I wrote this in a fit of insomnia.
As a kid, I inherited hatred for Richard Nixon from my parents. In the years since, I have gone a few rounds of obsession with him. Books, films, articles from the time. After each cycle, I came out hating him more.
We have had worse than Nixon. Harding’s corruption and stupidity. Bush The Younger’s warmongering and torture prisons. Jackson’s genocide. Johnson sabotaging Reconstruction. Twelve slavers — twelve! Jefferson Davis, the anti-president. And then, well … y’know.
Despite that, Nixon inhabits a place of special disgust in my heart. So dishonored that he resigned. So toxic to the Republic that many seriously thought it best to pardon him of his crimes before even naming what they were, just to get us to stop talking about him. (Though no, that was not what was best.)
Yet now I find myself thinking:
“Sure, Nixon was corrupt, bigoted, dishonest, and had a gawdawful policy agenda … but he was intelligent, informed, skillful at the work, and committed to what he sincerely thought was best for the country.”
“Sure, Nixon undermined American institutions … but he did know what they were well enough to pretend to care about them, rather than witlessly shattering them as a toddler prince.”
“Sure, Nixon lied relentlessly … but he respected truth enough to make an effort to lie convincingly, which required knowing what the truth was, knowing the basic facts of the physical universe.”
“Sure, Nixon was corrupt … but he did not brag about it.”
“Sure, he resigned in disgrace … but that showed that he could conceive disgrace.”
Because now Americans have elected — twice! — a President who makes me yearn for Nixon’s competence … a President who makes Nixon’s vice look good because it paid the minimal tribute to virtue of hypocrisy.
Because every day I see more people saying things utterly detached from reality, saying things nightmarish in their cruelty. Not just internet randos, or paid propagandists, but people I know personally. Even a few I once counted as friends.
I am not naïve. I know history. I know American history.
But still, I am having a moment of despair at the thought that the world we have made is possible at all.
Understand that my pang of nostalgia for Nixon is a failing of mine, not a an apologia for him. Historian Rick Nixonland Perlstein reminds us:
Watergate was great for Nixon. Gets off scot-free for the quasi-fascist 2nd term plans he wasn’t able to carry out. Protected via firing his entire cabinet and making them pledge loyalty to regain their posts, his Financial Year ’74 hyper-austerity budget, the Malek Manual, and vengeance plans on the tapes. Oh, and impoundment.
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