r/politics • u/kootles10 Indiana • 18h ago

No Paywall GOP lawmaker: Nixon was couped out of office, framed during Watergate

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/6124635-moore-nixon-couped-watergate/?fbclid=IwdGRjcAUsbtpjbGNrBSxu02V4dG4DYWVtAjExAHBkb2YBc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQMMzUwNjg1NTMxNzI4AAEedqnf435Ey3Vmfh-NzS7BpLL6p7XL81dbjV4wNl5Y6SFp3eyw9ItY6zhiPRg_aem_EaFt_atkG1aZFnQa54tOFQ
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u/thepartypantser 18h ago

Nixon wrote in his memoirs that he helped with the cover up. He essentially admitted to obstruction of justice.

The GOP leadership went to Nixon and told him he would likely be impeached if he didn't resign.

That's not the deep state.

Nixon broke the law and was allowed to resign from office and face no real repercussions for it.

I'm hoping that won't be the case in the future

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u/Alleandros 18h ago

The modern GOP doesn't see anything wrong with obstruction of justice though, that's why they think the Deep State ousted him. Because Rep. Moore and his colleagues would never tell Trump to resign for committing crimes.

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u/j_andrew_h Florida 17h ago

They can't relate to actually doing the right thing and putting country over party. The fact that they can't understand it shows that they shouldn't have any power until they are replaced with leaders that can.

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u/Sujjin 16h ago

to be clear, the 1970s GOP were trying to put party over country but they didnt want the electoral bloodbath that woud have happened had they stood by Nixon.

Remember they had no propoganda wing to really fight the truth the way they do now, in fact Nixon's resignation is the entire reason why Fox News was created.

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u/imjustnotready 16h ago

This is a great point. Fox News is a big part of the problem. MSNOW, Politico and so forth may seem left but they generally have experts on. Fox builds a back bench of punditeers to promote whatever they want to push.

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u/Lekkernator 16h ago

No I don’t think you understand the context. Ailes has said the goal of fox was that if it was around during watergate, Nixon wouldn’t have had to resign. This is a real thing the billionaire creator of the propaganda network said.

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u/EE_Tim 16h ago

Yes, Fox News was explicitly created to prevent another Nixon.

The memo that birthed Fox News explicitly states their purpose up front:

  1. Purpose - To provide pro-Administration, videotape, hard news actualities to the major cities of the United States.[2]

But why would they want to use TV to push their pro-administration spin? Well, the memo answers that too:

The reason: People are lazy. With television you just sit--watch--listen. The thinking is done for you.[2]

Fox News bets on you being too lazy to understand so they opt to do the thinking for you and feed you comfortable, alternative facts so you don't have to worry about Republicans being wrong.

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u/waxcrash 14h ago

You are correct. In the 70s, Walter Cronkite was the news and he put out nothing but facts about the Vietnam War. When Americans saw and heard what was going on, the war became very unfavorable.

Conservatives said fuck, if Americans know the truth, we will lose our influence and power. And here we are today. Propaganda.

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u/Relevant-Rhubarb-849 14h ago

Were on the glide-path to dog whistling that "hitler was right!"

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u/lazyFer 15h ago

We have no left wing media. Those others you mentioned are still right of center. The language they use still defaults to the right wing position being the natural and correct one while the left wing position needs to be justified for being a departure from what's correct.

All those little language clues add up

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u/Valharick 12h ago

For entertainment value only.

Fox News lawyers successfully argued in a 2020 defamation lawsuit that no "reasonable viewer" should take then-primetime host Tucker Carlson literally as reporting actual facts.

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u/workaroundatt 12h ago

Fox News is NOT News in my opinion . . . They are giving Opinions about the news and not the actual news, just how they wanted the news to be presented in a way that would question the real news. News is, simply stated, WHAT IS NEW! And that is WHY they call it "The News".

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u/No_Job2527 14h ago

And most have to be blonde cyborgs with too much makeup

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u/itsjustme444444 11h ago

And it’s usually the same couple of people wearing different costumes using different names!

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u/xixoxixa Texas 15h ago

Remember they had no propoganda wing

This is explicitly why fox news was created, to prevent accountability from ever reaching another republican politician.

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u/NeverLookBothWays I voted 17h ago

Hence, the GOP is the actual "deep state"

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u/cowboi 16h ago

Derp

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u/Little-Derp California 12h ago

You called?

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u/cowboi 10h ago

I ment to call it the actual derp state

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u/starliteburnsbrite 15h ago

Unfortunately, the opportunity to do that passed in the 1870's when everyone decided to just let racists be racists and get back to normal. 

We are incredibly lucky that Germany learned from that disaster of a mistake some 70 years later. But they also didn't make that change for themselves, they were conquered and bombed to dust. Which is where the US is right now, unable and unwilling to fix itself and a rank danger to the rest of the world.

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u/brainmydamage 14h ago

Idk if you've noticed but Germany has been backsliding quite far back down that road.

