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Fifty years ago today, Richard Nixon became the first, and only, US president to resign. The world watched with bated breath as he got on a helicopter on August 9, 1974, flashed a peace sign, and departed from the White House and the political stage. That moment was not only the climax of the Watergate scandal but also a stunning fall from grace for a man who had won reelection in an absolute landslide less than two years before.
However, in the intervening time, Americans had learned that, contrary to Nixon’s claims, he was, indeed, a crook.
Fast forward five decades, and another Republican could win a second term in the White House three months from now… a man who is, arguably, far more of a crook than Nixon.
After all, Donald Trump is a convicted felon, twice-impeached, four-times indicted, a serial loser in civil cases where juries have found him (or his company) liable for offenses ranging from sexual abuse to fraud, a coup instigator, and a con man who has managed to funnel millions of dollars of taxpayer money or campaign donations into his own pockets.
And that’s just the stuff we know of.
All of which begs the question of whether history could repeat itself these days.
Probably not.
If he were alive, Nixon would have looked on in stunned disbelief as Republicans rushed to defend Trump no matter what. At this point, it seems as though there is no crime that the leader of the MAGA cult could commit that would result in his faithful abandoning him.
That was not the case after Watergate.
There is no telling how the scandal would have played out if “his” GOP would have been as subservient back then as it is now.
In fact, bipartisanship, which seems like a foreign concept these days, cost Nixon dearly.
In large part because of Congress’s infamous anti-communism witch hunts of the 1950s, the public had little confidence in its investigative panels when the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities (aka, the Watergate Committee) was established.
But the seven senators tasked with unraveling the scandal managed to put partisanship aside for the most part, thereby putting pressure on Nixon and his administration to make documents and witnesses available.
That began with the selection of the committee’s chairman, Sen. Sam Ervin (D-NC). He was chosen over Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), whose presidential aspirations might have turned the panel into much more of a partisan spectacle.
Then there was the panel’s vice-chairman, Sen. Sam Baker (R-TN), who unquestionably put country before party and famously asked the question: “What did the President know and when did he know it?”
It seems inconceivable that anybody would ask that question of Trump.
And it is just as unlikely that congressional Republicans would ever want to participate in any serious investigation of the former president.
It is important to remember that Watergate was also a campaign finance scandal that led to a tightening of federal laws on that issue.
Sadly, a partisan Supreme Court has rolled these back, and ultra-wealthy Americans and corporations once again dominate politics.
So, where does that leave us on the 50th anniversary of Nixon’s resignation?
Depending on what happens in November, we might end up calling that period in US politics “the good old days.”
