It was insane how far he fell. Watergate proved all his opponents right. And yes, his party turned on him. Half of Republican voters still liked him after his resignation but he literally couldn’t get another job anywhere.
I recommend going to the Nixon presidential library. They really try to whitewash the events but it literally stops listing things he did after Watergate. Other presidents didn’t even hang out with him.
Yeah, great catch about 72, thank you Kevon. I just ran out of space and brain cells, lol. Ford should have won easily in '76 in a landslide, but he didn’t win at all. Also, since you’ve been to the Nixon library, you know how he came out of poverty and put himself through law school, which was a huge thing to accomplish. He lost that law license too, after Watergate.
But what I was really hoping to convey, and did not, was that the days of 15-minute fame and 5-minute shame had not yet arrived. Just being outed as gay, for example, didn’t just kill your career, it got you glared at and mothers pulling their children away from you in the street (this happened to the original Ronald McDonald, IIRC) for years after the fact, and this kind of thing was life-destroying. Imagine if you fucked up something so badly and so publicly that anytime you left your house you were glared at, spat at, had people shout at you – and this went on for years. Because Nixon was never charged or sentenced, because there was no public reckoning, it never really ended for him personally.
At least at Club Fed he’d have been respected, and had a chance at post-prison life. I read Chuck Colson’s book; prison was very difficult for these men who had never known anything but comfort and deference, not a free ride at all, but it was still a FAR cry from gen pop. It might actually have been better for Nixon personally had he gone to prison with Colson and Liddy and the rest, but we’ll never know.
He should have fucking hung, for prolonging the Vietnam war by five years and hundreds of thousands of bodies if for nothing else
I agree, but that wasn’t revealed until 20-some years after he died.
I hated Nixon. HATED. He was a complete and total asshole. He was the guy that made turning 18 a horrible date with destiny if your daddy wasn’t rich or famous (look into W’s Vietnam years, for example, or Trump’s for that matter). Remember that Creedence song Fortunate Son? There was a reason for it.
But I still think his pardon was the right thing to do for the country at the time, not because I give two shits about him rotting in a jail cell but because the entire world needed the US to be focused an something other than a disgraced president.
I’m betting that you’ve never sat in mile-long lines to fill your gas tank, or been of age in a war where your best friends, people you personally knew, maybe even you yourself in time were getting called up by the draft to go off to die for a war you didn’t believe in, that no one understood, where nothing at all was won and no bounty but bodies came home. It was a different time and place, without the influence of foreign paid propaganda to influence domestic opinion: judging it by today’s standards doesn’t get you anywhere but wrong.
Speaking of wrong, I do NOT think any kind of pardon, or special treatment, is appropriate for Trump or his cronies. Nixon tried to influence an election; Trump planned an entire coup. Nixon was happy enough with the blood of Asians and his own draftees; Trump won’t be happy with anything but total dictator for life no matter what it costs the world.
Another thing you haven’t mentioned is that Nixon had destroyed McGovern in the 72 election. He won every state but MA!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_United_States_presidential_election
It was insane how far he fell. Watergate proved all his opponents right. And yes, his party turned on him. Half of Republican voters still liked him after his resignation but he literally couldn’t get another job anywhere.
I recommend going to the Nixon presidential library. They really try to whitewash the events but it literally stops listing things he did after Watergate. Other presidents didn’t even hang out with him.
Yeah, great catch about 72, thank you Kevon. I just ran out of space and brain cells, lol. Ford should have won easily in '76 in a landslide, but he didn’t win at all. Also, since you’ve been to the Nixon library, you know how he came out of poverty and put himself through law school, which was a huge thing to accomplish. He lost that law license too, after Watergate.
But what I was really hoping to convey, and did not, was that the days of 15-minute fame and 5-minute shame had not yet arrived. Just being outed as gay, for example, didn’t just kill your career, it got you glared at and mothers pulling their children away from you in the street (this happened to the original Ronald McDonald, IIRC) for years after the fact, and this kind of thing was life-destroying. Imagine if you fucked up something so badly and so publicly that anytime you left your house you were glared at, spat at, had people shout at you – and this went on for years. Because Nixon was never charged or sentenced, because there was no public reckoning, it never really ended for him personally.
At least at Club Fed he’d have been respected, and had a chance at post-prison life. I read Chuck Colson’s book; prison was very difficult for these men who had never known anything but comfort and deference, not a free ride at all, but it was still a FAR cry from gen pop. It might actually have been better for Nixon personally had he gone to prison with Colson and Liddy and the rest, but we’ll never know.
Oh, boo hoo, he didn’t have any friends and had to be well fed and lonesome in a mansion
He should have fucking hung, for prolonging the Vietnam war by five years and hundreds of thousands of bodies if for nothing else
Lol. Hanging people is for us regular folks, not people responsible for the death and suffering of millions.
I agree, but that wasn’t revealed until 20-some years after he died.
I hated Nixon. HATED. He was a complete and total asshole. He was the guy that made turning 18 a horrible date with destiny if your daddy wasn’t rich or famous (look into W’s Vietnam years, for example, or Trump’s for that matter). Remember that Creedence song Fortunate Son? There was a reason for it.
But I still think his pardon was the right thing to do for the country at the time, not because I give two shits about him rotting in a jail cell but because the entire world needed the US to be focused an something other than a disgraced president.
I’m betting that you’ve never sat in mile-long lines to fill your gas tank, or been of age in a war where your best friends, people you personally knew, maybe even you yourself in time were getting called up by the draft to go off to die for a war you didn’t believe in, that no one understood, where nothing at all was won and no bounty but bodies came home. It was a different time and place, without the influence of foreign paid propaganda to influence domestic opinion: judging it by today’s standards doesn’t get you anywhere but wrong.
Speaking of wrong, I do NOT think any kind of pardon, or special treatment, is appropriate for Trump or his cronies. Nixon tried to influence an election; Trump planned an entire coup. Nixon was happy enough with the blood of Asians and his own draftees; Trump won’t be happy with anything but total dictator for life no matter what it costs the world.