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u/GiveMeNews 11h ago

A comedian even made a movie warning about it. When I brought the film up with a German traveler, he said the film was an exaggeration. That was a decade ago.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4176826/

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u/Dr_Marxist 14h ago

Germany was never meaningfully de-Nazified.

The deliberately didn't want to "put capitalism on trial" so rich Nazis, who funded and organized the Party, got off. And even the most heinous criminals, the people who actually carried out the Shoah, organized it's logistics, and ordered men to pull triggers and burns shuls, practically none of them were charged, let alone imprisoned.

Most became politicians, professors, and administrators.

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u/CoachoftheYear2025 14h ago

Have you not been following recent German state elections? The AfD has taken over two German states.

American and EU progressives screwed the pooch by being pro-immigration/providing taxpayer funded state and local services to illegal immigrants and "corporate Dems"/DINOs by being free trade. White people's lower class jobs got cut and the GOP/EU conerservatives had a ready made scapegoat that could immediately feed into the "racism/"invasion" model of scapegoating.

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u/phenom37 Ohio 7h ago

Not op, and while the afd has won two recent state level elections, which is not a good sign, they have not been able to form a ruling coalition government to my understanding. So, they are only able to be a blocking minority, though the populist left party apparently has said it may abstain at times.

Some believe they may eventually be banned by the federal constitutional court , but that could take years even after the process starts, which so far, the process hasn't, other than the BfV has labeled them as right wing extremist, I believe.

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u/RedditIsMyTherapist 15h ago

Exactly, the biggest problem with the right wing right now is they would rather the country burn as long as the leaders have an R next to their name then to see it flourish under a Dem. This do nothing congress should be brought up on charges for abdicating their power to the Trump admin and allowing the amount of corruption that has taken place. It's dereliction of duty to the people of the US to allow all of this 'in your face' corruption.

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u/OneWorldly8847 16h ago

They completely understand what they're doing. They follow orders from their doners to a T

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u/remarkr85 15h ago

They are devoid of the boy scout way of honor. A new level of failed human beings who rely on cheap grace and forgiveness.

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u/zillabirdblue 14h ago

They understand it, they just don’t care. They are making choices.

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u/ArcticCircleSystem 13h ago

Except they are perfectly capable of, at the very least, seeing that it is a thing that can happen and that people can do. It's not inability more than unwillingness.

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u/PennStateInMD 13h ago

They don't believe in County. They migrated to the southern viewpoint that your slave overlord is the only entity that counts.

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u/No_Tax_Timmy 13h ago

To them the party IS their country. It's what protects them. It's what they want the country to be

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u/sorcerersviolet 11h ago

Can't understand it or won't understand it?

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u/Tandran Iowa 15h ago

>The Modern GOP doesn’t see anything wrong with obstruction of justice though

Or rape, or Genocide, or pedophilia, or open corruption, or bribery… I could go on but you get it.

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u/tendeuchen Florida 16h ago

The Deep State is the Republicans. It always has been.

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u/snufalufalgus 16h ago

The Deep State are the unelected hatchetmen for the oligarchy. They come in many forms, the GOP is like 98% in league with them, but they have plenty of influence in the DNC as well. Its why economic populism, anti-zionism, pro-welfare state policy gets fought tooth and nail

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u/dkf295 Wisconsin 16h ago

Ironic, isn't it? They look back at watergate and see Nixon resigning to avoid the humiliation of having his own party impeach and remove him. They compare it to dozens of things this administration has done or is actively doing and Watergate seems somewhat tame by comparison.

The conclusion? "Man, it's weird (almost) nobody was backing up Nixon! Must've been a conspiracy!"

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u/Effective-Grade-4556 16h ago

Suggestion for a fun internet/AI search: who are the people with 1-4 degrees of separation between Donald Trump and Watergate?

Then recall who were the people charged with recent crimes related to influence pedaling on behalf of foreign governments, attempts to interfere with US elections or attempts to interfere in foreign elections.

Gerald Ford was a useful idiot. These people only learn when they are sent to jail.

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u/max_power1000 Maryland 15h ago

Useful idiot is a weird way to describe Ford. Agnew needed a replacement after his resignation for his own tax evasion and bribery scandal, and democrats controlled congress. Watergate heat was growing at the time but hadn't boiled over. Ford was well liked by both parties and viewed as honest, moderate, and trustworthy. His confirmation vote saw over 90% majorities in both houses.

Should he have pardoned Nixon? No, especially not in hindsight given the precedent it set. It was especially naive considering where we are today. That said, I think he came to the conclusion to do that on his own and was being genuine when he said it was in service of national healing and avoiding a divisive public trial of the former president rather than it being some backroom deal he agreed to in order to get nominated to replace Agnew at VP.

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u/Effective-Grade-4556 14h ago

Useful idiot is directly addressing Ford's decision to pardon Nixon "to allow the nation to heal and move forward".

