1968 was an apocalyptic year for both the right and the left. Women, blacks, students, hippies, homosexuals and anyone else shut out of the post-WWII power structure revolted en masse — and were met by anger and violence from on high. It was the beginning of the culture wars and everyone could feel doom in the air.
Two public intellectuals — Republican commentator William F. Buckley and leftist novelist Gore Vidal — attempted to sway the new order their way in 10ย acerbic televised debates during the 1968 Republican and Democratic conventions. In front of the nation, the baby-faced Buckley called Vidal a drunk and a “queer” — far more an insult then than it is today, especially on national TV — while the patrician novelist smeared his conservative foe as a “crypto-Nazi” and accused him of “reveling in inequality.”