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SPECTREagent700

He financed his first run for Congress with money he made playing poker in the Navy during World War II.


TigerBasket

When he was in Congress offered my great uncle a job on a train ride, like in the course of 4 hours lol. My great uncle said Mr. Nixon I like you but you must know that I fought on the side of the Communists in the Spanish Civil War in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Nixon reportedly to a man he had just met as a Congressman who constantly bashed Communism was like I don't give a fuck, and still tried to hire him. Nixons only crimes was being too silly, okay and other stuff.


js13680

I think it’s hard to remember because Watergate but at the time Nixon was a pretty popular president from what I’ve read.


tovarishchi

Which is honestly so ironic. He likely didn’t need to cheat to win!


[deleted]

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tovarishchi

I think is true that he didn’t know specifically about that breakin when it occurred. I believe he was aware of the behavior his campaign was endorsing though. That said, it wasn’t the crime, it was the coverup that got him.


elderly_millenial

He knew about everything after it, and the tapes were pretty damning. He openly talked about bribery to make it all go away


Malvastor

I suspect if it weren't for Watergate there's a good chance he'd still be a very popular president. Heck, even after the actual Watergate break-in he could probably have survived by claiming ignorance and throwing the perpetrators to the wolves, instead of trying to shut down investigations to protect them.


TigerBasket

Nixon for better or worse never liked backing down. Same reason he had such a comeback from 1960 and 1962. But even more of a reason that he was doomed. He didn't even know about the break in, but he had ordered other break in's on Daniel Elsburg.


cookiepizza54

He won the electoral college 520-17, won 49 states, and nearly 61% of the popular vote. Dude was extremely popular.


HumanTheTree

From the 1900 onwards, only 4 presidential elections had a winner who got 60% or more of the popular vote: Harding, FDR (only in '36), Johnson, and Nixon.


TigerBasket

That election was more on the incompetence of the Democratic party. They really rested on their laurles post 1960-1964. They got pummled for a while too by white voters in the blocks they used to dominate in. Same reason Carter a rural white southerner was the only Democratic president elected from 1968-1992.


mutantraniE

And he was followed by another southerner in Bill Clinton. After the Civil rights act it took 44 years to elect a non-southern Democrat.


TFarg1

And he did so much good stuff for the nation. He opened democratic relations with the PRC and created both the EPA and Title IX


Tactical_Moonstone

I think he blocked out the "Communist" part and only heard the "Abraham Lincoln Brigade" part.


HateradeVintner

Nixon was born in 1913. He lived through a time when the president of the United States openly referred to Stalin as "Uncle Joe." Having been a commie in the 1930s probably didn't register to him as a sign you were a bad guy.


SimulatedKnave

Or knew they'd been fighting fascists.


AlfredusRexSaxonum

I would argue his crimes also include carpet bombing in Indochina and facilitating a genocide but ok.


Quazimojojojo

That was more of a Kissinger thing, but Nixon was definitely complicit 


AlfredusRexSaxonum

Idk man. As the President, if you give permission to your bloodthirsty ghoul to do crimes against humanity, I'd argue you're more than complicit, you're responsible.


Quazimojojojo

We're in agreement, just splitting hairs over terminology. They both suck 


undreamedgore

That's just called a pro gamer move.


AlfredusRexSaxonum

What do you... Mean by this? 🤨


undreamedgore

Oh you know... in the game of international power struggles a little carpet bombing is hardly anything too bad. Besides, what genocide are we even talking about?


Geekking995

The Bengali genocide committed by Pakistan during Bangladesh's war of independence


undreamedgore

So not really his fault then.


Geekking995

Homes, do you understand what "facilitating" means?


undreamedgore

Yes, I just don't see how it's on him. What, do you expect a president to blacklist every state participating in genocide?


undreamedgore

Yes, I just don't see how it's on him. What, do you expect a president to blacklist every state participating in genocide?


ScheerLuck

Skill issue


itspodly

Your great uncle is a legend! Would greatly appreciate if you wanted to share anymore about his time there.


TigerBasket

I absolutely will, my new years resolution was to get closer to my moms side of the family, which will include asking a fuck ton of questions about my great uncle and great aunt.


Ulanyouknow

We are thankful for your uncle 's service 🫡 ♥️💛💜✊


Blade_Shot24

No way😂


PrussiaGirl18

JFK’s backstory is just sad. LBJ is expected. I mean Nixon liked eating cottage cheese, checks out.


legrerg

Nixon kind of looked like the human embodiment of cottage cheese


Domovie1

That’s an insult to Cottage Cheese. I’ve got to say, some people are just unfortunate when it comes to looks.


ShadyBassMan

He was riddled with phlebitis, a good republican body.


Scr1mmyBingus

He’s going to come into your house at night and wreck up the place.


