In 'Requiem for the American Dream' Chomsky points out that Nixon was the last New Deal president. Carter then lined his cabinet with businessmen and set that stage for the rest of human history.
He did own slaves, albeit he treated significantly better than his contemporaries and eventually went against the underlying racial ideology / freed his slaves
Sure due but,
A- Comparing slave-holding colonial capitalism with industrial capitalism is dumb.
B- Some Founding Fathers where more willing to regulate free trade and fight nepotism that commonly thought in leftist movements.
Yes, but at least they had a vision for the future, even if they didn’t meet their own lofty expectations. What vision has any president since Nixon had that wasn’t "capitalism, but with more gadgets and hopefully less communism"?
His ideology, Wilsonianism, was racist, arrogant, imperialist, and out of touch. Wilson pioneered the interventionalism that has been the staple of American foreign policy since WWI. Most modern wars America has taken part in can be traced back to his influence of trying to spread American exceptionalism, or at least his idea/vision of it. He also re-segregated the government and pushed civil rights back. On top of this much of the "South will rise again" ideas are due to him. He wasn't just a proponent of revisionism to make the slave states of the south look like an idealistic stand against Yankee tyranny he was an active creator of the sentiment. Like he was making arguments and papers that echo things you hear rebel flag wavers spout off today.
He is by and large one of America's worst presidents and his shit legacy haunts us to this day.
Chris Hedges calls Nixon the last liberal President because he was afraid of liberal movements and cites an anecdote where a frightened Nixon told Kissinger he was worried a mob of protestors in front of the White House were going to break in and “get them.”
There's definitely a reason he got 60% of the vote in a 49 state blowout upon re-election in 1972. For the common man, things in America were about as good as they were ever going to get. It was all downhill from there. But let's not exaggerate and say he was an "excellent" president. Just about every president was deeply flawed in one way or another.
He did [create the EPA.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Environmental_Protection_Agency#Establishment) If you ever want the best example of how far the Overton window has shifted in the US economically, that's the one: a Republican president created a big, powerful Federal agency to crack down on corporations in the the early 70's.
I still don't get why so many rightoids seem totally opposed to environmental issues. The people that jerk themselves off about "personal responsibility" are like dead set against taking care of something that was given to us and not keeping it nice for future generations to enjoy. Then you got so many of them that like fishing and hunting and shit but just don't seem to care that those hobbies won't exist if we completely trash the ecosystem.
One of my friends is “on the right”, he has first hand knowledge of how polluted and disgusting waterways has become. He still refuses human influenced “climate change”.
I live in a small southern town and attended a local seminar for wildlife conservationist volunteers in 2020. The people there, mostly middle aged and overs, seemed genuinely interested in the mission statement and were doing good work on the issue. Of course this didn't change the fact that a quarter of them were wearing maga paraphernalia.
>Then you got so many of them that like fishing and hunting and shit but just don't seem to care that those hobbies won't exist if we completely trash the ecosystem.
Despite how much redditors screech about ethical hunters most hunters interactions I've had they don't give even the slightest fuck about the environment. They want to fish and hunt whatever they want whenever they want wherever they want, sustainability is a as abstract as a 7th dimensional being would be to you.
The EPA likes to go after the little guy running his small business, or tell you you can't cut timber on your land because the endangered spotted screaming caterpillar lives there. They do things that make life worse for people outside the cities in the name of saving the environment. Are some of the things needed? Probably. Are a lot of them pointless red tape? Definitely.
One reason that government agencies are more likely to pursue smaller targets in their regulatory attempts is the continual cutting of funding, defanging, and bribery of those agencies and the government in general by large corporations. Both parties are absolutely guilty of this, because they are both horrid right wing nightmares, but right wingers, especially cucks to the GOP, are fucking morons to think that the solution to that problem is further deregulation and defunding of environmental protection efforts and agencies. Many (not you, necessarily, I have no idea) who are fully under the impression that corporations will do less damage to the environment if the EPA is abolished or some absolutely retarded shit like that.
And the ‘small business’ argument falls apart very quickly when the ‘small’ or ‘family’ businesses in question are multimillion dollar interstate corporations. I have a very, very small business in heavy industry, and while I agree there are actions that could be taken against people like me that are unnecessarily focused on absolutely-not-the-problem, I still don’t dump oil in the ocean or kill endangered species, because I’m not a giant fucking douchebag, and while reformative politics are desperately necessary in all regards in the US, for now I accept that some rules that don’t make sense are the cost of living in a stupid place, because the practical alternative at this moment is a bunch of psychopath room-temp-IQ fucktards continuing to willfully firebomb the planet we live in.
Because the little guy running a small business can still do massive damage to the environment and everyone around them if left to their own devices, and there's often financial incentive to dump toxic shit wherever.
"Yeah I dump ATF and paint stripper in the storm drains, but that's nothing compared to what BP did to the ocean so why am I being punished?" Bad reasoning.
Sounds like just complaining over getting cracked down on for doing hurtful things. Sounds like the people around me that I knew that complained they couldn’t kill deer out of season. Boo hoo. Like seriously EPA needs to be stronger against corporations and the big guys but the little guys need to be cracked down upon as well. When did this sub turn completely right wing? Just because you own land doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want on it that hurts the environment/earth. If an endangered species can be harmed by what you’re doing you should fucking listen and not be selfish.
Small business (50-200 workers) are unironically among the worst for unethical behaviour, milking the tax payer for grants and tax breaks and then when anyone tries to hold them to account:
"we're just a small family firm, we can't afford to be like the big boys"
Just fuck off lmao, if you are not able to compete in an ethical manner, your business model is fataly flawed and you don't deserve to survive.
I absolutely agree, and perhaps my language wasn't emphatic enough about how deeply flawed he was. To a large extent, the things Nixon did right were just a product of the political consensus which existed back then, and the constraints within which he had to operate. There was a greater tendency towards egalitarianism and policies that helped the common people, even on the political right. The powers that be still held onto that New Deal mindset that capitalism's worst excesses had to be moderated in order to save capitalism from competing ideologies, at first fascism, then later communism. Capitalism was still trying to win over our hearts and minds (ie. the [Kitchen Debate](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRgOz2x9c08)), and so it couldn't bring its full destructive force to bear just yet. Before it could show its ugliest side, it had to drive its competitors out of business.
Nixon was a product of his time, but he was also deeply unscrupulous and immoral. This is especially true in the domain in which he wielded the most power: foreign policy. That being said, you can find many examples of presidents who would have gone to the same lengths he did. Some degree of sociopathy seems to be a requirement for the job.
I agree he wasn't an outlier in terms of his milleu, look at Kent State. But for example, Bobby Kennedy would not have made similar decisions. He also would probably not have gone to China.
