Richard Nixon was horribly corrupt. His whole political career was built on wealthy people picking him to serve them and funding him.
He had personal slush funds, he had literal mob payments of millions, he had dictator figures like the military junta in Greece paying him off.
(This is why he could make his infamous statement on the White House tapes that yes, they could get a million dollars for hush money for the Watergate burglars).
Nixon ran on a lie and treason about Vietnam. trump just launched 59 missiles and killed 4 for political theatre. Nixon launched a secret war in Cambodia, and needlessly killed tens of thousands of American soldiers and over a million Vietnamese in a war he needlessly extended by sabotaging LBJ’s peace agreement.
Democrats had more advantages then — it was after 40 years of the FDR era, following two great Democrats Kennedy and Johnson, who had just passed civil rights, cut poverty by a third, and put a man on the moon. There was no Fox News, big money interests were far less politically engaged and powerful. There was no Cato and AEI and Heritage and far less ‘black money’. There was no national dominance of right-wing talk radio.
And yet, faced with a choice of re-electing Nixon or a very progressive alternative — WWII hero George McGovern — the American people even then re-elected Nixon with 49 states.
It’s a useful reminder how Democrats have an uphill battle — especially now with all of those added advantages of Republican money, media, and political organization.
One that was able to barely turn the last election against a solid Democratic leader for decades in favor of the worst nominee in the country’s history following a fine presidency by Obama.
My point is, that as bad as trump is, that does not ensure Democrats a win — so encouragement is needed for Democrats to remember the challenge to really try to win. It’s meant to motivate.
We’ve just seen even normally sensible commentators praise trump for the bombing of Syria — that’s a hint how a few ‘good’ actions, like Nixon going to China, can wrongly win over voters.
Nixon signed a few good Democratic bills because they helped him politically. trump could easily do a few popular actions closer to the next election for political benefit.
A Republican doctrine is, voters forget everything and decided who to vote for just before the election, do all the bad stuff’ right after the election and then the ‘good stuff’ before the next.
And they’re usually right.
And we have advantages Democrats under Nixon didn’t — we have the internet, social media, far better investigation and commentators on issues, more history of Republican disasters.
We’ll want to use these to win in 2018 and 2020, remembering that voters can make the wrong choice even with huge evidence against it.
trump and Nixon had some flaws in common — corruption, history with the mob, serving the wealth against the American people, sociopaths about hurting people for ‘wins’.
And both have developed some media savvy — Nixon had the first dedicated tv staffer, a guy named ‘Roger Ailes’ who played a role helping Nixon and trump both win.
We have a challenge to win the next elections. We also have a great opportunity to correct the course of the country, given the backlash.
Protesters — despite Nixon’s big win — were powerful then and they’re powerful now.
Not winning then had a large price — preventing more CIA reform, creating the staffs for Republicans for decades to come with figures like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc.
Putting Lewis Powell on the Supreme Court — leading the way to ‘corporations are people’— soon to be continued by Gorsuch.
Again — reminders meant to motivate our resisting the current Republicans and in the next elections.