The Tyrannical Minority

[_EAllusion]

Says guy on the internet.

Neat coming from a guy on the Internet. It's like the modern version of the last refuge of scoundrels. If you think I'm the only person with this view or that this view isn't found among major political commentators or elected officials, you are wrong.

If you are secretly David Brooks, congrats on sucking so hard for so long. If not, you probably should reconsider this gambit.

[_honorentheos]

Ugh, Dr. Shades. Those were different posts. You are ruining the logical separation by combining them.

People, man. Whatcha gonna do with them?

I thought the original wording was better, by the way.

[_honorentheos]

Says guy on the internet.

Neat coming from a guy on the Internet. It's like the modern version of the last refuge of scoundrels. If you think I'm the only person with this view or that this view isn't found among major political commentators or elected officials, you are wrong.

Or, you know, the point being Congress is the entity dealing with this and we both are just guys on the internet wasting timing on a discussion that's not really going anywhere. That comment regarding Congressional awareness or lack thereof? Yeah. So, angerberry on. There were Democrats in the House in 1974 who wanted Nixon impeached and Ford's nomination stalled. So what?

[_Jersey Girl]

Ugh, Dr. Shades. Those were different posts. You are ruining the logical separation by combining them.

He only does that to you and me. He envies our supreme greatness.

[_EAllusion]

Or, you know, the point being Congress is the entity dealing with this and we both are just guys on the internet wasting timing on a discussion that's not really going anywhere. That comment regarding Congressional awareness or lack thereof? Yeah. So, angerberry on. There were Democrats in the House in 1974 who wanted Nixon impeached and Ford's nomination stalled. So what?

And Trump's President and you're not. Best not to question the wisdom of those with power.

Ford's circuitous route to the Presidency and subsequent pardoning of Nixon was a profoundly harmful act on our country, incidentally. There's a decent argument to be made that we have been in an ur-scandal driven by relative Presidential impunity since then. Nixon was forced out, but Nixonism never was pushed down hard enough.

After Trump is acquitted in the Senate, I can't wait to see if the "The Constitution works!" positive spin on the Nixon saga in high school history texts gets a rewrite to be updated for more, um, recent test cases of the Constitution.

[_honorentheos]

Ok, guy on the internet.

Stepping away from bad analogies for the moment, let's suppose during the hearings a bombshell gets dropped and one of the witnesses testifying on the Ukraine call states they are aware of another phone call made between Trump and, oh let's say Mohammad Bin Salman where the witness heard Trump promise to turn a blind eye to the murder of Khashoggi and sell the Saudis weapons at a discount if MBS paved the way for a big real estate project for Trump that was purely for Trump's personal gain. Of course that gets pursued. But that's not what you seem to be arguing. You seem to be arguing for the House to start issuing supoenas for anyone who sat in on a Trump call to have them testify if they were aware of the content of any other calls besides the July Ukraine call that might involve misconduct on the part of the President. That's a fishing expedition turning the formal impeachment proceedings into a weapon for political ends rather than a tool for maintaining the republic when threatened. There's a reason Gerald Ford's nomination to replace Spiro Agnew was pushed forward as Nixon's impeachment went to formal proceedings. The Democrats, through impeaching Nixon, could have taken the White House with a felony charge on Agnews head making as good a case as exists in the entire admin was corrupt. But that would have undermined the mechanisms of democracy and, I think unarguably wisely, moved to accept Ford as the new VP in order to protect the nation as a prime consideration that informed the pursuit of justice when it came to Nixon's criminal activity. In today's climate, I suspect that situation might turn out far differently. We are certainly in dangerous territory given the claim both sides are acting for the greater good without apparent underlying principles. Oh, wait. I'm forgetting the people actually tasked with this job aren't pursuing the EA mandate. Someone should tell them there's a guy on the internet who knows what's best for the country and they better course correct fast or he will...I don't know. Complain about stuff on the internet I guess. Maybe he will make a bad analogy and parody their position because lolz.