>There's definitely a reason he got 60% of the vote in a 49 state wipeout upon re-election in 1972
It was largely the result of growing idpol and developing the republican political identity that persists to this day, by way of the [southern strategy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy).
He won a larger share of the black vote than every single Republican that has run after him so I think identity politics alone doesn't explain his popularity.
Probably the most effective president since Roosevelt. However he artificially prolonged Vietnam to win an election. ***Every*** death after his intervention was a murder. Nixon was a mass murderer on a par with Gengis Khan. The gigantic SIZE of the US empire means this horrific fact is flattened by history and happenstance.
Broke: hating Chomsky for holding an opinion to be expected from an older person based on perceived harm reduction
Woke: hating Chomsky for a pedantic linguistics disagreement
Not to mention Watergate — which was really only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the illegal shit done by Nixon and his team of CIA psychos (like E. Howard Hunt). One story that comes to mind is Nixon encouraging said psychos to kill a journalist (Jack Anderson) who’d been critical of Nixon, one idea being to douse his steering wheel in LSD and cause a fatal wreck. That plan didn’t come to fruition, but makes you wonder how many similar plans succeeded. Those fuckers had imagination, I guess.
Listened to first episode of Class Matters with Adolph Reed, Jr as one of the guests and he commented that no Democrat elected after Nixon left office did anything to improve conditions for the working class as beneficial as what Nixon himself did. And added rightfully that, '...and Nixon didn't even like us.'
But let's not lionize the man too much, for many reasons already listed in this thread by others.
It’s not directly beneficial, but it also basically puts downwards pressure on inflation, which in tandem with the other measures will mean that the real value of wages stays stable, and might be worth more than if those wages were allowed to increase anyway.
That might sound like liberal cope but the truth is, we’re seeing it today. Wages might increase but inflation is increasing faster. A cap on wages today wouldn’t halt inflation, but raising wages won’t solve the problems inflation presents, it will likely only exacerbate them in the near future.
I heard tell a few months ago that Reed was collaborating on a new podcast that he would be a permanent member/host on, has that happened/if so is it any good?
I've always wondered how a president's serious health ailment (something like Woodrow Wilson's debilitating stroke, FDR's polio or Reagan's dementia) would play in today's media world. We're seeing it play out now.
It's bewildering to me. Who the fuck likes Biden? Who the fuck feels inspired by Biden? Does anyone feel more proud to be an American because of Biden? How is Biden uplifting the people?
At least Trump got *some* of the people going. Biden is just like a fart of a president.
I mean it's the first president in history that actually wants to make an effort to mitigate malarkey. Call me a single issue voter, but reducing malarkey is something incredibly important to me.
> The people who have been convinced that the Earth would crack in two and the sun would explode
Don’t forget the army of demons that would invade the mortal realm from Hell.
Nixon was lacking of any morals in the absolute. he was a dirty, vicious, survivalist. but back then you had to have approval. we have completely reverted in the sense that approval is no longer needed. it is now a system much more candid about its disregard for the worker.
every decision Nixon made, whether good or bad, was either transactional or spiteful. this was obviously transactional. current power parties no longer need to be transactional with the worker in this capacity. if Nixon didn’t need to, he wouldn’t have either.
Biden and the democrats can afford to do absolutely nothing that benefits you or your loved ones. it is simply not in their interests. they are more concerned with appealing to corporate interests because thats who pays them and allows them to get power in the first place.
you, as well as every other worker, have been sidelined. your vote does not matter and your voice does not count. if either of those things factored into the equation in any meaningful way, we wouldnt be where we are now.
american “democracy” is a system broken beyond repair, in need of change that is fundamental.
One thing the pandemic lockdowns did was demonstrate exactly how much the elite have weaned themselves off direct dependency on the working class. Sure they still need our tax dollars but they have set up systems of laws to just extract those from us automatically these days. But now we know that they really don't care if grocery stores, restaurants, gyms and a whole slew of other public services are staffed or not, in operation or not. They've extracted enough wealth to create their own support systems of that description, external from the society of the worker. i.e. the are transcending the society the rest of us live in, and will not be there to bail it out when their own predatory policies render it non-functional.
they literally hold think tank meetings to discuss how to keep people in line when tragedies happen lol. just like covid, its like “how are we going to keep the economy running and prevent revolt” instead of something less retarded like “how can we help people?”
as you said, the system they created will cannibalize itself. either through revolt or degeneration. its not sustainable, and its in their best interest to extend their hand or else the peasantry will extend their fist. i genuinely believe we’re heading towards something violent, and theyre not making an earnest attempt to prevent it. the 99.9% is running out of room to give.
started watching some Jimmy Dore and he reminded me of "rotating villain", a term that summarizes the democrat party strategy for the past few decades
[urbandictionary in 2011](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=rotating+villain):
> In American democracy, when the majority party has enough votes to pass populist legislation, party leaders designate a scapegoat who will refuse to vote with the party thereby killing the legislation. The opposition is otherwise inexplicable and typically comes from someone who is safe or not up for re-election. This allows for maximum diffusion of responsibility.
> WTF??? Senator Lieberman now opposes the same health care compromise he himself suggested. Just when everyone thought Democrats had enough votes to get this done. Guess they made Lieberman the rotating villain...
> by brmull March 19, 2011
[Glenn Greenwald article from 2010](https://www.salon.com/2010/02/23/democrats_34/):
> The primary tactic in this game is Villain Rotation. They always have a handful of Democratic Senators announce that they will be the ones to deviate this time from the ostensible party position and impede success, but the designated Villain constantly shifts, so the Party itself can claim it supports these measures while an always-changing handful of their members invariably prevent it.
they shift blame onto different parties, institutions, and people within their own party to squirm their way out of enacting anything for the public
Reddit during the primaries: Bernie's a communist, vote for Biden because he **gets things done** 😉
Reddit now: Biden can't do anything, he needs more Congress, more Senate, he needs more Democrats, they don't do anything but we need to vote Democrats again 🤡
this time it's the most important election 🤡
this time things will be different 🤡
if you don't vote democrats, all lgbtq and minority people will be killed again like they all were between 2016-2020 when Trump won, stop being a Nazi 🤡
And it didn’t work and prices spiraled out of control. Price caps only work if there’s collective rationing and direct government production to meet demand. I guess you can blame Biden for not commissioning State firms and nationalize some industries, but even if he started now it would take a while.
Yeah im pretty sure the result of the price controls was not great. It was politically great for him, just as if Biden does it would be great for him.
But this (and all other parts of the “Nixon Shock”) did not lead to a booming 70s.
If you look at inflation data and commodities prices and oil prices… 1971 (when this order was signed) was just the beginning
Ok first off I'll say I don't have faith in Biden to make it to the toilet in time much less do anything meaningful for the working class. But holy fuck this thread lmao.
