Anyone Around/Aware During The Last Days Of Nixon?

[ChoppinBroccoli]

The reason why I ask is this: I've recently come to the conclusion that even after Mueller releases his report, giving all the gory details of Trump's collusion with the Russians, and spelling it out in painstaking detail (because Mueller is extremely thorough like that--I'm sure he'll leave no stone unturned), and leaving no doubt to anyone who sees it that Trump is guilty, there will still be that 30% of the population who will steadfastly refuse to believe it and will swear up and down it was a liberal conspiracy to remove him from power because he scared the "establishment."

As a result, I was wondering who was around and politically aware during the final days of Nixon. Did Nixon also have a percentage of Americans who refused to believe he was guilty and continued to defend him to the hilt even after he left office? I'm just wondering how much history is repeating itself here. Because I'd LIKE to believe that as the years go on, even the most brainwashed Trump Cult member will eventually admit he was guilty, just as the vast majority of people will now tell you that Nixon was guilty. I'm just worried that these Trump defenders/apologists are SO blinded that they'll NEVER admit he was anything less than the best President this country has ever seen (yes, I've actually seen some of them claim that he is, that he's better than Washington or Lincoln, and that he deserves to have his face on Mount Rushmore).

Any folks with distinct memories from that time period, your recollections would be greatly appreciated.

[dflprincess]

1. There were people who stuck with Nixon til the bitter end and beyond.

Claimed he was "hounded" from office.

[BigmanPigman]

6. Ben Stein and Roger Stone.

[Archae]

20. Both of them STILL think Nixon was the most wonderful guy ever.

[BigmanPigman]

23. I watched a Watergate special on MSNBC and Stein almost cried

remembering Nixon. He DID cry when he resigned.

[maveric]

39. I would here "All presidents did what he did."

[dweller]

2. a contingent of republicans

led by G HW BUSH as I recall met with him and told him he was toast ...
resign or face trial and impeachment ...
he resigned

ymmv, ✌🏼️

[question everything]

8. I think it was Goldwater, by then a respected leader of the party

Don't know how much influence Bush has then..

[amb123]

19. Bush 41 was Chairman of the RNC at that time.

It was Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott, House Minority Leader John Rhodes and Senator Barry Goldwater that told Nixon the jig was up after the smoking gun tape was released.

[NewJeffCT]

36. I also believe

Last edited Wed May 30, 2018, 02:01 PM - Edit history (1)

that Nixon was still strongly supported by Republicans until that tape came out - then, it basically collapsed.

[amb123]

38. That's right.

After the Smoking Gun tape was released all the Republicans that voted against Impeachment in the House Judiciary Committee changed their minds.

[oswaldactedalone]

33. Just getting the order correct

He would face impeachment in the House and then trial in the Senate where he would be removed. By the time they met with Nixon, there were already 77 Senators on record who would vote to convict (remove him from office.)

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

3. He absolutely had his hangers-on

But, the man had a career of politics and a legacy of sorts. dt has only to go back to where people like this thrive...corporate america. I'm sure they are all glad he's gone unless you are getting hotel deals etc from dts double dealing. But, he will just fade into the corporate boardroom again and fit right in. THIS is how rich corporate individuals behave...they are above the law, can say anything, spend time getting dirt on each other, fuck each others wives, etc etc. This is corporate america...in office. Imagine what they do to the employees. OMG.

[lapfog_1]

4. I remember the Doonesbury cartoons from that era well

but yes... there were quite a few diehards...

[Hekate]

24. Doonesbury was amazing at getting the zeitgeist. Really wish he was doing a daily strip now...

However, just the reruns of his Trump strips from back in the day -- the vulgarly overdone yacht , the affair with Marla, the divorce from Ivana -- all of that is a public service in itself.

[Elwood P Dowd]

5. I know a few that still support him to this day.

They may be in the minority, but there are still many repukes that defend him. Hell, if Fox News and political talk radio had been around back then Nixon would never have been run out of town.

[question everything]

7. Some 20 years after he resigned we visited his library in CA

Was really interesting. But there was one woman walking, sniffling..

[Cicada]

9. It was hard to know what people believed then

No twitter, no comments on the internet, not that much talk radio. How representative were letters to the internet? I guess we could look for polls.

But it seems clear that today Trumps support will hold steady. We know he grabs pussies, lies, etc and people just view that as part of his colorful personality. Trump is unlikely to lose support so long as we avoid a bad recession.

[jalan48]

10. The Democrat's were in charge of Congress which is the biggest difference with today.

[chillfactor]

15. however...

do not forget that many Republicans supported impeaching Nixon and it was Republicans who told Nixon to resign or he would be impeached. Unfortunately today's republicans in congress have no balls.

[jalan48]

16. We have no power to impeach today-we did back then and the Republican's knew it. We also had the

the ability with the House and Senate Committees to get information to the public. Today we are placing our hopes in a Republican special prosecutor and a Republican DOJ. If we can take back the House at least we can hold real hearings and get real information out to the American public.

[YessirAtsaFact]

11. I distinctly remember talking to this older guy in rural NC

He said about Nixon “He ain’t done nothing the rest of them ain’t done.”

I was 19 and it was a shock that anyone could still support him.

[RockRaven]

12. I can't comment on contemporaneous Nixon happenings but one thing

that will absolutely be in parallel with Nixon and Trump is this:

a couple decades after Nixon resigned somebody took a large sample of people who had voted in 1972 and asked them who they voted for. And the results were way off of the actual vote count. Like a 20% swing or something. [note: I don't recall the source; I'm pretty sure it was a podcast but it was a long time ago that I heard this, and I can't confirm veracity]

Regardless, what I think will definitely happen with Trump is in 20 years if you ask people who voted in the 2016 election to tell you who they voted for, less than 35% of people will say Trump. Some of these Trump-humping m*therf*ckers will go to their graves lying to themselves and others about not having voted for him.

