Nixon's the One!

[Tomconroy]

Last edited Fri Jul 30, 2021, 04:15 PM - Edit history (1)

Yesterday someone put up a thread asking people to vote: Who was the more evil - Nixon or Trump? The vote was unanimous: Trump! But it did get me to doing some research.
Did you know Nixon signed into law:
1. Social Security SSI
2. COLAs for social security
3. The EPA
4. The Clean Air Act
5. The Endangered Species Ac
6. OSHA
7.The Office of Consumer Affairs
8. The Alternative Minimum Tax
9. Federal legislation establishing affirmative action
In employment for minorities.and women
10. Raised the minimum wage by 40 percent
11. Established Title IX which essentially invented college sports
for women
12. Expanded the food stamps program
13. Ended the draft
14. Appointed supreme court justices who voted for Roe v. Wade
15. Lowered the voting age to 18
16. Killed off the gold standard
17. Decreased thei military budget substantially as a percent
. of gdp.
18. Increased the social welfare budget substantially as a percent
of gdp
19. Proposed a national health care program that may have been
better than Obama's
20. Proposed cash payments to the poor, a negative income tax,
that Joe Biden is just now trying to replicate in part

No president since has been as liberal as Nixon.
President Obama said the same thing in an interview.
I hated Nixon when he was in office. I've looked at the record and saw what came after. I was wrong.
And he supported the ERA amendment and in 1969 advocated abolishing the electoral college. Next time around I'm voting for Tricky Dick!

[Sanity Claws]

1. Was Nixon liberal or was it Congress?

I am not a kid but I don't recall who proposed any of these legislative items.
He may just not wanted Congress to override his veto.
I recall that he impounded money that was supposed to pay for some things. The Supreme Court said that he did not have the power to impound money that Congress had allocated. Were the impounded funds for any of those legislative items?

[Tomconroy]

12. There were democratic majorities in congress

But back then there were a lot of southern Democrats. Sort of a different party. And there were a fair number of liberal republicans. The real endangered species!

[Bucky]

18. Actually, lots of Southern Democrats went along with liberal policies

The Dixiecrats loved the New Deal and the TVA and Social Security and all the FDR and LBJ poverty programs.

The marriage of social conservatism with the philosophy of small government didn't really emerge until the early seventies.

If you look at the voting patterns in congress, those Dixiecrats went along with lots of liberal agenda until I got to "urban problems" and even then there was some sympathy, based on political alliance. When Elvis sang "In the Ghetto," lots of those New Deal Southerners were feeling it. Most of them came out of poverty too.

[peppertree]

26. Congress. Most of those were initiatives from congressional/senate Democrats

But Nixon, to his credit, knew good domestic policy when he saw it - and they couldn't have done it without him.

Credit where credit is due.

Nixon, Speaker Carl Albert, and congressional Democrats: all in all, a good team

[madaboutharry]

2. Nixon grew up in poverty.

As corrupt as he was, he never forgot where he came from. He also wanted legislation for universal health care, which of course Washington republicans refused to consider.

[Tomconroy]

5. I read a quote where he said: People like William Buckley

Have a problem: They just don't care about people.

[Tomconroy]

6. PS on healthcare. Democrats controlled congress.

It was Ted Kennedy who killed Nixon's proposal.

[madaboutharry]

11. That's a shame.

What was Ted Kennedy thinking?

[Tomconroy]

14. He demanded single payer. He later regretted his decision,

But that didn't get anyone coverage.

[Bayard]

3. trump did not do even one good thing

His only legacy is hatred and destruction.

[Tomconroy]

4. He had a democratic congress.

And that is a standard reply. But the only one that I could find he voted was a Clean Waters Act that was passed over his veto.
The depressing one for me was the health care proposal. Ted Kennedy led the opposition
He wanted single payer. We could have had national health care in 1974 that would have covered pre existing conditions, and I believe I read would have covered dental and hearing.
Some critics when asked about this say: He just wanted to get votes.
Well,duh.

[3Hotdogs]

7. Regarding E.P.A., Nixon considered its supporters as

"Ass clowns."

[Tomconroy]

10. You listen to the tapes he called people

A lot worse. But he signed the stuff.

[DURHAM D]

8. The Fair Credit Act -

For the first time women could get credit.

[Tomconroy]

9. OMG! This guy was a liberal saint.

[spanone]

13. nixon was an altar boy compared to That Fucking Guy

[lagomorph777]

15. It is pretty amazing.

Had he not fucked around with Viet Nam, Watergate, enemies list, and the bribery scandals, he could have gone down as a pretty good president.

[UTUSN]

16. Yip, despite the Dem congresses, he was a product of past time that had remnants of norms

And growing up, not only in poverty but as a Quaker. Not to say that these things marked what he came to stand for, but were influences?

