Talk Elections

it's hard fo me to understand.


This wan stop the war in vietnam, as a more social economical-politic than reagan or clinton, is not part of establishment, create ecological laws


I understand than democratic people don"t like a rep president, but WHY nixon on top of hate rather than, dunno, einsehower ? reagan? bush 1?


Maybe he was not very "american" and more "european" in his way to make politic ?



I would be interested by americans point of views ;)

He was a crook. And an unlikable asshole.

Richard Nixon is hated, as previously stated, because he was a crook. Eisenhower is liked even by Democrats. Ford is the type of Republican many Democrats wish still was around. Reagan & George W. Bush are hated by the left just about as much as Nixon, though for different reasons.

Watergate.

Yeah, ever heard of something called "Watergate"?

Because he was the most corrupt president in the history of the United States.

Eh, Harding was arguably worse.

watergate is not (for me) a very important thing.

He lies? So what ? All politics lied, and spy rivals is not a nixon exclusivity. (in France, mitterrand as spy-listened more than 1000 peoples)

It might not be important to you, but to the American people, it was damn important and still remains a marring piece of his legacy.

It wasn't like one of those "I promised to do this during the campaign and didn't do it while in office". I'm unfamiliar at best with the intricacies of Watergate, but as opposed to things that went on with JFK and LBJ where things were found out years after their Presidencies and not very much cared about, this was smack in the middle of his Presidency and forced him to resign.

Harding wasn't corrupt himself though. Nixon was.

Yes, all politicians lie.  In the context of how Presidents usually behave though, this was outrageous.  For the American people to realize that tampering, and fraud exist so high up, and so overtly, really ruined how we perceived our leaders.  Without Watergate, Nixon could have been an average, or perhaps, above average Republican President.  Unfortunately, his vice was his personality, and it would come to ruin him in the end.  But hey, now we have his memory to kick around for the next few generations.



There's no conclusive proof of Harding being corrupt himself no.  The Teapot Dome Scandal wasn't exactly a minor occurrence though, even if it did occur after Harding was dead.  Nor can anyone conclusively prove that John Quincy sold a cabinet seat to Clay for his support.  It's not surprising such scandals surround those in power, because people in power rarely want to give it away, and more often than not, will seek to profit from their positions.

anyway, I had found the oliver stone movie about nixon very excellent (and a little bit nixonian, even if stone is more democrat, as i know)

How Watergate brought down Nixon, but how Reagan is beloved despite Iran-Contra will never make any sense to me. Not that Nixon was squeaky clean, but his actions really can't compare to selling weapons to our enemies. Reagan should have been the one forced to resign in disgrace.

Remembering this is very important.

But Nixon is still the greatest criminal (with the possible exception of Andrew Jackson) to occupy the oval office. Not so much for Watergate (though that is pretty bad) but for Cambodia, Chile and Laos (and while doing so, wrecking the world's economy by pulling out of Bretton woods to fund the war in Vietnam and then his actions during the Yom Kippur war, which aggrevated Arab opinion).

I think, furthermore, it is time for this thread again (https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=102162.0).

A few choice Nixon quotes that didn't make it into your thread, but also illuminate him very well:

"John, we have the power. Are we using it now to investigate contributors to Hubert Humphrey? Contributors to Muskie? The Jews, you know, that are stealing in every direction? ... Please get me the names of the Jews. You know, the big Jewish contributors to the Democrats... Could you please investigate some of the cocksuckers?"

"The Jews are all over the government... Most Jews are disloyal. I want to look at any sensitive areas where Jews are involved, Bob. Generally speaking, you can't trust the bastards. They turn on you."

"There's one thing that I want done and I don't want any argument about it. I want you to direct the most trusted person you have in the immigration service, and they are to look over all of the activities of the Los Angeles Times. All, underlined. ... [Publisher] Otis Chandler, I want him checked with the gardener, his gardener. I understand he's a wetback, is that clear?"

Nixon, arguing to Haldeman to steal files from the Brookings Institute so he could blackmail LBJ: "The way I want that handled is... just to break in. Break in and take it out! You understand? You are to break into the place, rifle the files, and bring them out. Just go in and take it! Go in around eight or nine o'clock. And clean it up. .... Mitchell was arguing strenuously about the law this morning. and I said, 'Godd-mn it, forget the law.' " [President Nixon continued to refine his plan over the next several days, adding a firebombing that would allow FBI agents to accompany firemen into the building and steal the desired documents. Ultimately, however, nothing happened.]

It's always time for that thread.

Because he was twisted freak who had no business having ready accesss to nuclear weapons. Read Gully's thread, the quotes therein speak for themselves.

On a related note, it's horrifying that Nixon has been lionized by some on the left as 'the last liberal President'.

To be fair, he pretty much was.

And that's a bad reflection on everyone.

The people that told us about Watergate:  Woodward and Bernstein.

The person who told us about Iran-Contra, well the Contra part:  Reagan.

This.

Funding latin american death squads is also pretty bad. Most of the time.

Both Nixon and Reagan were HPs politically.

Nixon happened to be much more of a HP personally than Ronald "Amiable Dunce" Reagan.

Yes but the really juicy bit was the part where Ronald Reagan and Oliver North sold weapons to Iran.  What would you be saying if it was discovered Obama sold weapons to Iran?  Give us a break, dude.

War on drugs, watergate, and many others.

Watergate even though I think its importance in Nixon's rating as a President is exagerated (compared to Truman being a corrupt machine politician in Missouri, votes being stolen on Kennedy's behalf, Johnson organising the stuffing of ballot boxes to win the 1948 Texas senate election and Reagan selling weapons to American enemies are all actions which are, at the very least, as bad as Watergate imo.)

Watergate has also tended to overshadow much of the good policy that Nixon enacted during his Presidency including turning China and starting the process of turning Arab nations to the American cause in the Cold War (actions which are usually attributed to either Kissinger or Carter) as well as domestically creating the EPA.

All in all I think Nixon is vastly underated and that is entirely due to Watergate which I admit should not have happened and could have been handled far more effectively by Nixon once it had happened.

Both scandals were due to lack of cabinet oversight, or at least with Harding too much time with the whores than his job (alas, the American Way.)