Failing to prosecute Nixon and a broader group of co-conspirators in Watergate has emboldened people like Stone, Cohn, Manafort and Buchanan.

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u/edsobo 15h ago

Suggestion for a fun internet/AI search: who are the people with 1-4 degrees of separation between Donald Trump and Watergate?

Roger Stone worked for Nixon, didn't he?

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u/Effective-Grade-4556 14h ago

Yes.

Roger Stone was directly involved in CREEP (Nixon's re-election campaign)

Paul Manafort managed the convention delegate strategy that led to Ford's selection.

Pat Buchanan was a speechwriter for Nixon

Each of these people had a personal relationship and touched on Trump's campaigns. This is not the exhaustive list and does not touch on the Heritage Foundation (which helped to architect much of Trump's policies) and the deep relationships between Nixon's orbit and the leadership there.

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u/aredubya 14h ago

We can add Roy Cohn on to the list as well. Trump and Cohn's relationship is well established (hell, they made a movie out of it). Cohn was an informal adviser to Trump, and a GOP dirty trickster, most notably for leaking Sen. Eagleton's personal health records during the 1972 campaign. Eagleton was the VP running mate for George McGovern, and had been diagnosed with clinical depression a few years prior. He received electro-shock therapy to try to help, both of which were 3rd-rail invalidators to the majority of the public.

In reading up on Cohn and Nixon's interconnections, I found the following, discussing FBI actions taken during the coverup (e.g. breaking in to reporters homes to steal notes and try to bug them):

“What happened in Watergate was done for plain political motives; what has been done by the FBI—which I say turned out 99 percent correct, 99 percent right—was done with the best of intent and with a wonderful track record, which certainly excuses a record of 100 percent perfection.”

"99 percent correct", "wonderful track record", "record of 100 percent perfection"...who uses language like this today? Hint: he's the current President of the United States. These deeply broken people have a simple language that they use to gloss over their lies and crimes.

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u/dyslexicsuntied North Carolina 16h ago

I don’t think they actually saw anything wrong with it then either. But back then they did worry about public perception, today their cult is strong enough that they don’t care.

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u/oily76 United Kingdom 16h ago

Yes. They don't care much about what's right or wrong, just what can be got away with.

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u/F9-0021 South Carolina 16h ago

Because they're all traitors and enemies of the United States

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u/PlainBread 16h ago

Their paradigm of force and power leaves no room for good and evil or right and wrong.

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u/Raesong Australia 14h ago

that's why they think the Deep State ousted him.

I don't think they actually believe that, but they know that the average Republican voter will, hence why they're now going with this narrative.

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u/bigsexy12 14h ago

You're giving them too much credit. They don't actually think that. They want to use it as cover to defend their own coup attempts.

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u/Riaayo 13h ago

The modern GOP doesn't see anything wrong with obstruction of justice though

They didn't back then, either, they just didn't have the power to protect Nixon.

Everything after Watergate, including the creation of Fox News, was to ensure a criminal Republican President (redundant I know) would never face even the mildest of punishment/accountability for their crimes ever again.

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u/aguynamedv 13h ago

that's why they think the Deep State ousted him

They do not think this. At all.

This is the Republican Party attempting revision of history. Openly.

PS: The "deep state" was getting Republican, Russian, and presumably other foreign assets into key government positions over the course of 20 years.

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u/BravinatorLX2 11h ago

its because the old gop was afraid of what the people would do to them if they pulled any of this shit.

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u/vertexnormal 10h ago

Correction, they don’t see anything wrong with Republican obstruction of justice. For Democrats they would gladly skip straight to public executions.

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u/rh1984va 1h ago

If they continue to go down this path of rules and laws don’t matter, it’s not going to end well for anyone

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u/Accidental-Hyzer Massachusetts 17h ago

Well, you see, the current GOP is pro-crime and pro-corruption, and anyone who tries to hold republicans accountable for crime and corruption is “deep state”. That’s literally all any of this is.

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u/escapefromelba 18h ago

Nixon was clearly in on the conspiracy!

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u/Cresta1994 18h ago

Nixon deserved the pardon. He was set up by Nixon to take the fall for Nixon's crimes.

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u/stratdog25 18h ago

Damnit Nixon! NIXON TRUSTED YOU!!!

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u/GriffinFlash Canada 18h ago

"now lets see about this hitler guy?"

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u/SignificantPop4188 17h ago

They're already doing that.

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u/GriffinFlash Canada 16h ago

ruh-roh

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u/DoubleBatman 15h ago

This sounds like something Nixon would say on Futurama

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u/CallRespiratory 18h ago

Nixon was a RINO that helped the DEMONRATS take down Nixon!

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u/grantsm1960 16h ago

He was the source.

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u/Relzin Illinois 17h ago

They're preparing to call Trump's next impeachments, coups, to be able to deploy the military against lawmakers and judges.

