What if… John Wayne had joined with George Wallace?

The Duke could have convinced the Dixiecrat to take an even harder stance and kept Nixon out of the White House

Remembered as one of the silver screen’s most iconic heroes, there was a time when John Wayne’s accomplishments could have stretched even further, away from Hollywood and towards Washington. So what drove him politically? “Throughout his early years, he voted Democrat and called himself a socialist,” says Carolyn Mcgivern. “He was liberal and concerned about Americans. But as he became disillusioned with the chaos he saw around him, he looked to conservatism, which mirrored his anti-government stance. His ideas were fresh and unusual and not always Republican. The only consistent thing about his politics was his love of America.”

Come 1968, Governor George Wallace was considering an offer to Wayne to join his ticket for the presidential election. “Wallace became the American Independent Party candidate in the 1968 presidential election, and in the period of the Civil Rights Movement he famously stood for ‘Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever,’ even standing in front of the University of Alabama in an attempt to stop the enrolment of African-american students in 1963,” says Mcgivern. “Wayne told everyone that he supported Nixon for president, but if there was one thing that might’ve tempted him to join Wallace, it was his campaign slogan, ‘stand up for America’.

“Wayne confided in his secretary that he didn’t like the 1964 Civil Rights Act outlawing discrimination based on race, religion, colour and sex. He felt that people who owned their own property or business should have the right to refuse service. He and Wallace shared similar views on communism, law and order, and patriotism.”

So what could have happened if Wayne hadn’t turned Wallace down? Mcgivern predicts that “the election would probably have been closer, with the Humphrey/muskie ticket representing the left, Nixon/agnew the centre and Wallace/wayne the right. Wallace/wayne would have run a ‘law and order’ and a ‘stand up for America’ campaign, and election night would have been nail biting.”

With Wayne joining Wallace, there would have been an interesting dynamic. But how would Wayne have influenced his partner and the campaign itself? “Wayne would have opposed Wallace’s generous increases for beneficiaries of social security and Medicare,” explains Mcgivern. “Wallace also pledged to withdraw troops from Vietnam if the war was not winnable within 90 days of him taking office, but Wayne couldn’t understand a ‘pull out’ attitude.”

With a star like Wayne on the ticket, could Wallace have won the election? Mcgivern doubts it. “It would have been impossible, mainly because of Wallace’s lack of strength outside the Deep South. He carried five states in the South but he wasn’t able to challenge Nixon in the Border States. He came close in North Carolina and Tennessee and could have taken those with Wayne as a running mate. It would only have taken those and a shift in New Jersey or Ohio towards Hubert Humphrey and the election would’ve been thrown into the House of Representatives.”

If Wayne had steered his career in a different direction, it could’ve had a bigger cultural impact. “Wayne wouldn’t have made movies after 1968, robbing Americans of the roles that were part of their education in what it is to be American,” Mcgivern explains. “The US wouldn’t have had a man who attempted to put it on the high road. Even now, he represents the idea of how Americans see themselves.”