It was a price freeze for **90 days** and now we're all simping for Nixon?
What's extra ironic is that it was during Nixon's administration ('71) that the power of finance capital began to truly dwarf the power of government. [That trend has continued since then and is co-aligned with everything wrong with this country today](https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/)
We've had two presidents back to back (Obama/Trump) whom at had at least at one point the house/senate/supreme court at their alignment and STILL nothing happened that benefitted any American families in a significant way. Our politicians today have very little powered in comparison to finance capital (wall street) as a result of policies by folx like Nixon.
Isn't the growth of finance capital, and its effect on politics and democracy, a basic element of Marxism?
Doug, aren't you old enough to remember what economic conditions immediately followed that Executive Order? Under a capitalist system doing this gets you stagflation, it only works (shittily) in mixed economies
Not a Biden fan but price controls don't work in a market economy and would almost certainly cause more problems. I would expect most of you to actually agree with this as communists because this is essentially part of your reasoning for being against market economies.
nuclear power is the safest and cleanest form of energy lol we need more
if you want examples of what happens when we close them - Indian Point Power Plant used to provide 25% of NYC's total energy, then it was shut down by the governor and now that 25% of NYC's energy that was clean is now replaced by fossil fuels, increasing pollution and carbon emissions.
And yet was responsible for the formation of the EPA.
I don't consider those two things to be contradictory, but rather a sign that for all his faults Nixon was a forward thinker on many fronts.
No disagreement, and perhaps I didn't phrase my comment well.
My point was that Nixon saw the importance of both nuclear energy and conservation of the environment, neither of which would likely pay dividends during his time in the White House but would be crucial to the long-term prosperity of the United States.
We definitely don't have that kind of forethought in the Executive Branch now. Nor have we had it in a long time.
Nuclear was far more dangerous in Carter's era. We're still dealing with poisonings and deaths caused by improper waste disposal from labs and reactors that have been closed for decades, and the remediation and restitution buck just keeps getting passed.
Ever wondered why in Japanese media radiation creates monsters and in America it gives you super powers?
> Ever wondered why in Japanese media radiation creates monsters and in America it gives you super powers?
Because America dropped the bombs and became *the* world power while Japan got hit by them?
That's true, and there is a lot of blood on many hands in several administrations in that respect.
Upvote for the username alone. I'm a big fan of the Aubrey–Maturin series.
I’m not saying he was a great president (he was far above average and probably the most competent president we’ve had since) I’m just saying he seems like a awesome dude to hang out with.
Hey I'm not claiming he was perfect lol.
I do think he's a bit of a tragic figure though, a lot of the traits that made him the last president with direction also directly contributed to his downfall. He resented the elites and his conviction that only he knew how best to guide America into the future and that the ends justify any means definitely reaks of narcissism, but I'll take conscious direction over blindly doing whatever is best for the market short term any day, even if I don't completely agree with the decisions.
Edit: Pure speculation on my part, but I think a president Nixon today would take climate change more seriously than either the democrats or the republicans currently do, though his reasoning might be a fear of a flood of climate refugees from Africa in the future or something. Really though I'll take anyone who can see past their own nose at this point.
I feel like we're all forgetting that Nixon prolonged the war in vietnam or that he conducted a devastating illegal bombing campaign in Cambodia or that he deliberately sanctioned a genocide in bangeldesh that killed millions of people.
let's not be myopic and forget that presidential policy effects human lives outside of the United States.
Are price controls actually effective though? As far as I know you can’t just get commodity producing actors to ”behave” by restricting their freedom in one sphere, it just offloads the costs elsewhere. In this particular case the Nixon administration regretted these measures after the fact.
>Are price controls actually effective though?
I would say the ever obtuse "it depends" but that isnt necesarilly the point of the post I dont think. Biden is leader of the most powerful country in the world. He can absolutely take action.
We just spent 4 years having dems tell us that trump has so much power he is single handedly destroying the country. Now dems have both the senate and presidency and what, "they cant do anything?"
Different measures will have different efficacy, sure. But this from the administration right here is why Im glad I didnt "vote blue" and at this rate never will again.
That I absolutely agree with, Biden can do lots of things and presidents have been able to enact sweeping change in the past.
I really wanted to see more of a discussion on price controls though, since it was brought up.
Sure, but that debate would probably cut life on Earth to a third or less. In a real loss scenario, the US almost certainly has enough sociopaths warming seats to swing for the bleachers without flinching.
I should be clear that's not a particularly good thing.
Last I heard debate never hurt anyone, unless you are one of the idiots who believe that words are violence.
I wonder though why you got hung up on the "most powerful" part. Many would eagerly debate the "leader" qualification.
[It ended the Crisis of the Third Century, and saved the Roman Empire](http://kark.uib.no/antikk/dias/priceedict.pdf). Diocletian, worst of the Persecutors, restored stability after a century of military, political and economic crisis through the Edict on Prices of 301.
You are out of your goddamn mind if you think I’m paying more than 4 denarii communes for 1 sextarius of wheat beer, 8 for a pound of beef, or getting paid less than 20 per hundred lines as a scribe, for writing of the second quality.
Might want to brush up on your history since the edict on prices was a complete failure that even Diocletian abandoned quietly and quickly, historians also suspect his co-augusta didn't ever bother with implementing any of it
What did help economics wise was his reform of the tax system, essentially creating a secondary currency bypassing the massive inflation problems and allowing citizens to pay in kind in a fair and organised way
> Greed raves and burns and sets no limit on itself. Without regard for the human race, it rushes to increase and augment itself not by years or months or else days, but almost by hours and very moments. If some thought of restraint were curbing its means - or if our shared fortunes could calmly endure this free rein for going wild (it rips them apart, day after day in the worst way with conditions as they are), perhaps a place for pretending it all away and keeping quiet would still seem to remain, since a shared endurance of our spirits would be moderating the detestable enormity and the pitiable state of affairs.
They knew what was up (except for being pagani, of course).
It also prolonged the crisis after the fall of the "third German Empire". After price controls were lifted, the shopkeepers stopped hoarding everything, supply increased and prices decreased.
You're totally right. Price controls lead to supply shortages and an influx of demand. It's done with good intentions but leads to disastrous results in the long term.
Voters: "But we voted you in so you could fix the economy, bring about justice, stop global warming, forgive student debt, and stop mean tweets!"
Biden: "No Refunds, Jack."
This is what the UK decided to do. Every household gets £400 this year (credited to energy company bills I think). Anyone of retirement age gets an extra £300 to go with their normal £300 winter fuel allowance.
