Communism across Asia was undeniable, and we also couldn’t stand back and let the Russians acquire one more ally after another.
I lay the blame at the feet of Truman. If Gen. MacArthur could’ve taken the war in Korea straight to the Red Chinese and taken out Mao (or neutered him), leaving Chiang as ruler, those Communist uprisings would never have been able to pop up. With Chiang in Peking instead of Formosa, they would’ve obliterated any attempts by the Vietnam Communists under Ho to take control of the country (and, hence, we probably would not have had to do anything there). The Soviets would’ve been isolated as a result, and might’ve collapsed even earlier.
Go back even further, had we not been dragged into WW1 and a stalemate between Germany and Britain occurred, they would’ve been forced to bury their differences and quickly team up and take out the Communist insurgency in Russia by 1920. Then all the Communist garbage, the rise of Hitler, WW2, et al, would never have come to pass. A far different century, and far better.
It’s what I told another FReeper, you can see Satan’s fingerprints all over the 20th century up to now. Countless wars, genocides, evil ideologies, cultural deterioration, diminishment of Christianity...