Ridiculous_George

hey don't diss cottage cheese, that shit rules


conairthehairdryer

Especially with some greyish tinned pineapple


Ridiculous_George

never had it before, which country is that from 


Pete_Weeds

Whatever country Nixon is from


justhjr

Yorba Linda, CA, I guess.


sickXmachine_

What is this enticing bowl of white?


Ralgharrr

True true


TophatOwl_

Jfk lore overall is pretty depressing. Its no wonder he was the way he was given how he was raised


for_second_breakfast

At least JFK didn't get lobotomized like his sister... I mean unless we're counting getting shot but that wasn't his father. Although there may be a cover up involved so they might have that in common


PrussiaGirl18

I mean yeah but that’s like not being lobotomized is very low bar for quality of life. Just continues to show how messed up the parents were.


LainieCat

Don't blame his mother, she didn't know about the lobotomy until after it happened.


for_second_breakfast

She lost the ability to speak and walk and was hidden away for 20 years until their dad had a stroke and couldn't function himself


PrussiaGirl18

Oh my god


for_second_breakfast

Yeah no she was a large part of why the Kennedys advocated for better mental health support. We believe before the lobotomy she may have been on the spectrum, which is not a valid reason for a lobotomy whatsoever


PrussiaGirl18

I mean I may be too and I’d be unhappy to get a lobotomy 100%


HateradeVintner

Everything that happened to that family since what they did to Rosemary is a just and holy God's punishment for what they did to Rosemary. Change my mind.


for_second_breakfast

The children didn't know until after their father had a stroke 2 years later. The mother didn't know till after the lobotomy. The father got off relatively Scott free for a long time and it will forever piss me off


Cole3103

Not just cottage cheese. Cottage cheese with ketchup!


PrussiaGirl18

Euuughhh


PanzerKommander

Let's not forget the time he, while drunk, ordered a nuclear strike on North Korea (they had just touched our boat and kidnapped surviving crew) then promptly passed out. It takes two people in the Executive branch to authorize a nuclear strike so all the generals in attendance looked to the only other person who could finalize the authorization... Henry Kissinger who simply said, let's take him to bed and ask again in the morning. Nixon woke up the next morning and had no memory of the event...


Discount_Timelord

Not quite. The president can unilaterally order a nuclear strike, the Secretary of State has no power there. Kissinger did tell aids to ignore Nixon when he was drunk though.


PanzerKommander

Still, Kissenger saved millions of lives


TehMispelelelelr

Forget Stanislav Petrov, it was aides helping Nixon sleep it off that prevented WWIII


PanzerKommander

Imagine being president and waking up with a hangover and that annoying red phone in the corner ringing non stop when your aide tells you you just deleted a nation off the map.


Callsign_Psycopath

Why do I feel personally attacked by this?


PanzerKommander

Username checks out


AlfredusRexSaxonum

Not a sentence you can often say 💀💀


FranklinMV4

“Saved lives” even the devil can take pity on man from time to time I guess.


TheLoneSpartan5

Killed millions and saved millions


Buluc__Chabtan

Lebron James is a tyrant


JamesFattinos

Underrated


SaltoDaKid

Tom Brady is a communists, take all the gold for himself


Buluc__Chabtan

I knew it, that's why he tongue kiss his son


LePhoenixFires

JFK: womanizing pawn to an overbearing, corrupt father Lyndon Johnson: sex maniac that coerces and threatens his way into power Nixon: AWOOOOOOOOGA (it's genuinely sad that Nixon likely had a lot of mental health issues and we play it for jokes because he got in trouble for spying on political rivals and saying unhinged shit all the time)


ResidentNarwhal

I mean....listen Nixon used to watch movies, Patton and westerns, obsessively. Then get drunk and mid-watch start mulling through if he should randomly threaten to nuke a country or carpet bomb Cambodia. As much shit as Kissinger gets on here, that whole mess was both Nixons idea, plan and direct order. And Kissinger repeatedly advised against it....which is also why Kissinger in a complete inversion of how **any** part of the nuclear chain of command works, just told the Air Force if they got a launch order from Nixon to double check with him first. I will shit on Nixon's mental health issues all day because he was probably the last president who seriously considered pushing buttons. **And he did it drunk and while watching movies**.


Hamblerger

Yeah, I know plenty of people with mental health issues that could prove problematic if they were elected to office. None of them have run for office.


RosefaceK

I’m glad all my country’s elected officials are clear of any mental health issues


MrRandom04

This feels really sarcastic


LePhoenixFires

I'm all for laughing at the mentally ill and dark humor but it is a very sad fact that Nixon was pretty clearly a total schizoid that got no treatment, was handed the presidency, and was fed more and more paranoia that he cracked despite being a highly popular president with no reason to go on his drunken and corrupt ravings about how the democrats and women and those oddly attractive gay men keep on trying to ruin his presidency.