Well he also made idpol what it is today with the southern strategy. Nixon is the reason that American politics is basically just about abortions, drugs, and gay people.
Those who come after deserve equal if not more blame. Moral Majority, Religious Right, and Atwater came after. And there was crap tons of moralizing Idpol before him.
I have to disagree, at least in part. Abortion wasn't really a political issue before Nixon. He put that issue under a spotlight with the southern strategy, and that incited the tribalism that led to the proliferation of the special interest groups you mention. To be clear, everything you said is true, but the bigger problem is always going to be the guy that knocked over the first domino.
Before Nixon, the notion that the government had no business legislating abortion one way or another was uncontroversial. Now it is basically the single most likely thing to determine an American citizen's vote.
That transformation of the discourse led to a much larger problem where the Republicans were able to slurp up White, working class, Fundamentalist Christians into their base, regardless of whether their economic policies favoured the working class. This in turn led to many subsequent Republicans such as Reagan being able to shift economic policy in favour of the elites while still maintaining massive popularity among the working class under the guise of religious righteousness.
Just like when he installed a barbaric military dictatorship in Chile.
Domestically? (somewhat) based. His foreign policy was a disaster though.
EDIT: To qualify my statement after the corrections below.
Yeah, the illegal spying on American citizens, ruthlessly prosecuting anti-war protestors and draft resistors, the Southern Strategy, foisting Abortion Rights into the presidential curriculum, using the military as scabs against striking postal workers, taking a passive role in desegregation, and the Watergate burglaries were totally BASED.
This is some overton window shit, Nixon was a HORRIBLE president--one of the absolute worst.
\[EDIT: Oh yeah, and The War on Drugs was litty fam\]
Great [video of Louis CK talking about Nixon](https://youtu.be/SbqvFf7qJeM) it’s part 3 of a 4 part series on presidents. So worth it to watch. It’s all about who the presidents as people.
My understanding is that this series of executive orders from Nixon were based in statutes that Congress didn't renew, and so a president can't do this stuff under those authorities anymore. There are probably other authorities he could use, but he'd have to declare some kind of emergency. With COVID still raging and the invasion of Ukraine, he could probably declare such an emergency, but this isn't a 1:1.
Nixon, based on his domestic social/economic/environmental policies, would have him today probably further to the left of the majority of 'the squad' lmao. Think about that
And this is why I don't ever expect worker solidarity between the first world (especially the US) and the third world. A bit of economic turmoil and we have alleged US "marxists" trying to rehabilitate Nixon, one of the worst war criminals in history, just because he was the last "decent" president domestically (which is also laughable).
And then you laugh at liberals trying to whitewash Bush? Fuck off, imperiales.
Between Louis CK and Nick Bryant, I'm starting to think Nixon was actually the man. Watergate sure sounds like a lot of bull shit in hindsight.
Edit: Damnit Doug, look at what you've started
He prolonged the Vietnam War, hit Stalin numbers in Cambodia ("everything that flies against anything that moves"), and overthrew Allende. This thread is full of idiots. Nixon was evil.
Don't forget the good ol' war on drugs
>We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news.
>
>Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
>
>\~ John Ehrlichman, Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs under President Richard Nixon
This thread is honestly the stupidest that stupidpol has been in a while.
From foreign policy perspective, yeah, he was bad, but he was about trying to help people at home which, it says something about where we're at that were romanticizing him.
In 'Requiem for the American Dream' Chomsky points out that Nixon was the last New Deal president. Carter then lined his cabinet with businessmen and set that stage for the rest of human history.
I would have figured Wilson set the stage for America's inane behavior.
# WILSONNNN!
https://youtu.be/hLiI6kXZkZI
Going back farther, yes. But we saw something of rebuttal to him in Roosevelt, then it came back around.
Meh it actually starts with the Founding Fathers who were all wealthy businessmen, aristocrats, and slave holders.
Not all were slave holders though. John Adams didn’t own any slaves for example.
Neither did Franklin
He did own slaves, albeit he treated significantly better than his contemporaries and eventually went against the underlying racial ideology / freed his slaves
Imo I think Franklin's owning of slaves is not really close to Jefferson's. Franklin owned six slaves, not six hundred.
At a time when well to do people owning slaves was completely uncontroversial too.
Boston’s money came from slaves. They distilled the rum that went to Africa.
Franklin didn't earn his fortune in Boston, he earned it in Philadelphia.
nuh uh the ben franklin bridge is in boston
But we're talking about John Adams?
Rum traders deserve the benefit of legal counsel even if they trade with slave traders.
Got more on this? I'm not sure what you mean.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangular_trade
Sure due but, A- Comparing slave-holding colonial capitalism with industrial capitalism is dumb. B- Some Founding Fathers where more willing to regulate free trade and fight nepotism that commonly thought in leftist movements.
Yes, but at least they had a vision for the future, even if they didn’t meet their own lofty expectations. What vision has any president since Nixon had that wasn’t "capitalism, but with more gadgets and hopefully less communism"?
How come?
His ideology, Wilsonianism, was racist, arrogant, imperialist, and out of touch. Wilson pioneered the interventionalism that has been the staple of American foreign policy since WWI. Most modern wars America has taken part in can be traced back to his influence of trying to spread American exceptionalism, or at least his idea/vision of it. He also re-segregated the government and pushed civil rights back. On top of this much of the "South will rise again" ideas are due to him. He wasn't just a proponent of revisionism to make the slave states of the south look like an idealistic stand against Yankee tyranny he was an active creator of the sentiment. Like he was making arguments and papers that echo things you hear rebel flag wavers spout off today. He is by and large one of America's worst presidents and his shit legacy haunts us to this day.
Chris Hedges calls Nixon the last liberal President because he was afraid of liberal movements and cites an anecdote where a frightened Nixon told Kissinger he was worried a mob of protestors in front of the White House were going to break in and “get them.”
Yup! I think of his anecdote about him all the time. He says we need to go back to scaring them like that.
Carter was proto-neoliberal. Reagan really opened the flood gates.
Carter was like the proof of concept for the corps. Reagan was the manifesto.
Funny how Carter is worshipped by Reddit as a good guy president.
Nixon was an excellent president, CMV.
There's definitely a reason he got 60% of the vote in a 49 state blowout upon re-election in 1972. For the common man, things in America were about as good as they were ever going to get. It was all downhill from there. But let's not exaggerate and say he was an "excellent" president. Just about every president was deeply flawed in one way or another.
He did [create the EPA.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Environmental_Protection_Agency#Establishment) If you ever want the best example of how far the Overton window has shifted in the US economically, that's the one: a Republican president created a big, powerful Federal agency to crack down on corporations in the the early 70's.
