tobias
Full Member
Posts: 824 
Likes: 396
|
Post by tobias on Dec 5, 2017 6:44:15 GMT
I mean, yeah, Watergate gives away Nixon as a shady authoritarian but he also was perhaps the first US president to discuss baisc income, he propossed healthcare reform comparable to Obamacare, he improved the rights of women (see Equal Rights Act), natives & blacks, he effectively increased taxes on the rich, he installed the EPA, he abolished the draft, he made arms limitation agreements with the USSR and had a diplomatic breakthrough with communist China (compare to Reagan's policies...), he lowered the voting age to 18, he cracked down on organized crime (this is quite different from todays "tough on crime" Republicans, keep in mind the word organized), he effectively used the Democrats policies to fight inflation, he tried to decentralize power, he raised the Medicare part of the taxes and expanded the programm to the disabled, etc. Of course he also did things like vetoing the clean water act (because he thought it cost too much, not because he opposed the idea) and was met with a very liberal congress but what excactly again is the basis to not hold him in a more positive light than the presidents that followed? I know, Vietnman and Watergate but since Carter which presidents with an all around admirable foreign policy and without shady connections have you had? I personally prefer Carter despite his relative inconsequentiality and I fully agree that the nickname "Tricky Dick" applies 100% but I still think that there is enough basis to say you haven't had a better president since then. That H.G. Bush, Reagan & Clinton are usually regarded as better is tragic. I'm not trying to say, he's a good president but taking the absolute nosedive american politics has taken since then, I fail to see the basis to call him bad either.
Is the reception unfair?
|
|
|
|
Post by mikediastavrone96 on Dec 5, 2017 17:34:53 GMT
I find Nixon and LBJ to be such interesting cases in terms of how they are generally received. You've covered just about everything with Nixon, though I do think his persona, the legacy of the Southern Strategy, "benign neglect" of urban neighborhoods, and unsuccessful attempts to nominate Haynsworth and Carswell to the Supreme Court are worth noting when considering Nixon in totality. Disgracing the office of the presidency with the third-rate crime that was Watergate cannot be understated, though. Many Americans were already disillusioned with their government after Vietnam, but the nightmare that was Watergate promoted the kind of cynicism and political distrust that has led to where we are now. If you remove that from his presidency, he'd probably be regarded as an above-average president on the whole (though probably never would have been considered one of the greats) but Watergate was such a watershed moment that it deserves to overshadow everything else regarding Nixon.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
Likes:
|
Post by Deleted on Dec 5, 2017 17:47:12 GMT
This post makes me like him less tbh  |
|
|
|
Post by PromNightCarrie on Dec 5, 2017 23:39:11 GMT
Tell me: Am I wrong for saying that I don't give a shit about the Watergate scandal? The way it was uncovered was interesting, but the actual crime?  Maybe I'm comparing it to the far more egregious crimes committed by Presidents through history that draw so little attention. |
|
|
|
Post by stephen on Dec 6, 2017 0:04:11 GMT
Yes and no. Nixon's prowess in foreign policy is unparalleled in the modern Presidency, and it can be reasonably argued that he was the best diplomat of the twentieth century. He should be given credit for that (although his delaying of peace negotiations in Vietnam to fuck over Hubert Humphrey is repugnant). But the man's reputation being destroyed is entirely of his own doing, and history will and never should vindicate his actions. Nixon wanted to be remembered as the greatest President, but he will be remembered as a cautionary tale of how the lust for power and the subsequent overwhelming paranoia will bring ruin down on one's head. If Shakespeare were alive in the last century, he would've written about Nixon.
|
|
|
|
Post by theycallmemrfish on Dec 6, 2017 1:18:27 GMT
Stephen touched on most of it, but I'm pretty sure as far as foreign policy and relations Nixon is pretty damn well regarded... EDIT: meaning now-a-days. People back then probably still thought he was a twat even at the things he did well.
Homefront? Not so much.
|
|
|
|
Post by PromNightCarrie on Dec 6, 2017 1:46:14 GMT
(although his delaying of peace negotiations in Vietnam to fuck over Hubert Humphrey is repugnant). Which should be made into a MUCH bigger deal than Watergate. Think of the consequences of that. |
|
|
|
Post by urbanpatrician on Dec 6, 2017 1:59:47 GMT
Yes, but he was in the era of Vietnam and paranoia. Those two things really brought him down. But I didn't think he was overall a bad president, but he's probably not a president that's very friendly to the youth population - I can't think of many young people back then who saw him as anything but someone who's delaying to leave Vietnam as he promised; and the evil Watergate man. But like you said, he did some really good things, was a tremendous diplomat, is a good people's person (he was in the same room as Mao). Definitely not one of the worst, even if there are presidents I like more.