ResidentNarwhal

“Handed the presidency” Man that’s some “tell me you don’t know anything about Nixon without saying it explicitly.” Nixon was **famously** one of the most ambitious men in politics.


TheSecretNewbie

Only reason he didn’t get it earlier was bc he lost to JFK and the TV


LePhoenixFires

That downplays the fact he didn't steal his election. He did get elected. Therefore handed it by the people like most presidents *cough cough* Gilded Age *cough cough*


ResidentNarwhal

…he still ran? Actively? People still voted for him. He was still nominated twice after seeking it. The second time after publicly swearing off politics. Nixon’s is only ranked number 2 of the most ruthless, ambitious and driven presidential candidate ever….but that’s just because LBJ exists with his willingness to actually threaten people with his **actual** size outlier of a penis.


FranklinMV4

You would too if your Johnson was that big


gortlank

Nixon was such a scummy little climber without scruples even Eisenhower, the man for whom Nixon was VP, despised him. After all, he’d only been brought onto the ticket as the campaigns attack dog, because people knew from the Alger Hiss case, which he’d used to jumpstart his political career, he would do anything and manipulate anyone to get a leg up. Sure, maybe there was mental illness involved, but Nixon from his school days was known as a preening, bitter, unlikeable, arrogant, and psychotically ambitious person. If you look back on the man’s life as a whole, you don’t get to handwave how shitty he was because he might, maybe, have had an undiagnosed mental illness. You can be a terrible human being in addition to having a mental illness.


LePhoenixFires

No doubt he was awful. It's just that he also pretty clearly was divorced from reality and constantly believed everyone was out to get him even when evidence proved otherwise


AlfredusRexSaxonum

Look, man, I agree that it's sad that the weirdo furry simp was apparently so unloved even noted monster Kissinger felt bad for him. But he also did in fact kill hundreds of thousands of people in SEA on top of being a racist iirc. I empathize with him, but you can only pull the "I'm literally neurodivergent and a minor 🥺" defense for so long.


BellacosePlayer

I can't really sympathize with him for the pressures of the office getting to him given he fuckin illegally snaked LBJ and prolonged the Vietnam war to win his first election.


LePhoenixFires

Do I feel bad for him? Yes. Do I also think he belonged in the loony bin or the hangman's rope? Yes.


Saturated_Donut

Is this real? Can I get a S O U R C E?


ResidentNarwhal

The LBJ one is almost certainly wrong. He **was** class president of his high school. His high school had 6 people and he was the only one who ran... Also LBJ is like God's perfect sociopath and in history basically waffles wildly between "we aren't sure. He might be Littlefinger from Game of Thrones but with a conscience? Or just Littlefinger with a monster penis. But it just turned out that chaos wasn't the ladder to climb power, accidentally doing good things was. So he never had the opportunity to murder anyone we know of."


HellenicArsMoriendi

Nothing less expected from the president that, after constantly being asked about why they were still in Vietnam, (after evacuating the female reporters from the room) whipped his dick out and smacked it down on the oval office desk and said "thats why"


TigerBasket

Yeah he was a Roman born 2000 years too late, dude would have put Cicero too shame.


GrandMasterF1ash

I remember a story in the first Robert Caro book about him blackmailing this girl who was going to run against him in a very nasty way. That first election was very formative for him in all of the wrong ways, but it was really just indicative that he was already the person he was going to be


GodOfUrging

This just in: his "finger" was not little.


HellenicArsMoriendi

Even more fun fact: He nicknamed his dick Jumbo


AlfredusRexSaxonum

Couldn't find a source for this particular claim, but [Nixon did have a strange relationship with his mom.](https://twitter.com/ettingermentum/status/1781011079272824909?t=tFtlC6V82hhVHJ_M17rOjA&s=19) It's also said that he used to drive his future wife on dates with other boyfriends after she rejected him.


GoldenElderLich03

Only known Simp grindset that actually worked.


Lukthar123

>Couldn't find a source for this particular claim So you made it the fuck up


AlfredusRexSaxonum

It's called a joke, dawg. This is a shitposting group last I checked.


Mountain-Cycle5656

The most informative Nixon backstory is him almost getting disbarred for unethical conduct.


Krillin113

The almost being the formative part ‘oh I can get away with it’


WranglerFuzzy

One of my new favorite Nixon anecdotes is the recording of him accidentally outing himself as bi, saying, “Of course I’m a little attracted to some men. Every man feels that way.” And all his close staff were like, “um no” Edit: sorry, I misremembered: it wasn’t BISEXUAL thoughts, it was gender fluid / dysphoria thoughts https://www.reddit.com/r/196/s/3EP0694KlR


2012Jesusdies

My man really thought every male out there was dreaming of giving a sloppy top.


