After the Election

PRESIDENT NIXON'S VICTORY YESTERDAY leaves him in a stronger position than ever to do irreparable damage to the country.

Much of his strength lies in the difference between his words and his actions. He has been more successful at pacifying America than Vietnam, promising a falsely comfortable future he's wooed voters by playing on fears of the often reckless anger of the antiwar movement, and the reluctance of Americans to look at essential change.

Conversely George McGovern's defeat is evidence enough that new ways have to be found to make the effects and implications of Nixon's policies clear to those who have heard only his platitudes. If any group is to make real inroads against Nixon's policies of American dominance in the world and dominance of the wealthy in America it will have to attract some of those voters who supported Nixon's re-election.

It is important in a time when Nixon's popularity is at a peak to demonstrate that considerable opposition to his policies still exists. But simple demonstration is not enough. The opposition must prove its validity by showing how community action works to the benefit of average citizens in small issues as well as large ones. It must show that there is much more power for the people of a democracy than the choice every few years between two front-running candidates; it must show that Nixon can exercise only as much control over civil liberties as citizens are willing to allow him.

Our role as students may be, if anything, a handicap for the kind of opposition that will best hold Nixon's strongman tendencies in check. So long as our demonstrations can be brushed aside in citizen's minds with the tag of "cynical student rebellion," Nixon has little to worry about. Fortunately, his victory cannot destroy the work of public-interest lobbyists. Nor can it halt either the effects of grass-roots community organizing or the appeal of anti-administration campaigns focused on undisguisable conditions: inflation, racism, inequitable taxes, military overextension and waste, violations of civil liberties, poor housing, corporation influence and government corruption. Working to change these conditions most effectively demonstrates the poverty of Nixon's leadership. The best response to Nixon's re-election is not mere opposition to his Presidency. It must include efforts to fulfill the needs of this country that Nixon has chosen to overlook.