There Truly is Nothing New Under the Sun...

[Azuma Hazuki]

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/06/frank-rich-nixon-trump-and-how-a-presidency-ends.html

History is not my strong point, at least not compared to earth sciences, computers/Linux, or comparative religion, and this article is pointing out things I never knew. Suffice it to say that my comparisons between Nixon and Trump may be more apropos than I suspected...and the deeper suspicion, that we as a nation never overcame or properly addressed the wound Nixon inflicted on our institutions, has received more validation.

We have to do it right this time. We can't have another Ford-pardons-Nixon moment. That was the death knell of accountability for the US government, and we can't survive another of those.

 

[Thump553]

I lived through that era (was college/draft age then). Disclaimer: I totally despised Nixon and his VP, Spiro Agnew (resigned a year before Nixon and was convicted of bribery). Agnew was a lot like Trump and Trump apes a lot of Nixon's positions. At the time I couldn't imagine a more divisive Presidency-in retrospect compared to today I was totally wrong.

The political parties, most especially the GOP, were not so rigid then. Party line votes were relatively rare. Outside of the huge issue of the continuing Vietnam war there were essentially no single issue voters. The GOP covered a broad spectrum of philosophies and there was no such thing as a RINO. If a senator or congressman (nearly all white male then) wanted to introduce a bill they nearly always went out of their way to get at least one co-sponsor from the other party. The Watergate investigations were legit from the beginning, going into hyperdrive went the Nixon tapes were discovered. Throughout the investigations GOP senators played an active and major part of the investigation rather than obstructing or diverting (to voter fraud, etc) like is found today.

The main difference between then and now is now the House and Senate leadership will do everything they can to slow or stymie the investigations and certainly will not allow impeachment proceedings to begin unless and until Trump is caught red handed in a clearly treasonous act and bragging about it. They accurately treat Trump as a stooge who ranks everything in terms of wins and losses with little or no concern about the merits.

I do totally disagree with your characterization of the Ford pardon of Nixon. Nothing was promised or even implied in advance, Nixon was completely out of office and was totally disgraced. The country-all sides of it-were truly sick of Watergate. I have always viewed Ford's pardon of Nixon as an incredibly courageous act done by an intrinsically decent man knowing he was almost certainly throwing away his legacy and any chance of reelection. IMO Ford was a great man and exactly the person we needed in the Presidency at the time. He (and later Carter) also took a lot of unpopular actions that eventually stopped inflation (home mortgages at 16+ percent in the late seventies) in the Reagan era, which Reagan gleefully took credit for.

We have a completely different environment now and I am certainly not presuming that an impeachment or resignation of Trump is inevitable or even likely, even at this point.

 

[Jaskalas]

Ford gave the country a chance to move on, and to heal. If you do not value that... it really does speak to modern day America.

 

[zinfamous]

The only way, I think, to actually prosecute a former POTUS without creating an unrecoverable stain on our country, on our democratic systems, is to do so with the common understanding and popular acceptance that such a POTUS was never legitimately elected through a free election. Even with what is becoming more and more apparent about the facts of an enemy state meddling in this process, I believe this will be extremely difficult if not impossible to put forward. (Yes, we have extremely minority support of a significantly minority party in power--but there is no evidence that we know of that actual votes were unlawfully cast...which is funny, because you'd think the GOP would be all over wanting to convince the public that voter fraud is very real right now! ..wouldn't you think? lol)

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Ford gave the country a chance to move on, and to heal. If you do not value that... it really does speak to modern day America.

Perhaps that was the right move, and perhaps it wasn't? By giving an 'out' and letting the country recover, it provided a false sense of absolution, which permits people to forget much easier. To posit another example, the Vietnam War has been seen as a bit of a stain on the US for ~50 years now, and what shaped those events goes deeply into decisions in our present day military to ensure something similar doesn't happen. Now, not always to great effect (we may employ psychological tactics on our own people to make it 'okay' that we may be doing illegal shit, for instance), but the point still stands. By 'moving on' you move to the next screw-up much faster. Electing a president with such a corrupted moral compass may not have been possible had we been given the opportunity to wallow around in our festering wounds for a decade or two.

I'm not a scholar/historian though so I don't know if that would have been worse.

 

[Azuma Hazuki]

I'm with Osiris on this. Now, I was born in 1985 so didn't live through this (at least not in this body; could swear I remember the NYC subway system in the 70s and think I was a man then...). But it seems to me that by allowing this bastard Nixon to essentially go scot-free with nothing more than personal humiliation, it sent a message to everyone afterwards saying "Do what you want, you won't end up in jail or dancing the hemp fandango for it."

If you ask me, he should have been executed. You do not fuck with the institutions of the country this way.

 

[Moonbeam]

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/06/frank-rich-nixon-trump-and-how-a-presidency-ends.html

History is not my strong point, at least not compared to earth sciences, computers/Linux, or comparative religion, and this article is pointing out things I never knew. Suffice it to say that my comparisons between Nixon and Trump may be more apropos than I suspected...and the deeper suspicion, that we as a nation never overcame or properly addressed the wound Nixon inflicted on our institutions, has received more validation.

We have to do it right this time. We can't have another Ford-pardons-Nixon moment. That was the death knell of accountability for the US government, and we can't survive another of those.

There is nothing new under the sun? That means there will be no change is the level of accountability we are used to nor was last time any death knell because things always happen that way. You want people who have to win elections to publically proclaim that loyalty to the reputation of the nation should be abandoned and everybody admit their shame. Good luck. That would be something brand new under the sun, I think. The universe, it would seem, doesn't give two hoots about the frustration your ego feels. May I recommend schizophrenia as a possible out? The truth would be easy to find were it not hidden behind something people call madness.

 

[Azuma Hazuki]

There's "madness" as in "this guy doesn't value what we do" and there's "madness" as in "I think I'm a purple teapot full of weasels." Know the difference.

 

[Moonbeam]

There's "madness" as in "this guy doesn't value what we do" and there's "madness" as in "I think I'm a purple teapot full of weasels." Know the difference.

Sorry, but there is no madness in the statement this guy doesn't value what we do. As to the other, my opinion may be biased. I'm a little tea pot short and stout, but I don't know my color.

 

[Azuma Hazuki]

Bullshit Brown, my friend, Bullshit Brown, with some specks of clover. You think much too highly of yourself.

 

[WHAMPOM]

I really don't think comparing one President that thought White House staff needed to wear fancy uniforms and another televising a "PRAISE ME!, PRAISE ME!" cabinet circle jerk is fair.

 

[Moonbeam]

I really don't think comparing one President that thought White House staff needed to wear fancy uniforms and another televising a "PRAISE ME!, PRAISE ME!" cabinet circle jerk is fair.

Ask yourself, If you belonged to a group of people so vastly morally and intellectually superior to the other side that runs a candidate even vastly morally and intellectually inferior to them, and that hideous monster beat you in a Presidential election, just how easy do you think it would be to act fairly. Your rage and your grief and your frustration would be coming out of your pores. Now add to this, that rotten other side delighting in rubbing your face in it, and some on your side telling you your rage has pushed you off of the rails. I would expect some temper tantrums to be in order. Not all of us have been forced to feel our grief or have dealt with it constructively. Most don't even know it's there. Just know that if you want to climb down from some invisible cross with your hand out to help, it will be chopped off and burned.

Never stick your hand in a hornet's nest unless you can stand the stings. A saying.

 

[kage69]

I just love the constant attempts to down play all this by the banana republicans.

Dump's victory is supposed to be a happy occasion!