The article discusses the Yippies' strategies during the 1960s to challenge the American political system. Their approach involved staging spectacles intended to highlight the system's flaws and provoke a public reaction.
Notable actions include scattering dollar bills at the New York Stock Exchange and attempting to levitate the Pentagon. The goal was to demonstrate the system's corruption and trigger public revolt if met with violent repression. However, these actions had the opposite effect.
The "silent majority" interpreted these events negatively, leading to Richard Nixon's election. This outcome reveals a fundamental political division over the importance of maintaining social order and the acceptance of unconventional political action.
In the 1960s the Yippies had a theory about how to transform America. The system, they thought, was rotten, and the best way to show it was to create a spectacle for TV. They scattered dollar bills in the New York Stock Exchange and held a mass meeting to levitate the Pentagon. Some also thought that if armed police or soldiers attacked protesters, Americans would realise they were living in a fascist state and revolt. It backfired: the silent majority saw these stunts and voted for Richard Nixon. The Yippies had got on the wrong side of a fundamental political divide: who stands for order?
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