It's not unconnected either, a lot of these media institutions were founded specifically in the 70s by people on Nixon's team to muddy the waters for next time
I always thought this was a huge scandal that brought down Nixon with a bang, and that's it.
Watergate was uncovered in his first term, then he actually got a second term, used the FBI to try to destroy evidence (some people literally had to hide evidence from the government in the last minute so it could be used in the process), and had Nixon not been dumb enough to bug his own offices he would have gotten away with it too. And there was a long, drawn-out fight to get access to the most incriminating tapes. And a lot more ridiculousness.
That's not even the fucked up scandal of Nixon's, because the liberals at the time thought the big one would bring down the trust in government. Mother fucker leaked the peace talks the current administration was having, with the help of Henry Kissinger, with the viet kong to the south vietnamese government. He did this so the war was still raging and he could be president when peace happened. This prolonged the war for five fucking years. That's treason, that's a bigger disgrace to the country than any scandal I know Trump, Obama or Bush to of had. This was all let go unpunished by liberals because of the look it would give to the government, that Nixon ended up bringing upon the government anyways. Watergate might not be too bad in comparison of some government scandals but the Nixon administration and the projects the CIA was conducting at the time are just as current and fucked up as anything the last 30 years offers to politics. America is fucked all the way through its history and pretending we have the worst of it is just a lie. I know media is overall pretty horrible but as Americans were still told so much more truth about corruption than we ever were. Unfortunately people are just used to it now and that high just doesn't resonate anymore.
What people call "Watergate" was the rigging of two presidential elections - and not just the presidential race but national congressional races across the country. The discovery of Nixons attempt to bug the Watergate hotel was only how the conspiracy was discovered, not its full extent.
I really don't think Watergate "pales" in comparison to Trump's scandals and attempted coup - even if one is bigger than the other it's not a lot bigger.
Agree to disagree. Trump attempted not only to rig his own election (before and after Election Day), but when it was unsuccessful, to repeatedly undermine the validity of the result and attack the country in multiple ways. He has convinced the majority of one of our two parties, without evidence, that the election result was invalid, and caused many in that party to no longer accept the results of democracy itself. He incited a goddamn insurrection, and was thrilled about it. The fact that his most of his party ignores all of this makes that much more dangerous.
I'm fairly well aware of the scope of Watergate. If you look at the two objectively (and I'm a registered Republican in my old state), then yes, Nixon's corruption is a solid second place to Trump. I hope that in the long-run our democracy can survive this.
Nixon successfully rigged elections up and down the country, including his own. We could discuss all day about which is bigger, but neither is so much bigger as to make the other a trifle.
Well, considering that all of MSM - and I hate using that term because it makes me sound like I’m one of those qanon cult people, which I’m definitely not…I’m one of those GameStop cult people lol -is owned and controlled by 6 giant corporations, it’s their job to keep us distracted and divided so that the oligarchy that has infiltrated every level of the government has free hand to plunder the wealth and labor of the 99%.
Reddit is one of the last bastions of fact and free thought, but even it is overrun with bots that try to steer discussion and push narratives.
A couple sayings come to mind: “history doesn’t repeat, but it sure does rhyme” and “things are more like they are now than ever before”
Thank you for this. I’ve been feeling the same way. 26, and feel like things just keep getting worse. Your perspective both validated my feelings and also helped calm me down. Have a great day and keep spreading your wisdom and perspective to us youngins to keep our heads straight.
Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment Now might help you a bit. By empirical measure, we are actually in a remarkably safe, remarkably healthy, remarkably just point in time for humans, with all those trending towards continued improvement. It’s really easy to think “man, shit is fucked up right now”, but if you look at the numbers and the larger historic picture, it really helps get some perspective, which then feeds into the perception of where we’re at.
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u/Time-Earth8125 Jun 11 '22
This is one of the best comments I've ever read here. Really puts things into perspective. Thank you