And this post coming from me for whom he was THE bogeyman of most of my life - and still is (good works don't save a bad person).

So with the NORMS of his time, he still had NORMS: He didn't destroy the tapes because he had a sense of "History," he felt things like guilt, shame, and perhaps even remorse.

He played piano, appreciated music. I have the image seared in my mind after all these years of how he MARCHED IN TIME when Hail to the Chief was played for him, made me laugh at the hokeyness, but now it says *appreciation" (of music). He liked dogs or acted like he did or used them for props.

*** So by contrast Drumpf: No humor, no empathy, no music/dogs, besides the no: History/guilt/shame/remorse.


Yet, the good NIXON might have done is all a footnote to his nefariousness.

[Tomconroy]

17. I marched against the war. In retrospect Nixon did start to get

Us out, but way too slowly. And he was paranoid. He sent burglars into the Watergate to raid the DNC in an election he was going to win in a landslide? Just nuts.

[UTUSN]

20. Yea, all the negatives are there and are preeminent, just going with your O.P. about the good things

that are not the first things we think about regarding him.

I volunteered, not because I was *for* the war but for lack of economic, educational, and employment options, as the formerly well thought of Charlie RANGEL said so well.

And at the risk of offending many who marched, I have come to think that much of the marching was more against being Drafted with "peace" as a higher ground. And I have come to think that the reason I didn't have the much maligned huge student loan debts was that I sold four years of my life for education/employment/economics - although I didn't plan it that way.

[rsdsharp]

19. Nixon's the one!

And he was a bigger one in ‘72!

[andym]

21. Nixon is Trump's inspiration for fascism: liar, culture wars, dirty tricks (Ailes-Fox News)

Last edited Sat Jul 31, 2021, 03:27 PM - Edit history (2)

Southern strategy to align Republican Party with racism in the South.

Nixon used the government against his political enemies ("enemies list" ).

Nixon disregarded political norms and was notorious for dirty tricks. Destroyed Muskie's chance at the Dem nomination.

Nixon continually lied to the American people and got away with it for a long time. (Secret peace plan, I'm not a crook).

Culture wars-- the Silent Majority vs immoral hippies, etc with "Law and Order" as excuse to crack down on protesters.

Roger Ailes was Nixon's media man, who later formed propaganda network Fox News, for the express purpose of preventing future Nixon's resigning due to their crimes. Not to mention Roger Stone and Nixon's "men."

Btw, Nixon hated Roe V Wade https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105832640

Basically Nixon was a power hungry amoral man who violated his oath of office and where the ends justified the means.

Nixon's one missing element is that he could never create a cult of personality, as he lacked the correct persona.

[11 Bravo]

22. A couple of bumper stickers from the Nixon era:

Why change Dicks in the middle of a screw? Vote for Nixon in '72.

Nixon's the one! (And he'll be a bigger one in '72)

[FakeNoose]

23. I hated him too, but it was because of Vietnam

Nixon was elected in 1968 by claiming that he'd end the war in Vietnam almost immediately. I was 18 years old at the time and this was a BIG DEAL to all of us!

He got himself elected, and INSTEAD of ending the war he escalated everything. He did a turnaround and said the US had to negotiate a "Peace With Honor" whatever that bullshit means. The war was still going on when he ran for re-election 4 years later. So many of our boys were killed and wounded in Vietnam and Cambodia. So many lives were ruined by the war protests, splitting for Canada, draft-dodging, etc.

Yes Nixon did some progressive stuff but it had nothing to do with socialism. It had to do with getting re-elected in 1972 - which he managed to do in a landslide. Nobody in Congress screamed about "the bloody deficit" in those days for a number of reasons, mainly having to do with tax moneys coming in at record rates.

Looking at Nixon's record as a whole, the evil of the Vietnam War and his Watergate lies really outweigh the good legislation he did pass. I think those progressive programs would have happened even if Hubert Humphrey had won in 1968. And if Humphrey HAD won, the war would have been over before 1970. I can guarantee it.

[UnderThisLaw]

24. Trump is Nixon on steroids NFM

[rurallib]

25. The Republicans had two wings at the time as did the Dems

The mostly north and east liberal wing (Nixon, Rockefeller, Percy) and the western and some southern righties wing (Goldwater. Reagan).

I don't think anyone foresaw the Repugs becoming so narrowly focused in their philosophy. And most of us were not surprised that Nixon would sign onto such legislation. Remember when Kennedy beat Nixon the black vote was leaning toward Nixon (Lincoln's legacy).

From today's vantage point Nixon looks like a real oddity. Back in the Clinton years I used to call him our last liberal president.

What is sad is that today's Republicans have such a stranglehold on the media that today's liberal is not as liberal as the Nixon.