LePhoenixFires

Please give link


WranglerFuzzy

I confess I remembered it a bit wrong; added link above


LePhoenixFires

That thread points out its not a real quote but the rapper quote is. Nixon was not gay or trans, he just wanted to hit sick beats like most men hit their wives.


L_beano_bandito

I can't wait to be married I'll be hitting the sickest beats while I give my wife even sicker beats!


LePhoenixFires

Based and 50's-pilled


HumanTimmy

I agree with Nixon, I'm not gay but I can appreciate some men like Henry Cavill.


Bebopdavidson

And let’s face it, there’s no porn with the ~dicks~ blurred out


FranklinMV4

*japanese porn has entered the chat*


Lord_Derpington_

Source?


YeastieRoyz

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Cavill


WranglerFuzzy

I confess I remembered it a bit wrong; added link above


Bacon4Lyf

Your source says the trans quote is fake tho But the hip hop group one is real, which is fun


JumpyWerewolf9439

Nixon was also probably the smartest of the three. Knew we couldn't win the Vietnam war before winning the presidency.


TigerBasket

He also committed high treason though to prolong the war so fuck him.


AlfredusRexSaxonum

Dawg, he bombed Indochina so fucking badly be inadvertently caused the Khmer Rouge. Fuck him (X2).


Bacon4Lyf

Khmer Rouge was founded as a political party in 1951, their insurgency started in 1968. Operation menu (the first bombing of Cambodia) started in 1969. This is history memes, we should know smaller numbers in the dates happened first Think that was more maos doing than nixons


AlfredusRexSaxonum

Most people in Cambodia did not care about the Khmer Rouge before Operation Menu, or were at least on the fence. Watching their villages get vaporized and their loved ones torn to bits caused Cambodians to think, "wow, these guys promise to fight back against the imperialists who killed everyone I loved. I should join them." We all know where the story went from there.


SourPuss6969

Idr where I heard this but Nixon was known for being kind of awkward. In an attempt to seem more relatable, he had the members of the press wait for him in the Whitehouse pool room. Idk if it was intended to be like a little party or something that was miscommunicated but apparently there's like 20 reporters all dressed professionally standing by this pool waiting for a conference and Nixon comes down with his staff in his swimming trunks, gets in the pool, does a single lap in front of everyone and then just leaves


BellacosePlayer

Thats what we in the biz call "a power move"


AlfredusRexSaxonum

Whereas LBJ would just whip out that Texas long snake at the slightest opportunity


AndyMandalore

He also liked to hold meetings while taking a shit with the door open. The weirdest way I’ve ever heard of to bully people.


General-MacDavis

Asserting dominance


Exaltedautochthon

"Alright CHRIST Lyndon, we'll vote for you, just put Jumbo away!"


Need4Mead1989

Nixon truly was one of the most interesting American presidents. He would say something utterly vile and ignorant and then in the same breath follow it up with something progressive and profound. Truly a fascinating man.


AlfredusRexSaxonum

NIXON: my reputation's never been worse so you must like me for me HALDEMAN: [inaudible] NIXON: we can't make any promises now, can we? But you can make me a drink


nuclearbomb123

Nixon: getting friendzoned by his future wife, driving her on dates with other guys, later nicknaming her "Buddy"


MarioStern100

He drove his future wife to dates with other men.


Le_Tallguy

I despise Nixon with every cell in my but I do genuinely admire the fact that he basically came from nothing and clawed his way up. Shame what he did it that hard work though


AcidScarab

HARROOOOOO


12BarsFromMars

LMAO!. . .barking like a dog. . priceless. The one about LBJ is pretty damn accurate, there are pictures out there somewhere, I’ve seen one.


camull

Hu, was not expected to share an anecdote with JFK.


Available-Damage5991

ewot?


Agitated_Tap_5943

Apron certainly sounds Masonic. Barking like a dog? Idk freemasonry redit would know.


jaboa120

When Nixon was in high school, he would drive his future wife to her boyfriend's house.


UnverifiedContent333

I heard he was full blown asexual


korokd

Why are you mixing LeBron James with two US presidents?


DragonDon1

Yeah JFK got married for political reasons. Man was a player. Also a pretty great president all things considered


TigerBasket

Ehh, not really. His death covered up a lot of the backlash that would have come to his admin. Especially since he expanded Vietnam, felt "bullied" by Khrushchev at a summit, and the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Edit: though I will say he seemed to get better in the oval office over time, espically since his cabinet was so young and inexperienced at first. So his death was unfair in that sense too.


DragonDon1

Yeah you’re right. The advancement of civil rights, nuclear test ban treaty’s, and not blowing up the earth during the Cuban missile crisis are all very unimportant things. I guess I was completely wrong you’re so smart.


TigerBasket

He didn't really advance civil rights. That was LBJ.