Politicians arent any less honorable then they were in 1974

[OSR stands with Israel]

I know many of you who hate the GOP now might be thinking but wait Republicans turned on Nixon then while they arent turning on Trump today. And same with many who hate the Dems many are thinking but wait back then the Dems back then werent nearly as crazily far left and had much more centrists. Yes that is all true but there is a reason for that and the main reason is this:


1. The Voters are far more partisan then they were in 1974

- And proof of this is by just looking at the election results and the types of swings you would get back in those days. From 1964-1972 there was a stunning 45.8 point swing(from +22.6 Dem in 1964 to +23.2 GOP in 1972). Also look at the senate composition in many of the states for more proof of this and that brings us to the next point


2. At Least 85% of the politicians now days are in Safe Seats

- What this means is that politicians are far more vulnerable to losing their seats in the primaries then in the general. What that results in is politicans having to constantly prove how they meet purity test after purity test while back in the day politicans were far more vulnerable to lose in the general election which meant they had to prove constantly how they represented voters of all stripes in their state and not just their own party . Now they have to prove of loyal they are to their team which creates point number 3


3. The media back then didnt treat politics like sports while they do now


Just watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pS4x8hXQ5c&   and the fact is this is not just CNN but Cable News as a whole(and Social Media is even worse)


What this creates is voters overtime thinking of politics and political parties not as vehicles in which best to implement ideas but rather their team and believing the worst thing someone in their party doing is not showing loyalty to their teams. This is extremely similar to how sports fans view sports teams in which they root for their teams no matter what and expect loyalty from players and coaches. The problem is that is not how politics should be like that




So at the end of the day the people who deserve most of the blame for today's politics is not our politicians but rather us the voters along with the media. Until we recognize that fundamental problem things will not get better

[Sir Mohamed]

You have fair points, but I'm not forging GOP officials for putting career and party over country and the rule of law. I agree though the biggest problem is the die hard GOP base and their ignorance.

[T'Chenka]

You may be right, but that does NOT excuse the Republicans AT ALL for their disgusting behaviour.

[OSR stands with Israel]

You have fair points, but I'm not forging GOP officials for putting career and party over country and the rule of law. I agree though the biggest problem is the die hard GOP base and their ignorance.

Well I would argue if Ilhan Omar say was the Dem nominee she would get 85% of Dem voters too and while she would still get at around the EV total Dole got which would be astoundingly too high.


I truly think at this point 85% of voters on either side will vote for their side realistically no matter what and the only way to mitigate that is to address number 2

[Annatar]

The problem in 1974 was that the media had a stranglehold on the production and dissemination of information, the media landscape was far less democratic than it is now so the elites could more easily convince people to believe what they wanted them to believe. The only reason Nixon after winning 60% of the vote in 1972 got taken out is because (a) he had no friendly media and (b) he was a coward who wasn't willing to fight, he could have made a public declaration saying there was an attempt to overturn the will of the people and said he would take the whole system down with him, instead he chose to be a coward and basically quit, that's one reason I like Trump more than Nixon, Trump isn't a quitter, he's willing to stay in the fight, although I do still like Nixon somewhat.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

The problem in 1974 was that the media had a stranglehold on the production and dissemination of information, the media landscape was far less democratic than it is now so the elites could more easily convince people to believe what they wanted them to believe. The only reason Nixon after winning 60% of the vote in 1972 got taken out is because (a) he had no friendly media and (b) he was a coward who wasn't willing to fight, he could have made a public declaration saying there was an attempt to overturn the will of the people and said he would take the whole system down with him, instead he chose to be a coward and basically quit, that's one reason I like Trump more than Nixon, Trump isn't a quitter, he's willing to stay in the fight, although I do still like Nixon somewhat.

It's posts like this that reinforce Beep Boop's points, if anything.  Bragging about how you are more willing to support crooked politicians if they double down on their misconduct is not a good look though, and blaming the (((media))) for your problems can only get you so far.

[dead0man]

So at the end of the day the people who deserve most of the blame for today's politics is not our politicians but rather us the voters along with the media. Until we recognize that fundamental problem things will not get better

there is no question that this point is 100% true.  Voters are morons and the media is failing hard at it's job, but that's really our fault too.  They just give us what gets the most eyes from the dummies.

[junior chįmp]

Pretty much.

