What exactly did Richard Nixon do that was wrong?

Richard Nixon has left a legacy as the big bad guy for the baby boomers and the media. Yet for the life of me I can't find myself hating him like they do.
I don't think he was a bad person. He was largely one of the better political figures this country has seen during this post World War II era. When you listen to old interviews of him he always came across as a genuine and humble guy especially the ones during the last 10 years of his life. That is something better that can be said than of most politicians. I think that came from his background and the family that raised him if you'd look at his early life. The Anglo-Christian America he was born into rapidly changed into the 90s America he died in. But whenever I hear anyone give a reason why he was a bad man I'd roll my eyes because the past 10 years have helped me grow empathetic to him and understand that the world I was taught was not all that it seemed to be.

"But he hated the media!"
Good, I hate the media too if I was in the same position as he was I would not have been so laid back about it as he was.

"But he prolonged the Vietnam war!"
A quick withdrawal was not an option at the time. In hindsight, everything in that war was for nothing for the US but at the time it still seem like a victory was possible. They may not have a grand strategy to win at the last segment of the war but a big part of war is taking chances based off of outside circumstances. It really did seem at the time on the ground over there that there was a real chance of the Veit Cong collapsing and the North Vietnamese Government giving up on supporting Terrorists in the south. Remember Hippies did not cause the US to withdraw from South Vietnam, the families of the soldiers wanting them home is what ultimately convinced the government to do so.

"But Watergate!"
You mean like when Obama spied on Trump and those backdoor bribe money is so commonplace in politics that they invented a new word so it doesn't sound so dirty. There is absolutely nothing he did that he supposed morally better successors in all three, the house, the congress, and the presidency didn't also eventually do. At no point do I think he was trying to "destroy democracy".

Does anyone have another boomer talking point about him?

 

why is your automatic response to anyone disagreeing with Trump calling them a pussy or a bitch? It is mind boggling the way you spout monologues full of ultra-masculine, stop-the-pussification-of-the-west messaging but then turn around and fan girl for Trump as if he is some kind of rock star. He's a politician dude, not the second coming of christ. 

 

You tell me what's wrong with the phone call. You had a lot of weird shit going on in Georgia with the ballot boxes that certainly either overcounted made-up ballots for Biden or undercounted Trump. It made perfect sense for the President to get to the bottom of this and ask if they could find Trump ballots that were certainly thrown out or shoved away somewhere. There was plenty more he would ask regarding an investigation, but the same Republicans said NOPE, NOTHING TO SEE HERE! 

 

Dude, take a look at the data. The election was clearly stolen. Occam’s razor, they conveniently shut down every swing state counting at the night of the election for the first time ever, while Trump was winning literally all of them. Then, overnight (when they weren’t even supposed to be counting, hence why they stopped the night of) they found enough for Biden to pull ahead?

They stole the election. We know it happens across the globe, it happened here.

 

Being shortsighted in opening relations with China just to snub the USSR. Look how that's turned out for us five decades later. At least he was actually good with Afghanistan before the USSR went into their own Vietnam there and then of course the US went into Vietnam 2.0 there. But looping back to your Vietnam point: if anything FJB got inspiration about abandoning and running an entire failure of a military withdrawal from Nixon.

Oh, and the biggest screw up of them all? The Nixon Shock and killing Bretton Woods.

The poster formerly known as theAudiophile. Just turned up to 11, like the stereo.
 

Based and Bretton Woods-pilled

Nixon was a disaster, but in reality Watergate wasn't even in the top 5 worst things from under him. And that's blown away entirely by the stuff done during many subsequent admins.

"The obedient always think of themselves as virtuous rather than cowardly" - Robert A. Wilson | "If you don't have any enemies in life you have never stood up for anything" - Winston Churchill | "It's a testament to the sheer belligerence of the profession that people would rather argue about the 'risk-adjusted returns' of using inferior tooth cleaning methods." - kellycriterion
 

The goal of building relations and trade with China was primarily to prevent a nuclear war between our countries, and secondarily to prevent China from making war on non-nuclear neighbors. That goal has been successful so far.
 

The goal was never to prevent middle class manufacturing jobs from leaving the Midwest, or to prevent China from becoming economically powerful, or even to cause China to become a democracy. The goal is and always will be survival. 

