It seems unfair to put McGovern's loss alone as why Democrats are afraid - the repeated failure of UK Labour to win elections when they ran similar campaigns is more evidence that this was a genuine and on-going electoral danger. UK Labour's election losses 1979 and 1983 and then under Corbyn all provided follow-on evidence for the McGovern hypothesis. I realize there are good responses for how none of either UK or US electoral results proves the McGovern Hypothesis (tm), but that doesn't prevent a pretty good argument being put together.
It seems unfair to put McGovern's loss alone as why Democrats are afraid - the repeated failure of UK Labour to win elections when they ran similar campaigns is more evidence that this was a genuine and on-going electoral danger. UK Labour's election losses 1979 and 1983 and then under Corbyn all provided follow-on evidence for the McGovern hypothesis. I realize there are good responses for how none of either UK or US electoral results proves the McGovern Hypothesis (tm), but that doesn't prevent a pretty good argument being put together.