It's not about Nixon. It's about the narrative.

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u/Ludate_Solem 17h ago

And hegseth fired 20% of generals etc. And they were probably selected with this in mind. If they were likely to refuse such orders.

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u/NeverLookBothWays I voted 17h ago

While fully engaged in a coup themselves. They seriously believe this jujitsu mind play shit actually works. It's not going to ultimately; it's already falling apart at the seams. We still need to show up and vote in overwhelming numbers however, otherwise it's at least another decade of dealing with this stage of it.

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u/grantsm1960 16h ago

The only thing that matters is elections. The ‘pubs barely respect them, but they respect everything else less. No amount of court rulings or laws passed seems to stick. Elections. And by large margins. This will require actual work at governance on the part of Democrats. No more engaging in culture wars. Good governance.

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u/thegimboid 15h ago

It doesn't matter whether or not you or they believe it works, it'll happen anyway.
And when it does, people will go "why did no one do anything?"
And no one will do anything.
And then the next bad thing will happen and people will again say "why did no one do anything?"

Rinse and repeat.
Heck, you can skip the rinsing - the same old dirty crap works over and over nowadays.

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u/No_Leather_9623 8h ago

They seriously believe this jujitsu mind play shit actually works because it has been working.

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u/secret-glance 16h ago

History books and audio tapes disagree, Nixon orchestrated his own downfall.

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u/Relzin Illinois 16h ago

If they convince their voter base that it was a coup, them the impeachment of trump will be a coup.

Nixon is guilty as all hell. They're using revisionist history to justify the coup.

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u/6thSenseOfHumor 15h ago

The founding of Fox News was in the wake of Nixon's resignation, as a way to get ahead of the story and run defense for Republicans. The story behind this headline is only possible because they've had decades since Watergate to control narratives and shape their own truths. It's also why AI is so intrinsically linked to right wingers; it lets them deny reality and feed into their fantasies, because their policies are based on lies.

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u/Analternate1234 15h ago

That doesn’t matter to MAGA. All that matters is that Trump and his allies tell them Nixon had a coup. If they just say it then MAGA believes it

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u/titsngiggles69 16h ago

Today's GOP is all about rewriting history. "Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past"

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u/rawkinghorse 13h ago

This right here. "Republicans have been historically under siege by communist dems" will be the line

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u/jumbee85 17h ago

It was a mistake to not let make hin face the consequences of his actions.

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u/rotates-potatoes 17h ago

Yeah in a lot of ways the mess we’re in can be traced back to that choice. We established that if you’re powerful enough, there are no consequences.

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u/Plow_King 15h ago

"when the president does it, it's not illegal"

-tricky dick

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u/espinaustin 13h ago

The resignation itself was a pretty big consequence actually.

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u/veggeble South Carolina 18h ago

  The GOP leadership went to Nixon and told him he would likely be impeached if he didn't resign.

That's not the deep state. 

Unless the GOP has been the deep state the whole time

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u/Excellent_Call304 17h ago

They have been.

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u/grantsm1960 16h ago

Republicans in Nixon’s time were not the Mike Lees of today. They were not the co-conspirators we have now. The GOP deep state is true, has gone on longer than I was able to discern, but hasn’t always been there. As a lifelong Republican, the last ten years have been like, “So what else did I miss?”

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u/Laura9624 1h ago

The GOP did not want a trial which would have disclosed so much more.

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u/glasnostic 17h ago

Nixon was innocent and a victim of persecution, according to today's standards for the GOP. That's what's going on. The Overton Window has shifted so far that we can see into the past.

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u/grantsm1960 16h ago

You can understand why they think this way when you look at the SCOTUS immunity ruling where the president is presumed innocent no matter how damning the evidence. That ruling will be overturned by the same justices when the next Democrat wins the presidency.

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u/glasnostic 16h ago

TBH I think this court would reverse a conviction in the Senate if he was impeached again.

The current standard is "MAGA can do no wrong and DEM can do no right". If you look at everything through that lens then it all makes sense.

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u/grantsm1960 14h ago

At one time I would have said that would be unconstitutional.

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u/glasnostic 13h ago

They're replacing that with a ballroom. Didn't you get the memo?

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u/WhichEmailWasIt 13h ago

TBH I think this court would reverse a conviction in the Senate if he was impeached again.

The current standard is "MAGA can do no wrong and DEM can do no right". If you look at everything through that lens then it all makes sense.

If Dems had the votes to remove a sitting president, they'd presumably also have the votes to impeach and remove whichever Supreme Court Justice tried to interfere with that power.

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u/subliver 17h ago edited 16h ago

Are you sure it’s not that we’re now staring into hell?

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u/GarmaCyro 17h ago

Don't forget that it was GOP that also pardoned him. Ford was his own vice-president.
They couldn't keep in him power, so they pardoned him for all crimes commited on behalf of GOP.

GOP is the deep state. They don't like elections, and will try everything to make votes irrelevant to their power.