 

People have made criticism of his policies but I’m not sure why you find him to be a likable or decent person.  Tapes show that he spend his time in the White House ranting about blacks, Jews, Italians, Irish, Indians, pretty much any ethnic group with his buddies.  He was like the original 4chan troll.  Unless you’re an edgy racist yourself I don’t think you’d like the guy.

 

Nixon's One China policy is what allowed China to access international trade, which is why they are the economic/military threat that they are now.  Don't give much of a fuck about Watergate, but One China is one of the most disastrous policy initiatives of any modern president. 

I come from down in the valley, where mister when you're young, they bring you up to do like your daddy done
 

bawstin

Richard Nixon has left a legacy as the big bad guy for the baby boomers and the media. Yet for the life of me I can't find myself hating him like they do.

I don't think he was a bad person. He was largely one of the better political figures this country has seen during this post World War II era. When you listen to old interviews of him he always came across as a genuine and humble guy especially the ones during the last 10 years of his life. That is something better that can be said than of most politicians. I think that came from his background and the family that raised him if you'd look at his early life. The Anglo-Christian America he was born into rapidly changed into the 90s America he died in. But whenever I hear anyone give a reason why he was a bad man I'd roll my eyes because the past 10 years have helped me grow empathetic to him and understand that the world I was taught was not all that it seemed to be.

"But he hated the media!"

Good, I hate the media too if I was in the same position as he was I would not have been so laid back about it as he was.

"But he prolonged the Vietnam war!"

A quick withdrawal was not an option at the time. In hindsight, everything in that war was for nothing for the US but at the time it still seem like a victory was possible. They may not have a grand strategy to win at the last segment of the war but a big part of war is taking chances based off of outside circumstances. It really did seem at the time on the ground over there that there was a real chance of the Veit Cong collapsing and the North Vietnamese Government giving up on supporting Terrorists in the south. Remember Hippies did not cause the US to withdraw from South Vietnam, the families of the soldiers wanting them home is what ultimately convinced the government to do so.

"But Watergate!"

You mean like when Obama spied on Trump and those backdoor bribe money is so commonplace in politics that they invented a new word so it doesn't sound so dirty. There is absolutely nothing he did that he supposed morally better successors in all three, the house, the congress, and the presidency didn't also eventually do. At no point do I think he was trying to "destroy democracy".

Does anyone have another boomer talking point about him?

It seems like you have already made up your m8nd about Nixon, so it sort of hard really answering your questions. Based on what I read and learned about Nixon from childhood to ex president he was not a ethical person that I would want to hang out with. There is a saying about a person and their values is what makes a person not their powerful position or wealth. Nixon, fell short when it came to values that I qualify as good. Even out of office he still displayed those poor values. I honestly do not expect most people to agree with my view.

SafariJoe, wins again!
 

So you read some vague line in a textbook forced on you and believe that to be 100% true? This is literally why the MAGA crowd talk about indoctrination in education. You aren’t presented with evidence and alternate viewpoints to form your opinion. You are presented with a narrative to regurgitate to get the A.

Array
 

Disproportionally attacking communities of color, the war on drugs, the red scare off the top of my head

 

EverSeeAnOwlMonkey

Disproportionally attacking communities of color, the war on drugs, the red scare off the top of my head

All you have to do is listen to the Nixon tapes, through his own words. As one data point of many.

SafariJoe, wins again!
 
bawstin


You mean like when Obama spied on Trump and those backdoor bribe money is so commonplace in politics that they invented a new word so it doesn't sound so dirty. There is absolutely nothing he did that he supposed morally better successors in all three, the house, the congress, and the presidency didn't also eventually do. At no point do I think he was trying to "destroy democracy".

Well you are absolutely correct that he was better than Reagan, who until Trump was the most obvious traitor the country has seen in a long while.

But just because Trump is a traitor, doesn't mean we should normalize it.  The idea that you'd spy on the opposition, and then lie about it, shouldn't be normalized, even if the Trump/MAGA/Qanon cult has gotten so bad that basically anything flies.

Electoral integrity, and overall faith in democratic systems, is way more important than any individual policy.  Nixon began undermining that and it hasn't stopped, and he should rightly be held accountable for it.  The fact that he was a savvy politician who had some real policy successes shouldn't offset the fact that he was, in fact, a crook.

 

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"Work ethic, work ethic" - Vince Vaughn
 

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SafariJoe, wins again!

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