Him and LBJ are kind of a similar case. They both seem hated, despite the fact that LBJ went to work immediately and passed lots of great policies in his first few months of presidency. He really aided the social living situation in the U.S., I always thought he was the best president for social conditions and living standards. It was because of what LBJ passed that his presidency had the lowest consistent unemployment rate in the modern era. (below 4.0 consistently)
And as for as what you say about Reagan and Clinton (and Clinton's economy was pretty solid but he was aided by the computer era), I think they occupied a period of relative peace (at least compared to the major wars of the decades before), and the 80s and 90s pop culture were highly optimistic and happy. All of the popular songs and the mainstream culture in the 80s and 90s exuded carefree and happiness, and that contributed to the overall tone of what their terms (or rather their eras) are viewed as. Despite the threat of the middle east and the failed assassination attempts on both. I do think that the type of people doing the assassinating attempts changed though during their times.
|
|
tobias
Full Member
Posts: 824
Likes: 396
|
Post by tobias on Dec 6, 2017 21:08:45 GMT
PromNightCarrie , mikediastavrone96 I think stephen covered it well already when he said yes and no but I would add that even though one might conclude it from my opening post, I would never relativize Watergate. Watergate was such a Whatershed moment that it deserves a certain totality and it will forever be Nixon's prime legacy. However when judging the impact it had... That's very hard to judge. I would actually tend to say that the shorthand impact was good because it told Americans to be more skeptical of their government. If you compare that to the prime legacy of Dick Cheney (the actual president of Bush's first term), the Iraq war, that was catastrophic on all ends. So if we are comparing now, that seems very hard, comparing something done with bad intent that might have led to something good to something done with bad intent that led to maybe the biggest catastrophe of this century so far. Now I will say that I think the Iraq war was actually monumentally worse than Watergate, no contest, however the question is of course that (and this is how I understand you) the actual impact of Watergate seems inconsequential compared to many of the intensely and directly impactful decissions many other presidents made. Hell, one might argue that something Trump jut did, accepting Jerusalem as Israels capital, was worse than Watergate or what about his missile strikes, his buisness connections to Saudi Arabia? All of that could when evaluating the consequenses possibly be worse. What I would maintain though, is that the comparison does not give all of Watergate away. As I said, I think the event has a certain totality in how it absolutely breached what Nixon represented (your state). Calling Bush a criminal is sadly not as obvious as it should be (attack wars are illegal!). Calling Nixon a criminal was at all poins obvious (though I imagine when this first broke, this took some time to sink in). It breached the idea of state itself and showed a neglect for the office that was total. There were no excuses (and this is why this singular event drags and should drag Nixon down so much). Aside from that the consequenses are hard to judge. Maybe all said and done it had a positive impact, maybe it was a catalyst for an ironical worldview that reached a new high in the 2016 election (which I think as whole was a lot more ironic than its outcome, the outcome in itself was actually a rare sincere moment). But I think this is where I disagree with Mike. I think that in the end in relation to all the presidents that followed, it is hard for me to judge Nixon so poorly because at least half of his succesors are total catastrophe. Particularly Reagan is almost symbollic for everything that is wrong about the world (and he was the goddamn most powerful man in the world and one of the most liked ever in that position, Mondale only won his homestate and Washington in the '84 election). In that sense some of the ill judgement about Nixon applies to just about everyone that followed. By the standards of the founding fathers and the idealistic state that was envisioned (which being the dirty slaveowners that they were, the founding fathers did not measure up to btw), Watergate was an absolute abomination. But by these measurements, can I describe anyone but Carter after Nixon otherwise? Obama is difficult. I think he pushed for some good stuff. On the other hand Chomsky describes Obama's drone program as the biggest terrorist program in existence and I reckon he is right. I think this also has a certain totality... and it also killed a lot of people and does not make for a bright future. I don't think some 30 years from now the reception of Obama will be positive. It'll be mixed at best. All of the other presidents in question that I couldn't review but negatively (Trump, Bush II, Clinton, Bush I, Reagan - the VP that followed Nixon was so inconsequential that I have legitimate trouble remembering his name, I would not call him a president in the sense of this evaluation, he was unelected and his legacy is Nixon's legacy).
|
|
Maybe I'm comparing it to the far more egregious crimes committed by Presidents through history that draw so little attention.
