'Nixonmaxxing' Must Never Be A Thing

Trying to rehabilitate the second biggest crook to hold the office of President is a fools' errand. But then, look who's doing it.

I was a teenager in the Watergate era, glued to the hearings for the entire summer of 1973 as the depth of Richard Nixon’s lust for power came to light. Unlike our current president who is driven by greed, Nixon was all about garnering and saving as much power as he possibly could to crush Democrats and advance his own policy agendas.

53 years later, there’s a concerted effort afoot to rehabilitate him, presumably so our current president’s corruption can also be normalized, as Matt K. Lewis admits in his essay at NOTUS, entitled “In Defense of Nixonmaxxing.”

It cannot be normalized. The whole “Nixonmaxxing” meme needs to end here and now, without any fanfare or social media hype. Mashing up old reels of Nixon with Drake overdubs and Guns ‘N Roses dissolves and TikTok reels does not and will not change what Nixon (and Ford’s pardon) did to this country.

JD Vance has been the highest profile purveyor of the “Nixon is cool now” lie, even making an appearance at the Nixon library in Orange County to smooth over Nixon’s crooked, megalomaniacal ways. JD Vance, don’t forget, was not even a zygote when Nixon held office.

“If Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story. Like, the idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy,” Vance told his audience with a straight face.

NIXON WAS A CROOK. THE WATERGATE BREAK-IN AND COVER-UP WERE CRIMINAL ACTS.

Vance’s comment is an indictment of today’s media, while glossing over Nixon’s criminality. Nixon was facing impeachment because back in that era there were still Republicans who believed in their oath of office. It would have been a bipartisan affair, which is why Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott, Senator Barry Goldwater, and House Minority Leader John Rhodes — all Republicans — went up to the White House to tell him he needed to resign before he was impeached.

And even then, he wouldn’t have resigned if he wasn’t in danger of taking the entire Republican Party with him. Remember that when you hear that Trump’s approval rating is lower than Nixon’s before he resigned.

Let’s remember for a minute why his support collapsed. He might have survived the hearings by lying or making his lieutenants lie, as he was wont to do. He might have even survived the Saturday Night Massacre. But the White House tapes did him in, because they exposed all of the lies and cover-up of the break-in at the Democratic National Headquarters and more.

Nixon was able to hold them back from Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski until July, 1974, when the Supreme Court at the time^* ruled unanimously that Nixon could not claim executive privilege with regard to the tapes, ruling that they must be turned over immediately and opening them up to the public, including the “smoking gun” tape proving his involvement in the Watergate scandal. [Listen to the oral arguments]

Nixon fostered a culture of corruption in his White House. Spiro Agnew resigned because he was taking cash bribes and extorting government contractors right out of his White House office. The entire White House was a hotbed of utter corruption and wanton disregard for the law.

Which brings me to JD Vance’s other comment, where he confessed his liking for Nixon. “Young senator, vice president, writes some best-selling books, is hated by the media. It kind of sounds like JD Vance. I’ve always liked Richard Nixon,” he told his adoring audience.

“I’m actually fascinated by Nixon as a character in history. I think that his historical legacy is enjoying a bit of a renaissance, but I think deservedly so,” Vance added.

No. No, and again NO. For all the reasons stated above and this one below:

RICHARD NIXON WAS A CROOK.

It doesn’t matter what else he was. It doesn’t matter what else he did. It doesn’t balance the scales. Nixon was first and foremost a crook, who blemished whatever legacy he may have left behind with his crookedness. Trying to whitewash history and make people forget he was a crook by releasing some strategic mashups with contemporary music is a lame effort to smear lipstick all over that crooked dirty pig.

This is what Matt Lewis is selling:

As usual, the answer is all about Donald Trump. The two men, needless to say, have some things in common. So if you rehabilitate Nixon, you normalize and elevate Trump in the process.

Like Trump, Nixon was highly combative. He played up culture war divisions to win elections. Once elected, he embraced the imperial presidency (“When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal”). He even tried to impede investigations and use executive agencies for his own political purposes (sound familiar?).

Why yes, Matt, it sounds all too familiar. And it’s so good of you to actually admit the snow job you and Vance and the Nixon Library are trying to pull over on people, especially younger people who didn’t live through that era.

As I said earlier, much of our current pickle is due to a cowardly media. But here’s what Lewis thinks about that particular issue.

Ultimately, Nixon was taken down by the media — as well as the so-called “deep state” (a point recently made by Vance, which I take to mean “Deep Throat,” the pseudonym for secret informant Mark Felt, then-deputy director of the FBI). Sure, Nixon was forced to resign, but what was he supposed to do? The liberal media had a virtual monopoly on disseminating information, and this meant that even Nixon’s fellow Republicans didn’t have the backbone to support him.

Let’s sit with that a minute. What Lewis is saying there is that yes, Nixon was a crook, and yes, he was exposed and forced to resign, but that’s a terrible thing. If only the media had been dishonest and not as quick to report facts, Nixon’s presidency might have survived.

This is how utterly corrupt conservative thought is. Some conservatives would call it “moral relativism,” something they despise unless they’re doing it. The whole reason Fox News was born was to make sure there was a media environment which could propagandize and normalize the criminal acts and intents of the right wing. So when Lewis observes:

In this regard, Trump’s presidency is the fulfillment of the dream that things would have gone differently for Nixon — for America — if the pesky corporate media didn’t control everything (part of the reason Trump is so keen on having his loyalists take over CBS, etc.).

He’s right. This is Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch’s wet dream. It was the impetus for starting a network and strategically placing it on cable, in bars, in hotels, and even online in order to supply a steady stream of right wing propaganda to distract the public from the criminal acts of their Republican leaders and the corporations which support them.

One last intellectually dishonest thought from Lewis to wrap it all up:

Compared to Trump, Richard Nixon was a very good man. Watching these videos makes me like him even more — makes me long for a leader, flawed though he was, who was capable of introspection, someone who cared about policy and ideas and was able to give a speech about them. For these reasons, I see it as a positive development that so many young Republicans might now have a better president to admire.

GOOD LORD, MAN! NIXON WAS A CROOK.

The fact that Trump is a bigger crook is irrelevant. Nixon was a ruthless, rudderless, power hungry man whose “introspection” level was limited to how to advance his own interests both with regard to policy and his own power.

“Nixonmaxxing” is an extension of that propaganda effort, and can never be allowed to become something which whitewashes and normalizes the corruption and criminal activity of Donald Trump while in office.

BONUS: Go read Katie Phang’s article: Nixon’s Tapes Were Never His To Hide

^*_{I am fairly certain our current Supreme Court would not rule the same way}