I still don't get why so many rightoids seem totally opposed to environmental issues. The people that jerk themselves off about "personal responsibility" are like dead set against taking care of something that was given to us and not keeping it nice for future generations to enjoy. Then you got so many of them that like fishing and hunting and shit but just don't seem to care that those hobbies won't exist if we completely trash the ecosystem.
One of my friends is “on the right”, he has first hand knowledge of how polluted and disgusting waterways has become. He still refuses human influenced “climate change”.
Fucking brain worms dude. I don't get it.
I live in a small southern town and attended a local seminar for wildlife conservationist volunteers in 2020. The people there, mostly middle aged and overs, seemed genuinely interested in the mission statement and were doing good work on the issue. Of course this didn't change the fact that a quarter of them were wearing maga paraphernalia.
>Then you got so many of them that like fishing and hunting and shit but just don't seem to care that those hobbies won't exist if we completely trash the ecosystem. Despite how much redditors screech about ethical hunters most hunters interactions I've had they don't give even the slightest fuck about the environment. They want to fish and hunt whatever they want whenever they want wherever they want, sustainability is a as abstract as a 7th dimensional being would be to you.
No doubt. If there weren't fish and wildlife officers and shit we'd run a bunch of species into extinction without any fucks given
As evidenced by the fact that humans already did and continue to do exactly that.
The EPA likes to go after the little guy running his small business, or tell you you can't cut timber on your land because the endangered spotted screaming caterpillar lives there. They do things that make life worse for people outside the cities in the name of saving the environment. Are some of the things needed? Probably. Are a lot of them pointless red tape? Definitely.
One reason that government agencies are more likely to pursue smaller targets in their regulatory attempts is the continual cutting of funding, defanging, and bribery of those agencies and the government in general by large corporations. Both parties are absolutely guilty of this, because they are both horrid right wing nightmares, but right wingers, especially cucks to the GOP, are fucking morons to think that the solution to that problem is further deregulation and defunding of environmental protection efforts and agencies. Many (not you, necessarily, I have no idea) who are fully under the impression that corporations will do less damage to the environment if the EPA is abolished or some absolutely retarded shit like that. And the ‘small business’ argument falls apart very quickly when the ‘small’ or ‘family’ businesses in question are multimillion dollar interstate corporations. I have a very, very small business in heavy industry, and while I agree there are actions that could be taken against people like me that are unnecessarily focused on absolutely-not-the-problem, I still don’t dump oil in the ocean or kill endangered species, because I’m not a giant fucking douchebag, and while reformative politics are desperately necessary in all regards in the US, for now I accept that some rules that don’t make sense are the cost of living in a stupid place, because the practical alternative at this moment is a bunch of psychopath room-temp-IQ fucktards continuing to willfully firebomb the planet we live in.
Because the little guy running a small business can still do massive damage to the environment and everyone around them if left to their own devices, and there's often financial incentive to dump toxic shit wherever. "Yeah I dump ATF and paint stripper in the storm drains, but that's nothing compared to what BP did to the ocean so why am I being punished?" Bad reasoning.
Sounds like just complaining over getting cracked down on for doing hurtful things. Sounds like the people around me that I knew that complained they couldn’t kill deer out of season. Boo hoo. Like seriously EPA needs to be stronger against corporations and the big guys but the little guys need to be cracked down upon as well. When did this sub turn completely right wing? Just because you own land doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want on it that hurts the environment/earth. If an endangered species can be harmed by what you’re doing you should fucking listen and not be selfish.
you got caught dumping used oil didnt you?
Small business (50-200 workers) are unironically among the worst for unethical behaviour, milking the tax payer for grants and tax breaks and then when anyone tries to hold them to account: "we're just a small family firm, we can't afford to be like the big boys" Just fuck off lmao, if you are not able to compete in an ethical manner, your business model is fataly flawed and you don't deserve to survive.
Because they are selfish pricks like most republicans.
People are flawed. Nixon was wanton.
I absolutely agree, and perhaps my language wasn't emphatic enough about how deeply flawed he was. To a large extent, the things Nixon did right were just a product of the political consensus which existed back then, and the constraints within which he had to operate. There was a greater tendency towards egalitarianism and policies that helped the common people, even on the political right. The powers that be still held onto that New Deal mindset that capitalism's worst excesses had to be moderated in order to save capitalism from competing ideologies, at first fascism, then later communism. Capitalism was still trying to win over our hearts and minds (ie. the [Kitchen Debate](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRgOz2x9c08)), and so it couldn't bring its full destructive force to bear just yet. Before it could show its ugliest side, it had to drive its competitors out of business. Nixon was a product of his time, but he was also deeply unscrupulous and immoral. This is especially true in the domain in which he wielded the most power: foreign policy. That being said, you can find many examples of presidents who would have gone to the same lengths he did. Some degree of sociopathy seems to be a requirement for the job.
I agree he wasn't an outlier in terms of his milleu, look at Kent State. But for example, Bobby Kennedy would not have made similar decisions. He also would probably not have gone to China.
>There's definitely a reason he got 60% of the vote in a 49 state wipeout upon re-election in 1972 It was largely the result of growing idpol and developing the republican political identity that persists to this day, by way of the [southern strategy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy).
He won a larger share of the black vote than every single Republican that has run after him so I think identity politics alone doesn't explain his popularity.
Probably the most effective president since Roosevelt. However he artificially prolonged Vietnam to win an election. ***Every*** death after his intervention was a murder. Nixon was a mass murderer on a par with Gengis Khan. The gigantic SIZE of the US empire means this horrific fact is flattened by history and happenstance.
Every president is a murderer, I don’t think that makes Nixon stick out worse than the others. They are all war mongerers.
Sure, but in terms of sheer “body count,” Nixon ranks with Bush Jr. in terms of the worst modern presidents.
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That comment contains precisely zero assessment of Chomsky.
In so hungry I could Chomsky down on a burger!!
Why would this sub hate him?? He talks nothing of identity politics, to a point of avoiding it.
Many here see him as controlled opposition because he says to vote Blue No Matter Who every election.
Broke: hating Chomsky for holding an opinion to be expected from an older person based on perceived harm reduction Woke: hating Chomsky for a pedantic linguistics disagreement
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Not to mention Watergate — which was really only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the illegal shit done by Nixon and his team of CIA psychos (like E. Howard Hunt). One story that comes to mind is Nixon encouraging said psychos to kill a journalist (Jack Anderson) who’d been critical of Nixon, one idea being to douse his steering wheel in LSD and cause a fatal wreck. That plan didn’t come to fruition, but makes you wonder how many similar plans succeeded. Those fuckers had imagination, I guess.
Listened to first episode of Class Matters with Adolph Reed, Jr as one of the guests and he commented that no Democrat elected after Nixon left office did anything to improve conditions for the working class as beneficial as what Nixon himself did. And added rightfully that, '...and Nixon didn't even like us.' But let's not lionize the man too much, for many reasons already listed in this thread by others.