The Myth of Watergate Bipartisanship

Good guy bipartisan independent maverick man Howard Baker was a fraud too:

Meanwhile, the ranking Republican on the Senate Watergate Committee, Howard Baker of Tennessee — a man often lauded for putting principle over party — met with Mr. Nixon to discuss strategy. To “maintain his purity in the Senate,” Mr. Baker didn’t want anyone to know about meeting Mr. Nixon, wrote the White House counsel, John Dean, in a memo before a meeting with Mr. Nixon. Once the hearings started in late spring of 1973, Mr. Baker’s staff leaked information about the committee’s witnesses and plans to Mr. Nixon.

When Mr. Baker famously asked, “What did the president know, and when did he know it?” during the Watergate hearings, he meant to protect Mr. Nixon in the mistaken belief that the president didn’t know about the Watergate cover-up until many months after it occurred. The question backfired once evidence mounted that Mr. Nixon was involved in the cover-up from the start, and Mr. Baker eventually became a critic of the president.

[DINGO Joe]

I guess McConnell learned the lesson from Watergate, don't have anyone testify.

[Orser67]

So at the end of the day the people who deserve most of the blame for today's politics is not our politicians but rather us the voters along with the media. Until we recognize that fundamental problem things will not get better

This is one of the central tenets of my political philosophy. I don't want to excuse all leaders who ever did stupid/bad things, but at the end of the day I think that, in a democracy, the failures of leaders are usually a manifestation of the failure of the broader populace. Imo, the central cause of governmental dysfunction in this country is the fact that most people either a)don't give a sh**t about politics, or b)look at every piece of news through a partisan/tribalistic lens.

[President Johnson]

I think both is right; the bases of the parties have changed due to the media landscape and tribalism, but I also might note that real leaders not always vote the way the wind blows at the moment. Real statesmen think about the next generation, political hacks only think about the next election cycle. Given all the facts that came to daylight, Donald Trump has to be impeached and removed from office, no matter how high public support or opposition is.

[Basil]

I think we were in a weird bipartisan bubble post-WW2 and now we're returning to politics-as-normal. In the 19th century, political parties had their own newspapers and ran them with absolutely no sense of journalistic standards. They were straight slander. This is the old new normal.

[President Johnson]

I think we were in a weird bipartisan bubble post-WW2 and now we're returning to politics-as-normal. In the 19th century, political parties had their own newspapers and ran them with absolutely no sense of journalistic standards. They were straight slander. This is the old new normal.

The question is what's better though? In the decades after World War II, big stuff got done on a bipartisan basis. Even the 80th congress, that President Truman famously attacked as "Do-Nothing congress", passed the Marshall plan that helped to rebuild Europe and contain the spread of Soviet communism. I'm not saying there shouldn't be political polarization and arguing, but tribalism and purity tests make Washington so dysfunctional.

[Basil]

I think we were in a weird bipartisan bubble post-WW2 and now we're returning to politics-as-normal. In the 19th century, political parties had their own newspapers and ran them with absolutely no sense of journalistic standards. They were straight slander. This is the old new normal.

The question is what's better though? In the decades after World War II, big stuff got done on a bipartisan basis. Even the 80th congress, that President Truman famously attacked as "Do-Nothing congress", passed the Marshall plan that helped to rebuild Europe and contain the spread of Soviet communism. I'm not saying there shouldn't be political polarization and arguing, but tribalism and purity tests make Washington so dysfunctional.

Neither am I. I'm saying its a fact of life and there's probably nothing we can do to change it, short of a national disaster like WW2 or 9/11. If it continues like this I wouldn't be surprised to see tensions like just before the Civil War. History shows that before the late 20th century, in my view, states were far less stable. I don't like the way we're trending.

[Xing]

The fact that politicians have done reprehensible things for a while doesn't excuse the current behavior of Republicans. Of course, voters who cheer on this kind of behavior are at fault as well, but politicians are not blameless for caring more about money and re-election than the country.

[OSR stands with Israel]

I think both is right; the bases of the parties have changed due to the media landscape and tribalism, but I also might note that real leaders not always vote the way the wind blows at the moment. Real statesmen think about the next generation, political hacks only think about the next election cycle. Given all the facts that came to daylight, Donald Trump has to be impeached and removed from office, no matter how high public support or opposition is.

Problem is currently political hacks have a massive advantage in almost every way and overtime that causes the amount of real leaders to diminish to the point of where we are now.


I agree Trump should be impeached because if you look at it the core of what he did is basically what Nixon did: abuse their power to get dirt on political opponents. Nixon also obstructed any potential investigation into that abuse of power , Trump very well may have but even if Trump didnt it is undeniable he abused his power

[Sestak]

0 /< 0, so yeah.

[YE]

They are less honorable but for the exact reasons the OP mentioned. There's a trickle down effect of sorts.

[Progressive Pessimist]

That's probably true, but it doesn't mean that what we are seeing should be acceptable.