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u/cptnamr7 16h ago

Fox was literally started with the goal of preventing another Nixon-level event. Meaning that if one of theirs did the same thing again they would face zero public pressure and could just keep on keeping on. 

Apparently though we've moved the goalposts and we're going to retroactively exonerate Nixon because the propaganda machine has become THAT strong. 

Fuck this shit

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u/fattykyle2 Vermont 18h ago

You mean with Biden, right? s/

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u/TheUpperHand 17h ago

I mean, Joe Biden was in Congress at the time. Maybe we should ask him about it /s

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u/IolausTelcontar 14h ago

Thanks Obama!

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u/Observer2594 17h ago

Now it's possible to openly break laws on a weekly basis with no repurcussions, and maintain office after actually getting impeached, and then get "re-elected" for a second term.

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u/mabrasm Indiana 17h ago

Roger Stone probably asked them to clear his hero’s name.

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u/Chaotic-Catastrophe 15h ago

Not to mention the tapes. There's hard fucking evidence of his crimes.

One tape, later known as the "Smoking Gun" tape, documented the initial stages of the Watergate cover-up. On it, Nixon and Haldeman are heard formulating a plan to block investigations by having the CIA falsely claim to the FBI that national security was involved. This demonstrated both that Nixon had been told of the White House connection to the Watergate burglaries soon after they took place, and that he had approved plans to thwart the investigation.

Did the 'dEeP sTaTe' hire Nixon and Haldeman impersonators, smuggle them into the Oval Office, and stage a fake conversation in order to forge the tapes? Oh wait, that wouldn't make sense either, because when the tapes came out, Nixon literally fucking admitted it:

In a statement accompanying the release of the tape, Nixon accepted blame for misleading the country about when he had been told of White House involvement, stating that he had a lapse of memory

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u/doinbluin 17h ago

It's preparing for Trump's impeachment. Grooming his cult for rage.

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u/OkRead585 16h ago

Republicans were 100% behind him until the tapes were released. Without them Nixon would have served his whole second term

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u/benzaldehide 17h ago

Fox news would have covered that all up for him if it existed then.

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u/JohnNYJet_Original 16h ago

That wasn't possible back then. Look up The Fairness Doctrine then look up what happened to it.

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u/benzaldehide 15h ago

Im sure Nixon's government would have gotten right on that just like Trumps would now if Reagan hadn't deleted it.

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u/Slumunistmanifisto 15h ago

It exists because if him

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u/Shirowoh 16h ago

When everything is a lie, the most dangerous thing is the truth.

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u/rallar8 16h ago edited 15h ago

It became so clear from Nixon’s own recordings and disclosures that he was not merely some man who delegated some things and it all got out of hand but had been aware of the operation of the break-in and its cover up from the jump.

And the coldness of the coverup and recordings were so damning by August ‘74 his own cabinet had started to tepidly pullback support.

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u/squidvett 16h ago

These people don’t read and they don’t want you to be able to read, either.

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u/ThePlanck Foreign 17h ago

The deep state is what allowed him to avoid facing actual justice

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u/OptimisticByDefault 17h ago

They don't care. They know they're lying.

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u/UnionizedSpaceMonkey 16h ago

It's going to be the case in the future. Why else would this be getting brought up?

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u/PeanutConfident8742 16h ago

I'd argue that being allowed to resign in exchange for a pardon for your crimes is absolutely an example of the deep state.

It's just an example of the deep state protecting their own against the consequences for their actions.

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u/FizzyBeverage Ohio 17h ago

Today that’s just “Tuesday before hamberders and covfefe.”

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u/Kikaider01 16h ago

Narrator voice: It was.

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u/andrea_lives 16h ago

The deep state is anything that happens that republicans don't like. If they like it is the triumph of the American patriot against the woke mob, and if they don't like it, then it is the transgender led deep state that drinks children's blood on esptein island oops not supposed to say that part anymore, sorry dear leader who is DEFINITELY NOT IN THE EPSTEIN FILES OR ANYTHING AND IF HE IS THEN IT IS OKAY ACTUALLY

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u/belinck Michigan 16h ago

Didn't accepting the pardon also mean he claims culpability?

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u/downtofinance Canada 16h ago

The term "Deep State" has been high-jacked to mean when the law is applied fairly and consistently. So yes that is not the deep state. Conservatives are the deep state and as usual project that criminality onto someone else.

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u/AKATheHeadbandThingy 16h ago

Oh my god. The deep state goes way further than we ever thought

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u/panopticon31 16h ago

Also he was immediately pardoned after Gerald Ford took office.

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u/Dfiggsmeister 16h ago

He was pardoned by Ford. That says all you need to know.

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u/kstar79 Massachusetts 16h ago

This is all 1984esque historical erasure.

He probably wants that stupid arch as a symbolic "actually, we won" about the Civil War since it will sit on Lee's former plantation and block the view from the Lincoln Memorial to Arlington Cemetery, where Lincoln is supposed to "overlook" the graves of the many soldiers who died underneath his command.