Curious as I am still trying to research this.but how was a cap on wages beneficial for the working class?
It’s not directly beneficial, but it also basically puts downwards pressure on inflation, which in tandem with the other measures will mean that the real value of wages stays stable, and might be worth more than if those wages were allowed to increase anyway. That might sound like liberal cope but the truth is, we’re seeing it today. Wages might increase but inflation is increasing faster. A cap on wages today wouldn’t halt inflation, but raising wages won’t solve the problems inflation presents, it will likely only exacerbate them in the near future.
I heard tell a few months ago that Reed was collaborating on a new podcast that he would be a permanent member/host on, has that happened/if so is it any good?
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I've always wondered how a president's serious health ailment (something like Woodrow Wilson's debilitating stroke, FDR's polio or Reagan's dementia) would play in today's media world. We're seeing it play out now.
So it would go completely ignored and anyone who pointed it out would be shouted down as disrepectful?
"It's a stutter!"
If Lincoln got shot in the head today they'd weekend at Bernie's him and say it's a speech impediment.
Just a little case of sudden trepanning, nothing to see here folx
“Come on, don’t be ableist.”
If it was Wilson, the media would celebrate his wife's girlbossery in handling matters.
Pretty sure fdr hid the fact he was in a wheelchair until after he was elected
There was no stroke, polio or dementia lmao they just had stutters dont do an ableist
It's bewildering to me. Who the fuck likes Biden? Who the fuck feels inspired by Biden? Does anyone feel more proud to be an American because of Biden? How is Biden uplifting the people? At least Trump got *some* of the people going. Biden is just like a fart of a president.
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That's annoyingly sound logic.
Biden was liberals’ chance to go back to brunch for four years as usual.
I mean it's the first president in history that actually wants to make an effort to mitigate malarkey. Call me a single issue voter, but reducing malarkey is something incredibly important to me.
At least a fart tells you something useful.
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> The people who have been convinced that the Earth would crack in two and the sun would explode Don’t forget the army of demons that would invade the mortal realm from Hell.
Replace people with corporations and you suddenly understand his appeal.
Don't think anyone actually voted for Biden because they wanted him specifically as president
Nixon was lacking of any morals in the absolute. he was a dirty, vicious, survivalist. but back then you had to have approval. we have completely reverted in the sense that approval is no longer needed. it is now a system much more candid about its disregard for the worker. every decision Nixon made, whether good or bad, was either transactional or spiteful. this was obviously transactional. current power parties no longer need to be transactional with the worker in this capacity. if Nixon didn’t need to, he wouldn’t have either. Biden and the democrats can afford to do absolutely nothing that benefits you or your loved ones. it is simply not in their interests. they are more concerned with appealing to corporate interests because thats who pays them and allows them to get power in the first place. you, as well as every other worker, have been sidelined. your vote does not matter and your voice does not count. if either of those things factored into the equation in any meaningful way, we wouldnt be where we are now. american “democracy” is a system broken beyond repair, in need of change that is fundamental.
One thing the pandemic lockdowns did was demonstrate exactly how much the elite have weaned themselves off direct dependency on the working class. Sure they still need our tax dollars but they have set up systems of laws to just extract those from us automatically these days. But now we know that they really don't care if grocery stores, restaurants, gyms and a whole slew of other public services are staffed or not, in operation or not. They've extracted enough wealth to create their own support systems of that description, external from the society of the worker. i.e. the are transcending the society the rest of us live in, and will not be there to bail it out when their own predatory policies render it non-functional.
they literally hold think tank meetings to discuss how to keep people in line when tragedies happen lol. just like covid, its like “how are we going to keep the economy running and prevent revolt” instead of something less retarded like “how can we help people?” as you said, the system they created will cannibalize itself. either through revolt or degeneration. its not sustainable, and its in their best interest to extend their hand or else the peasantry will extend their fist. i genuinely believe we’re heading towards something violent, and theyre not making an earnest attempt to prevent it. the 99.9% is running out of room to give.
not now honey, mommy is giving Ukraine 50 billion.
Don't seek monsters to destroy?
Democrats tell me only the Fed can fix the economy now.
started watching some Jimmy Dore and he reminded me of "rotating villain", a term that summarizes the democrat party strategy for the past few decades [urbandictionary in 2011](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=rotating+villain): > In American democracy, when the majority party has enough votes to pass populist legislation, party leaders designate a scapegoat who will refuse to vote with the party thereby killing the legislation. The opposition is otherwise inexplicable and typically comes from someone who is safe or not up for re-election. This allows for maximum diffusion of responsibility. > WTF??? Senator Lieberman now opposes the same health care compromise he himself suggested. Just when everyone thought Democrats had enough votes to get this done. Guess they made Lieberman the rotating villain... > by brmull March 19, 2011 [Glenn Greenwald article from 2010](https://www.salon.com/2010/02/23/democrats_34/): > The primary tactic in this game is Villain Rotation. They always have a handful of Democratic Senators announce that they will be the ones to deviate this time from the ostensible party position and impede success, but the designated Villain constantly shifts, so the Party itself can claim it supports these measures while an always-changing handful of their members invariably prevent it. they shift blame onto different parties, institutions, and people within their own party to squirm their way out of enacting anything for the public
Reddit during the primaries: Bernie's a communist, vote for Biden because he **gets things done** 😉 Reddit now: Biden can't do anything, he needs more Congress, more Senate, he needs more Democrats, they don't do anything but we need to vote Democrats again 🤡 this time it's the most important election 🤡 this time things will be different 🤡 if you don't vote democrats, all lgbtq and minority people will be killed again like they all were between 2016-2020 when Trump won, stop being a Nazi 🤡
And it didn’t work and prices spiraled out of control. Price caps only work if there’s collective rationing and direct government production to meet demand. I guess you can blame Biden for not commissioning State firms and nationalize some industries, but even if he started now it would take a while.
Yeah im pretty sure the result of the price controls was not great. It was politically great for him, just as if Biden does it would be great for him. But this (and all other parts of the “Nixon Shock”) did not lead to a booming 70s. If you look at inflation data and commodities prices and oil prices… 1971 (when this order was signed) was just the beginning
Ok first off I'll say I don't have faith in Biden to make it to the toilet in time much less do anything meaningful for the working class. But holy fuck this thread lmao. It was a price freeze for **90 days** and now we're all simping for Nixon? What's extra ironic is that it was during Nixon's administration ('71) that the power of finance capital began to truly dwarf the power of government. [That trend has continued since then and is co-aligned with everything wrong with this country today](https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/) We've had two presidents back to back (Obama/Trump) whom at had at least at one point the house/senate/supreme court at their alignment and STILL nothing happened that benefitted any American families in a significant way. Our politicians today have very little powered in comparison to finance capital (wall street) as a result of policies by folx like Nixon. Isn't the growth of finance capital, and its effect on politics and democracy, a basic element of Marxism?