[Kirk Lover]

22. I remember hearing something about this...you could nary find a Nixon voter...nobody would

admit it.

[Major Nikon]

13. There's still GOPHers who are trying to convince people McCarthy was a hero

Nugent is a pedophile and they still love him.

No matter how big of a shitheel Trump is, he will always have support.

[chillfactor]

14. I am 76 years old and I was around then...

unlike many posters here I clearly remember those days and how many of us celebrated Nixon's departure from the White House and were devastated when Ford gave Nixon a pardon. Ford never shook that pardon and lost in the next election. tRump may never fall because of collusion and obstruction of justice but like Nixon will be decimated by the cover-up. I for one can't wait! GO Mueller!

[PoliticAverse]

17. What ultimately sank Nixon was his voice on the tapes directing the conspiracy.

Except for that he probably would have survived.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

18. I recall very well that there were people who were convinced that Nixon was framed

and unjustly hounded out of office. One of them was my great-aunt, who to her dying day kept a picture of him on her living room wall. Ben Stein still bursts into tears when he talks about how Nixon was a great man who never did anything wrong (he did this in the documentary Robert Redford produced about the making of "All The President's Men" ). Nixon left office with an approval rating of about 25%, and the articles of impeachment that came out of the Judiciary Committee were voted on along party lines with only a few GOP votes - even after the "smoking gun" tape was released, proving beyond all doubt that Nixon had obstructed justice by ordering the FBI to abandon its investigation of the break-in.

On the other hand, even though Nixon won the 1972 election by a landslide, after he resigned it was pretty hard to find anyone (except for my great-aunt) who would admit to having voted for him.

[DURHAM D]

21. I was around.

If fact I was working for the Republican Party at the time. It was a favor for a family member and it was temporary, less than a year.

The party was over him. They thought we was really starting to be a drag on the rest of the party and they wanted him gone. I can only speak for party activists/workers, not the genral public.

[lunatica]

25. My mother and father fought over it

My father because Nixon went to China and made diplomatic friends and my mother because he was a crook.

Yeah. It tore families apart.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

26. I highly recommend The Newspaperman: The Life And Times of Ben Bradlee

watch the archival footage in the film and you could replace Nixon’s name with Trump.

The same goes with the denials of his supporters in the media. Pat Buchanan hasn’t changed. You get to see a young Britt Hume looking like Elvis.

And then the man on the street interviews of his supporters saying leave poor Nixon alone and let him do his job. History is repeating itself.

If you liked The Post you will LOVE this.

Currently showing on HBO

[underthematrix]

27. I was around. There were two things that sealed

Nixon's fate:

the revelation there were tapes

the Saturday night massacre

I don't know anyone who thought Nixon was innocent

If you haven't seen NIXON, the movie you should. It's one of the best I've ever seen. It's about 3 hours.

[True Blue American]

30. Having lived through the real thing

I pass on the movie.

What is going on today has me totally depressed.

[bettyellen]

28. People trusted the news a lot more, and the news had less slant and differences

in reporting except for matters of style. Cable stations really screwed that pooch.

[True Blue American]

29. Yes!

His hard core followers were probably the parents or Grandparents of Trump followers.

I will say that Nixon did some good things before paranoia took over. He wanted Health care for all.

Trump has been nuts from the beginning and his crimes far out weigh Nixon’s burglary.

[beachbum bob]

31. nixon still had nearly 30% support among the hardcore base, and even today many consider

Nixon's undoing was a liberal witch hunt. I believe that effected the Lawrence Walsh's failure to press for charges and indictments against President Reagan and VP Bush for the Irangate. Walsh was fearful of creating a schism in american politics...like WTF how wrong could he have been as he made reagan and bush to be above the law

[Quemado]

32. I was a teenager in the early 70's

The father of one of my high school chums was an orthopedic surgeon. I remember the way he talked about politics in those days. As a 16-year old, I had a political discussion with him. I told him Nixon was a crook. He told me "they're all crooks".

[FSogol]

34. The Nixon diehards believe that "everyone does it."

[Golden Raisin]

35. I was a young cognizant adult. There were major differences.

• Watergate was domestic. The Trump regime’s offenses have international (Russian+) input, players and repercussions.
• Democrats controlled the House.
• There were still some Republicans who put Country and Constitution above Party.
• Nixon, sleazeball that he was, was a highly experienced, career politician. Trump was and is a political neophyte, previously never even having run for dog-catcher.
• Nixon, sleazeball that he was, had a working concept and understanding of History, the Office of the Presidency and the Constitution.
• Nixon, sleazeball, that he was, had a broad, thought-out concept (right or wrong) of International diplomacy, the USA’s place on the world stage, and statesmanship. Trump stumbles from one chaotic disaster to another.
• General level of education then was higher. Kids still had “Civics” classes and more average people were taught and understood how our Constitution worked. Therefore, both the Saturday Night Massacre and the revelation of extant tapes carried a lot more weight.

In terms of access to and volume of Information/News it was a very different world:
• There was no Internet for average citizens.
• There was no 24/7 news (basically just 3 national TV networks, 30 minutes once a day, plus newspapers & radio).
• There was no Fox Network spewing pure, rightwing propaganda 24/7.
• Average citizens did not have home computers.
• Average citizens did not have iPhones (mini-computers) in their pockets.

[ooky]

37. Unfortunately there is a special kind of stupid in this world,

particularly in his country, it seems, of people who prefer to "go down with their ship". They will go to their graves believing in this clown.