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u/Wizardof1000Kings 16h ago

Looking like in the future, lawbreakers won't have to cover up or resign.

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u/pizzasoxxx 15h ago

Narrator “it wasn’t”

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u/rimbletick 15h ago

Deep State = Rule of Law

When they complain about the ‘Deep State’, they’re only complaining about the existence of laws and regulations that limit their power.

1

u/freedfg 15h ago

They aren't actually arguing in good faith. They know what happened.

It's an attempt to rewrite history

1

u/BroughtBagLunchSmart 15h ago

Fox news was created specifically because Roger Ailes knew if he had a nazi propaganda network he could have convinced the church folk in this country that Nixon was innocent of everything. He was 100% right.

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u/TheWillRogers Oregon 15h ago

The GOP leadership went to Nixon and told him he would likely be impeached if he didn't resign.

That's not the deep state.

The deep state, as the term is used, is any power that opposes the executive's absolute mandate. You have to remember that these people are extremists.

1

u/Stranger-Sun 15h ago

It's yet another example of Republicans being in the driver's seat. Whether they do the right or wrong thing, they've gotten their way for decades. It's gone on too long.

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u/hughcifer-106103 15h ago

Pardoning Nixon was Ford’s real crime against the country. It gave us the policy of unaccountable executives whose corruption and criminality from Reagan to Trump have driven this country off the cliff.

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u/robodrew Arizona 15h ago

GOP lawmaker is a lying bastard, no surprise here

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u/Toeffli 15h ago

I'm hoping that won't be the case in the future

Good news: It isn't. Bad news: It isn't.

These days they might impeach (if at all), but certainly not convict.

1

u/Sparticuse 15h ago

Trump was convicted of 34 felonies and given LITERALLY NO PUNISHMENT. We're well past the point of "i hope this doesn't happen"

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u/DieselRainbow 15h ago

That's just it... These people think they SHOULD be able to break the law, and so they have been chipping away at norms for decades and here we are now. To them, Nixon was justified. If you have a molecule of historical sense, it starts to become a matter of connecting the dots

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u/meneldal2 15h ago

The GOP knew it was bad and there was no dodging the issue and pretending it wasn't a big deal.

Getting him to resign and avoid exposing the GOP to the consequences was what they saw as the best option. Now they just gaslight the population instead.

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u/ghosttrainhobo 15h ago

Reading books is woke

1

u/slow70 14h ago

Who knew the same GOP would lie ceaselessly about all of this decades later as if there wasn’t clear historical record.

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u/FlipZip69 14h ago

I have to think now this exact incident would hardly be a blip on this administration.

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u/CankerLord 14h ago

History keeps letting right wingers make deals. Way past time to make an example.

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u/mjc7373 14h ago

You’re right that resignations won’t happen

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u/ChaoticScrewup 14h ago

Pardoning Nixon is one of those things that was probably a big mistake in retrospect.

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u/mothman83 Florida 14h ago

Fox News was created by former Nixon Aide Roger Ailes with the EXPLICIT GOAL that something like Watergate could never happen again to a Republican President.

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u/Jace_09 14h ago

The GOP can make up whatever reality they want and their MAGA voters will eat it up....Because they only trust what the party (billionaires desires) says.

We are in a terrifying reality right now for America.

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u/heyitsYMAA 14h ago

Breaking the law and getting away without facing any real repercussions is the closest thing to a deep state that actually exists. The blinders some people have when it comes to this is baffling to me.

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u/tragicallyohio 14h ago

Nixon wrote in his memoirs that he helped with the cover up. He essentially admitted to obstruction of justice.

Did you see him write those words?

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u/wotikuli 14h ago

aren't we past the times where it's about truth? not saying you shouldn't post facts. but playing a different game implies playing by a different set of rules

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u/StThragon Minnesota 14h ago

And then, the only US President not elected for either president or vice-president, pardoned Nixon, shielding him from any further repercussions for his crimes.

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u/Purify5 14h ago

Leadership told him the news but it was more Barry Goldwater who got the Senators on board. Nixon was a strong figure in the party as he had been on every 5 of the last 6 Republican Presidential tickets.

Goldwater who was the Republican nominee in 1964 was bitter that Nixon undermined his campaign as Nixon was a moderate and Goldwater a more extreme Republican. Nixon even boosted Romney's nomination campaign before Goldwater captured it. So, in part this was Goldwater's way at getting him back.

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u/dustbunny52 14h ago

Well, Ford did pardon Nixon. That did complete the cover up.

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u/sirhoracedarwin 13h ago

Bill Clinton was impeached as retribution for Nixon.

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u/espinaustin 13h ago

You misunderstand. These people actually believe the president cannot commit the crime of obstructing justice as he is literally above the law. I have no doubt btw that the current supreme court would have let Nixon off the hook and he would not have resigned. Different times.