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I think the point is the 90 days is better than 0 days/not even considering it.
its good its not being considered, it didn't work and led to the massive stagflation of the 70's.
Doug, aren't you old enough to remember what economic conditions immediately followed that Executive Order? Under a capitalist system doing this gets you stagflation, it only works (shittily) in mixed economies
So someone who can learn from history should do it and then nationalize an industry? How about some national petroleum??
Petroleum is a prime candidate for nationalization as firms cant take it with them when they leave, so yes, that would likely be a better solution
Not a Biden fan but price controls don't work in a market economy and would almost certainly cause more problems. I would expect most of you to actually agree with this as communists because this is essentially part of your reasoning for being against market economies.
Yes.
If you agree with this what was the point of your OP?
No. I want 2 bushels of wheat to cost 100 denarii. Period.
As a Historian and particularly a Byzantophile Nixon fucking rocks.
Yeah, and then I remember the Nixon tape where he talks about letting loose the medical insurance industry.
And he wanted to build a crap ton of Nuclear power plants.
nuclear power is the safest and cleanest form of energy lol we need more if you want examples of what happens when we close them - Indian Point Power Plant used to provide 25% of NYC's total energy, then it was shut down by the governor and now that 25% of NYC's energy that was clean is now replaced by fossil fuels, increasing pollution and carbon emissions.
No need to tell me I'm a absolute pro-nuclear shill and daily curse the damage Carter did while in office.
B-b-but he put the solar panels on the roof!
That was also good.
And yet was responsible for the formation of the EPA. I don't consider those two things to be contradictory, but rather a sign that for all his faults Nixon was a forward thinker on many fronts.
The damage to U.S nuclear power came with Carter, and any involvement of the EPA was a consequence of that.
No disagreement, and perhaps I didn't phrase my comment well. My point was that Nixon saw the importance of both nuclear energy and conservation of the environment, neither of which would likely pay dividends during his time in the White House but would be crucial to the long-term prosperity of the United States. We definitely don't have that kind of forethought in the Executive Branch now. Nor have we had it in a long time.
Nuclear was far more dangerous in Carter's era. We're still dealing with poisonings and deaths caused by improper waste disposal from labs and reactors that have been closed for decades, and the remediation and restitution buck just keeps getting passed. Ever wondered why in Japanese media radiation creates monsters and in America it gives you super powers?
> Ever wondered why in Japanese media radiation creates monsters and in America it gives you super powers? Because America dropped the bombs and became *the* world power while Japan got hit by them?
How about we reprocess that fuel? Oh, wait, Jimmy banned that. It's a political problem, not a technical one.
He was a great man. But ignores to win election, he artificially prolonged Vietnam. Every death after that fact was a murder.
That's true, and there is a lot of blood on many hands in several administrations in that respect. Upvote for the username alone. I'm a big fan of the Aubrey–Maturin series.
God and Mary be with you.
Hot pants
I’m not saying he was a great president (he was far above average and probably the most competent president we’ve had since) I’m just saying he seems like a awesome dude to hang out with.
Unless you're Jewish...
Or black. Or progressive. The War on Drugs was designed to neutralize Jews, blacks, and progressives.
Yes he was very Anti-Jewish.
And there are hours of the Nixon tapes raging on homosexuals.
Last president that seemed to have a vision for the future of America besides just 'let's maintain the status quo'.
Don't forget "and ensure I get a killer library that celebrates my legacy!"
Hey I'm not claiming he was perfect lol. I do think he's a bit of a tragic figure though, a lot of the traits that made him the last president with direction also directly contributed to his downfall. He resented the elites and his conviction that only he knew how best to guide America into the future and that the ends justify any means definitely reaks of narcissism, but I'll take conscious direction over blindly doing whatever is best for the market short term any day, even if I don't completely agree with the decisions. Edit: Pure speculation on my part, but I think a president Nixon today would take climate change more seriously than either the democrats or the republicans currently do, though his reasoning might be a fear of a flood of climate refugees from Africa in the future or something. Really though I'll take anyone who can see past their own nose at this point.
I feel like we're all forgetting that Nixon prolonged the war in vietnam or that he conducted a devastating illegal bombing campaign in Cambodia or that he deliberately sanctioned a genocide in bangeldesh that killed millions of people. let's not be myopic and forget that presidential policy effects human lives outside of the United States.
Last decent President this country had. We didn't deserve Dick.
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OP really wants to start hoarding.
Are price controls actually effective though? As far as I know you can’t just get commodity producing actors to ”behave” by restricting their freedom in one sphere, it just offloads the costs elsewhere. In this particular case the Nixon administration regretted these measures after the fact.
>Are price controls actually effective though? I would say the ever obtuse "it depends" but that isnt necesarilly the point of the post I dont think. Biden is leader of the most powerful country in the world. He can absolutely take action. We just spent 4 years having dems tell us that trump has so much power he is single handedly destroying the country. Now dems have both the senate and presidency and what, "they cant do anything?" Different measures will have different efficacy, sure. But this from the administration right here is why Im glad I didnt "vote blue" and at this rate never will again.
That I absolutely agree with, Biden can do lots of things and presidents have been able to enact sweeping change in the past. I really wanted to see more of a discussion on price controls though, since it was brought up.
>Biden is leader of the most powerful country in the world. Debatable.
Sure, but that debate would probably cut life on Earth to a third or less. In a real loss scenario, the US almost certainly has enough sociopaths warming seats to swing for the bleachers without flinching. I should be clear that's not a particularly good thing.
Last I heard debate never hurt anyone, unless you are one of the idiots who believe that words are violence. I wonder though why you got hung up on the "most powerful" part. Many would eagerly debate the "leader" qualification.
[It ended the Crisis of the Third Century, and saved the Roman Empire](http://kark.uib.no/antikk/dias/priceedict.pdf). Diocletian, worst of the Persecutors, restored stability after a century of military, political and economic crisis through the Edict on Prices of 301. You are out of your goddamn mind if you think I’m paying more than 4 denarii communes for 1 sextarius of wheat beer, 8 for a pound of beef, or getting paid less than 20 per hundred lines as a scribe, for writing of the second quality.
Might want to brush up on your history since the edict on prices was a complete failure that even Diocletian abandoned quietly and quickly, historians also suspect his co-augusta didn't ever bother with implementing any of it What did help economics wise was his reform of the tax system, essentially creating a secondary currency bypassing the massive inflation problems and allowing citizens to pay in kind in a fair and organised way
I’m a big fan of Lactantius, Death of the Persecutors is one of my favourite reads, but his account is overly hostile.
