Colman: IT STARTED WITH NIXON

Interesting analysis of the Nixon years.  One point needs to be made in re: education background.  Nixon was an attorney and Trump received an MBA from the Wharton School of Business.

Nixon did the right thing to open up China.  His successors gave away the store to China, until Trump came along.  Then Biden, an agent of China gave in to the Communists based on payoffs.

Nixon stopped the Viet Nam—Trump never had any wars he started.

Bothe Nixon and Trump were clear, if you oppose/d their policies, you were the problem.  As history shows, both were right.

IT STARTED WITH NIXON

By Richard Colman, Exclusive to the California Political News and Views,  1/16/24  www.capoliticalnewsandviews.com

The cut-and-slash politics of Donald Trump, a Republican, is not new.  Trump’s mean and vindictive behavior began with another presidential candidate:  Richard Nixon, also a Republican.

There have been other nasty presidential contests, but over the last 100 years, Nixon created the “gold standard” for vindictiveness.

To be fair, Nixon was both a brilliant man and a scoundrel.

In his school days, Nixon was a brilliant student in high school, college, and law school.

In 1960, Nixon lost the presidency to John F. Kennedy, a Democrat.

Eight years later, in 1968, the Republican Party re-nominated Nixon the be the Republican Party’s presidential candidate.  He won the 1968 election against Hubert Humphrey, the Democratic vice president, and George Wallace, a former governor of Alabama and a staunch segregationist.

After his 1968 election, Nixon went on to become one of the most sinister presidents in American history.  He compiled an enemies list, he hated the news media, and he created an atmosphere in which the so-called Plumbers where hired to stop leaks to the news media. 

Several of the Plumbers were caught in 1972 burglarizing the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters in the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C.  The Watergate break-in gave rise to the term Watergate, which was used to describe a series of crimes committed while Nixon was president.

During Nixon’s presidency, journalists were sent to jail for refusing to disclose sources of information.

While president, Nixon did some clever work in foreign policy.  In February 1972, he created an opening to China by visiting that nation.  He was assisted by Henry Kissinger, Nixon’s national security adviser and, later, Nixon’s secretary of state.

In May 1972, Nixon and Kissinger visited Moscow to sign an arms-limitation agreement with the Soviet Union.

In November 1972, Nixon won an overwhelming re-election victory, capturing 49 of 50 states.  He only lost Massachusetts.

When nominated for president in August 1968, Nixon gave a forceful and persuasive acceptance speech in Miami, Florida.  Before the speech, there had been violent race riots in Los Angeles, Detroit, Newark (New Jersey), and other cities.

Also, by 1968, the United States was bogged down in a war in Vietnam.  At the time of Nixon’s acceptance speech, more than 500,000 American troops were stationed in Vietnam.  There was no sense that the war was being won.  The incumbent President, Lyndon Johnson, a Texas Democrat, was unable to travel to much of the nation because of hostile, anti-war demonstrations.

In his 1968 acceptance speech, Nixon promised a new beginning.  He said, “When the strongest nation in the world can be tied down for four years in a war in Vietnam with no end in sight, [w]hen the richest nation in the world can’t manage its own economy, [w]hen the nation with the greatest tradition of the rule of law is plagued by unprecedented lawlessness. . . And when the President of the United States cannot travel abroad or to any major city at home without fear of a hostile demonstration, then it’s time for new leadership for the United States of America.”

In early 1973, with Nixon as president, the war in Vietnam ended.

What does Nixon have to do with Trump?

Trump does not have the educational background or the political savvy of Nixon.

But Trump has followed much of Nixon’s dark side.

Trump loathes the news media.  Like Nixon, Trump uses foul language.  Trump labels his opponents –- fellow Republicans, Democrats, and others — using nasty names.  He has insulted foreign leaders.

Trump, when president from 2017 to 2011, was impeached twice by the U.S. House of Representatives.   In both instances, he was not convicted by the U.S. Senate.  On Jan. 6, 2021, thousands of Trump supporters invaded the U.S. Capitol, causing extensive damage.

In 1968, Nixon employed what was called a Southern strategy, in which Nixon aimed for votes in what was once the solid, Democratic South.

Now, much of the South is, thanks to Nixon’s pioneering efforts, pretty much an area of Republican domination.

In his 2024 campaign, Trump, if re-nominated for president, can count on most, perhaps all, of the Southern states.

Once a president, like Nixon, sets out on a course of meanness and vindictiveness, imitating such a course becomes easier for later candidates like Trump.  The novelty of mean and nasty behavior no longer exists.

In the wake of Watergate, Nixon had to resign.  On Aug. 9, 1974, Nixon left the presidency, turning over his office to his successor, Gerald Ford, a Republican.

No one knows what Trump, if re-elected as president, will do once in office again.  Will Trump overreach, get into legal trouble, and have to resign?  No one knows.  Currently, Trump has been indicted four times.  He has not been convicted of anything.

But if Trump is re-elected, he can thank Nixon for creating a path –- and a set of behaviors –- needed for an electoral victory.