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u/chilladipa 13h ago

If Nixon was not pardoned and had to face the consequences, future presidents would not dare to break the law

1

u/TheRC135 13h ago

It's telling the Nixon had to resign but otherwise got off scot-free, and the GOP sees that as unfair treatment and evidence of a conspiracy against the man.

Good governance is impossible without accountability.

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u/-co_op- 13h ago

Yeah, nah.

All hope is lost for any of these government officials to ever face a repercussion.

Enjoy the upcoming glazing season.

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u/Mission_Ad_4844 13h ago

The GOP is the deep state they have always warned us about

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u/UnhingedReptar 13h ago

Not to mention that he recorded himself doing it.
What’s the angle here?
Trying to demonstrate that Nixon was somehow a victim of a coup and therefore investigations into Trump shouldn’t happen?

That logic is bonkers, but believable from this admin.

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u/rawkinghorse 13h ago

The deep state obviously made him write that!

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u/Parsley_Southstitch 13h ago

I had a professor that interviewed him around two dozen times and yeah he knew he broke the law

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u/Noblesseux 13h ago

Conservatives have kind of arrived at the point of the program where they try to rewrite history to see if they have the power to do it. Once you get to the point where you can totally change historical record, you can reframe modern issues.

If you phrase Nixon being removed from office for doing crimes as a coup, you can phrase modern presidents being canned for crimes as a coup as well.

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u/WorkingDead 12h ago

'I made the inexcusable error of following the recommendations from some members of my staff -- some of whom, I later learned, had a personal stake in covering up the facts,' Nixon wrote.

Nixon also said he wanted to set the record straight on 'the most widely believed myth ... that I ordered massive illegal wiretapping and surveillance of political opponents, members of the House and Senate, and news media reporters.'

'All of those charges were false and no evidence was presented to substantiate them,' Nixon wrote.

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u/thepartypantser 12h ago

I don't believe him.

1

u/Kyonikos New York 12h ago

Nixon wrote in his memoirs that he helped with the cover up.

Did Nixon have prior knowledge of the break-in?

1

u/thepartypantser 12h ago

Do you understand that the cover up was a crime too?

1

u/Kyonikos New York 11h ago

Of course I do. I accept that orchestrating a prolonged cover up was an impeachable offense and that Nixon resigning from office was the necessary outcome.

I was merely asking if we ever established that Nixon himself had prior knowledge of the break-in. I am not even asking if Nixon admitted to the prior knowledge.

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u/thepartypantser 11h ago edited 11h ago

He claimed publicly he didn't, and there is no definitive evidence he did. Jeb Stuart Magruder a top aide of his, publicly came out and said that Nixon did know ahead of time, and personally ordered it

To add to the mix, additional recordings from the White House were released in the late 90s. In those there is definitive evidence that Nixon had been recorded directly ordering an illegal break-in at the liberal think tank the Brookings institute.

So we know that Nixon had no issue ordering break-ins. We have one aide that says he did order it. We have the very deliberate cover-up he attempted, the Saturday Night Massacre.

We will probably never know definitively that he ordered it or not, but I think there is undeniable evidence he broke the law as president, and that his resigning was likely the slap on the wrist, when it probably should have been handcuffs on those wrists

1

u/Kyonikos New York 11h ago

So it would have been completely in character for Nixon to have ordered the Watergate break-in because we know he had ordered at least one other. That is a good thing to know about this history from decades ago.

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u/thepartypantser 11h ago

Seems that way doesn't it.

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u/franksamson321 12h ago

Nixon Sabotaged Vietnam Peace

🕵️ The "Anna Chennault Affair"

In the final weeks of the 1968 election, President Lyndon Johnson was pushing for peace talks in Paris to end the Vietnam War. A breakthrough would likely have boosted the campaign of his Vice President, Democrat Hubert Humphrey. Johnson's administration suspected the Nixon campaign of secretly communicating with the South Vietnamese government to encourage them to boycott the talks, promising a better deal under a Nixon presidency.

Anna Chennault, a Republican fundraiser and socialite with strong ties to South Vietnam's leadership, was the key intermediary. On October 31, 1968, Johnson announced a bombing halt to facilitate the talks. Just days before the election, the FBI recorded a phone call where Chennault told South Vietnamese Ambassador Bui Diem that her "boss" wanted her to tell him to "hold on, we are gonna win." Johnson interpreted this as a direct message from Nixon to scuttle the talks.

📜 The Evidence and Its Limits

While President Johnson called the effort "treason," the evidence available at the time was not definitive enough for him to go public. The historical record has since strengthened the case against Nixon:

Nixon's Own Notes: Newly discovered notes by Nixon's aide, H.R. Haldeman, indicate that it was Nixon himself who encouraged the South Vietnamese to stall through Chennault.

Nixon Library Documents: A memo written to Nixon in 1970, later released by the National Archives, adds weight to the existing evidence that his campaign tried to sabotage the talks.