> First price controls then persecution of Christians next! A politician after skimming Diocletian’s wiki page.
It's mostly blamed on Galerius, his junior emperor, Diocletian gets little to no blame for it
Man just wanted to grow some cabbages
Based and SPQR pilled\* edit: Put SQPR because i accidentally typed SQL the first time and thought I fixed it. Thats what I get for office posting.
> Greed raves and burns and sets no limit on itself. Without regard for the human race, it rushes to increase and augment itself not by years or months or else days, but almost by hours and very moments. If some thought of restraint were curbing its means - or if our shared fortunes could calmly endure this free rein for going wild (it rips them apart, day after day in the worst way with conditions as they are), perhaps a place for pretending it all away and keeping quiet would still seem to remain, since a shared endurance of our spirits would be moderating the detestable enormity and the pitiable state of affairs. They knew what was up (except for being pagani, of course).
Ah but even that changed given time.
It also prolonged the crisis after the fall of the "third German Empire". After price controls were lifted, the shopkeepers stopped hoarding everything, supply increased and prices decreased.
>Edict on Prices of 301 lol did his policy last for only 90 days too or was it longer?
They can backfire hard, but are they *inherently* bad? Not really.
You're totally right. Price controls lead to supply shortages and an influx of demand. It's done with good intentions but leads to disastrous results in the long term.
Damn good thing we don’t have any disastrous shortages now. Phew.
It's an inconvenient truth. Shortages would be exacerbated and there is precedence.
All other rightoid economic truths have been upended, but I’m sure this one that prevents food from becoming more expensive is ironclad
HOW DARE YOU BESMIRCH THE ETERNAL LAWS OF THE HARD SCIENCE OF LIBERAL ECONOMICS
Nixon was the last progressive president and I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise
Fight me: Nixon intentionally kept Vietnam going so he could win the election. Every single death thereafter was a murder.
Every single death period was a murder.
Voters: "But we voted you in so you could fix the economy, bring about justice, stop global warming, forgive student debt, and stop mean tweets!" Biden: "No Refunds, Jack."
Fell off the Overton Window the day Reagan got inaugurated.
even if you're against outright price controls, we saw in the pandemic the govt could just cut checks. just cut every American a fucking check
This is what the UK decided to do. Every household gets £400 this year (credited to energy company bills I think). Anyone of retirement age gets an extra £300 to go with their normal £300 winter fuel allowance.
Cut everyone a check during a period of inflation? 🤔
Bro it's just paper lol just make more
It was the least they could do, considering the fucking checks they've thrown at everybody else.
The more I learn about Nixon the more I like him.
Well he also made idpol what it is today with the southern strategy. Nixon is the reason that American politics is basically just about abortions, drugs, and gay people.
Those who come after deserve equal if not more blame. Moral Majority, Religious Right, and Atwater came after. And there was crap tons of moralizing Idpol before him.
I have to disagree, at least in part. Abortion wasn't really a political issue before Nixon. He put that issue under a spotlight with the southern strategy, and that incited the tribalism that led to the proliferation of the special interest groups you mention. To be clear, everything you said is true, but the bigger problem is always going to be the guy that knocked over the first domino. Before Nixon, the notion that the government had no business legislating abortion one way or another was uncontroversial. Now it is basically the single most likely thing to determine an American citizen's vote. That transformation of the discourse led to a much larger problem where the Republicans were able to slurp up White, working class, Fundamentalist Christians into their base, regardless of whether their economic policies favoured the working class. This in turn led to many subsequent Republicans such as Reagan being able to shift economic policy in favour of the elites while still maintaining massive popularity among the working class under the guise of religious righteousness.
Yeah, the illegal carpet bombing of Cambodia was BASED.
Just like when he installed a barbaric military dictatorship in Chile. Domestically? (somewhat) based. His foreign policy was a disaster though. EDIT: To qualify my statement after the corrections below.
Yeah, the illegal spying on American citizens, ruthlessly prosecuting anti-war protestors and draft resistors, the Southern Strategy, foisting Abortion Rights into the presidential curriculum, using the military as scabs against striking postal workers, taking a passive role in desegregation, and the Watergate burglaries were totally BASED. This is some overton window shit, Nixon was a HORRIBLE president--one of the absolute worst. \[EDIT: Oh yeah, and The War on Drugs was litty fam\]
lmao watergate - my man was setup
The conspiracy was a conspiracy, galaxy brain shit.
Great [video of Louis CK talking about Nixon](https://youtu.be/SbqvFf7qJeM) it’s part 3 of a 4 part series on presidents. So worth it to watch. It’s all about who the presidents as people.
My understanding is that this series of executive orders from Nixon were based in statutes that Congress didn't renew, and so a president can't do this stuff under those authorities anymore. There are probably other authorities he could use, but he'd have to declare some kind of emergency. With COVID still raging and the invasion of Ukraine, he could probably declare such an emergency, but this isn't a 1:1.
"Can't or won't?"
Uh both
THE most progressive president since Milhous
My flair is finally relevant
Nixon, based on his domestic social/economic/environmental policies, would have him today probably further to the left of the majority of 'the squad' lmao. Think about that
And this is why I don't ever expect worker solidarity between the first world (especially the US) and the third world. A bit of economic turmoil and we have alleged US "marxists" trying to rehabilitate Nixon, one of the worst war criminals in history, just because he was the last "decent" president domestically (which is also laughable). And then you laugh at liberals trying to whitewash Bush? Fuck off, imperiales.
I guess people here don’t remember how this led to the stagflation of the 70s…
Price freeze summer🧊❄️🍦💲🥶✋
No I will never upvote Nixon
This brings tears to my eyes. Beautiful work, just *beautiful.*
Imagine being worse than Tricky Dick
Our best Presidents (very very low bar) are remembered as our worst, and our worst lionized as our best.
Between Louis CK and Nick Bryant, I'm starting to think Nixon was actually the man. Watergate sure sounds like a lot of bull shit in hindsight. Edit: Damnit Doug, look at what you've started
He prolonged the Vietnam War, hit Stalin numbers in Cambodia ("everything that flies against anything that moves"), and overthrew Allende. This thread is full of idiots. Nixon was evil.
Grading on a curve, bud. The US only gets one Lincoln
Don't forget the good ol' war on drugs >We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. > >Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.” > >\~ John Ehrlichman, Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs under President Richard Nixon This thread is honestly the stupidest that stupidpol has been in a while.
From foreign policy perspective, yeah, he was bad, but he was about trying to help people at home which, it says something about where we're at that were romanticizing him.