Opinion: The essential difference between Nixon and Trump, according to John Dean

[MissMillie]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/opinion-the-essential-difference-between-nixon-and-trump-according-to-john-dean/ar-AAYmZqK?li=BB141NW3&ocid=U483DHP

Dean: It feels different to me because of the Trump presidency. I don’t think you can look at Watergate today without looking at what happened during the Trump years. And that actually makes Richard Nixon look pretty good by comparison. Nixon, it was obvious to me, had a conscience. He experienced shame. Did he abuse power? You bet. But at least he had some internal checks on himself. I’m not sure that Donald Trump does.

I never really felt worried during Watergate that small “d” democracy was in any trouble. But I can tell you, from the time Trump was nominated, until he left, that I had a knot in my stomach. And unfortunately, his departure didn’t end the problems that he triggered, if you will. That’s why to me, doing the documentary series was important. I think it was important to tell that story from a 50-year perspective.

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I've been saying that TFG makes Nixon look like a Girl Scout. I've been saying it for years.

[mucifer]

1. I agree. I know people say the 2020 election was the most important. I believe

it was actually the 2016 election that was the most important and we are pretty much now screwed.

[Paladin]

2. Couldn't agree more with Dean, re Nixon vs. trump.

And that Watergate documentary is definitely worth everybody's time---even we old-timers who watched it on TV, all those years ago.

[mopinko]

3. we rly need to pay a lot more attention to how brains work. we need a serious

public education campaign on all this.
dean wrote a book back in the w years, called conservatives w/o conscience. it looked at post ww2 research into how the holocaust happened.
his hair was on fire.

the debate w have hear about tfg's mental/brain health usually edges me toward angry tears. having a defective brain is seen as some kind of get out of jail free card.
but even that is a fucked up category. many ppl are held accountable for actions they literally could not control besides the usual axis 1 dx's.
we ought to be examining the brains of these shooters. and we ought to align our legal system w the science of the human brain.

[MissMillie]

4. I read Dean's 3 books on authoritarianism in the GOP

I highly recommend them.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

5. Like John Dean, I am worried about the survival of our democratic form of govt