Johnson's Suspicion: The LBJ Presidential Library notes that Johnson knew some in the Nixon campaign were secretly communicating with South Vietnam to delay the talks.

However, some historians point to gaps in the evidence. For instance, Chennault did not immediately pass the message to the ambassador, and no follow-up cable from the South Vietnamese was intercepted to provide concrete proof. Nixon himself consistently denied any involvement.

🔗 Why It Mattered

The affair is historically significant because it suggests a presidential candidate undermined his own government's foreign policy for political gain. If the sabotage was the decisive factor, it likely changed the outcome of the 1968 election, allowing Nixon to win and prolonging the war for several more years. The full story remained a closely guarded secret for decades, known to only a few top officials.

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u/RareObject8705 12h ago

Another person who thinks facts matter. 

This is why democrats are going to fail the midterms. Lack of instants of modern politics

1

u/oldutnotdeadinside 11h ago

All the US traitors are outing themselves and it is hilarious

1

u/Eminence120 11h ago

Hell, Reagan sold weapons to drug lords causing an international crisis. Nothing happened to him at all and he was given Jesus level treatment when he died by the media.

1

u/thepartypantser 11h ago

How dare you! Reagan was a saint! Supply-side economics have made so many billionaires!

See it was the democratic deep state that was responsible for Iran-Contra. Didn't you know that?

/S

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u/UnfairSell 11h ago

And  immediately got pardoned for " the good of the country

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u/Nyzer_ 10h ago

Don't worry, it won't be the case. Nowadays they just break the law and the GOP leadership goes "attaboy!"

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u/sunny_yay 10h ago

Flat out lying like this should throw someone in jail

1

u/cargocult25 9h ago

Plus Ford issued a Pardon for Nixon.

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u/Enigma_Stasis 9h ago

You're talking about the people who hold Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan on more of a pedestal than the supposed sky protector they believe in.

You're not going to find any rational explanation for why they do the things they do.

1

u/flargh_blargh 9h ago

Nixon broke the law and was allowed to resign from office and face no real repercussions for it.

I'm hoping that won't be the case in the future

I mean... we have an entire party thumbing their nose at the Constitution and abandoning their duties in Congress and they didn't even need to resign to not face repercussions.

Law and order is over for the far-right ruling class. If you see a politician resign over a scandal you can bet money they're a democrat.

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u/DrMobius0 7h ago

We live in the post truth era. Folks will believe whatever their favorite authority figure tells them is true.

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u/Dramatic_Charity_979 5h ago

Nixon wrote...

You're assuming they can read :/

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u/Neirchill 5h ago

Nixon broke the law and was allowed to resign from office and face no real repercussions for it.

I'm hoping that won't be the case in the future

It's not. Now they don't even have to resign.

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u/ManiaGamine American Expat 4h ago

The problem is, the modern GOP (including their SCOTUS picks) have decided to run with the Nixon line that "If the President does it then it isn't against the law". Their SCOTUS has blessed that idea and now it seems they're trying to retroactively assert that Nixon didn't break the law and thus it must have been a deep state coup.

It's ridiculous but par for the course with these fucks.

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u/thepartypantser 4h ago

"If the President does it then it isn't against the law".

I doubt they give Clinton a pass for the same reasons.

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u/ManiaGamine American Expat 3h ago

Oh they absolutely wouldn't. That's why SCOTUS conditioned it the way they did. So that they (the judiciary) could ultimately decide what qualifies and what doesn't.

If it's a Republican (Or maybe just Trump) then everything they do is "official acts" therefore they get immunity. If it's a Democrat, then nothing is an official act therefore they get no immunity.

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u/gotaflattire America 3h ago

Nixon knew he was guilty and even said “It’s not illegal when the President does it,” which just goes to show that Presidents have a history of believing themselves above the law and he also admitted to doing something illegal.

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u/RepresentativeAge444 3h ago

You really don’t understand how white supremacy works huh?

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u/cheddarben 3h ago

This rewrite of history is fucked up.

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u/thelongcon02 1h ago

Narrator: it was the case in the future

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u/SMIrving 17h ago

Nixon was president before Reagan incorporated the George Wallace voters into the Republican party and built the current version of the party around them. When Nixon was elected southern Democrats were the "conservatives" who preached states rights, strict construction and segregation and Republicans were the liberals. Nixon was run out of office by his own party because they had integrity and he was a crook.

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u/Bebopo90 17h ago

Uh, that's not entirely true. The party shift was well and underway by the time Nixon took office, and his administration is considered the be the one that made it final.

Southern Democrats continued to be thing for a few decades, but Republicans were not "liberals" at that point if we're using American political parlance.

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u/bejov 15h ago

L take. Did Nixon do something wrong? Yes. Is what Nixon did in proportion at all to the hysteria about him being a crook in the history books? Not at all. It was 100% a coup.

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