[_honorentheos]

Ford's circuitous route to the Presidency and subsequent pardoning of Nixon was a profoundly harmful act on our country, incidentally. There's a decent argument to be made that we have been in an ur-scandal driven by relative Presidential impunity since then. Nixon was forced out, but Nixonism never was pushed down hard enough.

Nixonism? What's that? How is the Presidency of Obama more scandalous than, say, Kennedy or Eisenhower? Bush Sr. carried the taint of Nixon that made his Presidency inherently rotten in ways unheard of when Harding was in the White House?

That sounds like BS someone might say in 2019 that might appeal to some holdover hippies but has no attachment to history whatsoever. Carter, man. He just couldn't get that stank out of the White House and it polluted his Presidency unlike Tyler or Buchanan whose concessions expanded slavery while setting up the civil war. Atleast those guys didn't have the ghost of Nixonism haunting the Oval Office during their terms, corrupting their every decision and steering the country towards inexorable doom.

I think an argument could be made Nixonism is just a word that means, Presidents who served in your lifetime, so you are aware of the churn and debate that exists and has since Washington.

[_EAllusion]

Nixonism? What's that? How is the Presidency of Obama more scandalous than, say, Kennedy or Eisenhower? Bush Sr. carried the taint of Nixon that made his Presidency inherently rotten in ways unheard of when Harding was in the White House?

It's carried through one Republican administration to the next because similar corruption has been engaged in by the same interconnected web of people. While Nixon was forced to resign, a lot of Nixon's people who believed in what Nixon did remained in the halls power for a long time after to continue to do Nixonian things and influence future generations to do the same. Reagan's side-negotiation with Iran in the election lead up to knee-cap his opponent was reminiscent of Nixon doing the same with Vietnam not just because they are similar acts. Reagan was a die-hard Nixon supporter that had a Nixon appointee as his campaign manager carry that out. The Bush administration's running of secret torture prisons wasn't related to Nixon because that's just a bad thing a President did. Former Nixon staffers and their proteges had a key role in advocating for it, carrying it out, and participating in the cover up with similar beliefs to Nixon-era government about why to do each. Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney were high level Nixon people.

Donald Trump's point person for a go-between with wikileaks is a dude with a Nixon tattoo on his back who was one of Nixon's lower level dirty campaigning guys who delights in Nixon-era ends justify the means thinking.

The reason Donald Trump is likely to get away with what Donald Trump has been doing is because of a propaganda apparatus that was started in earnest in significant part by Nixon supporters who were specifically motivated by resentment over what happened to Nixon and wanted to change the media environment so that could not happen again. Fox News in particular is primarily a creation of Richard Nixon's executive producer for television.

I think an argument could be made Nixonism is just a word that means, Presidents who served in your lifetime, so you are aware of the churn and debate that exists and has since Washington.

I like how you are responding to this as a theory I just personally came up with on the fly.

Someone should tell them there's a guy on the internet who knows what's best for the country and they better course correct fast or he will...I don't know. Complain about stuff on the internet I guess. Maybe he will make a bad analogy and parody their position because lolz.

My position is advocated for by influential political commentators and politicians. I'm not on some lonely island in what I am saying. You're no better here than a Donald Trump supporter just responding to any criticism by repeating the word "winning."

Maybe it's not good political strategy for Donald Trump to make fun of the disabled...

Winning.

[_EAllusion]

George H.W. Bush participated in a cover-up of Nixon's side-negotiations with Vietnam. He later was a key person in the successful cover up of accountability for Iran-Contra, at one point using the pardoning power in a way that was reminiscent of Ford pardoning Nixon. Regardless of how you feel about Bush Sr., that's part of his legacy.

Bill Barr was a key figure in orchestrating Bush's cover-up. Bill Barr is now Donald Trump's most important player in covering up his shady international dealings.

Talking about this as an interconnected scandal of ideas going back to Nixon isn't some abstraction. There's a chain of custody enough to make a coherent argument. Because prior experience is a valuable trait, administrations from the same party tend to borrow people from previous administrations, but there are differences in how much a new administration clean sweeps the ways of the previous. The argument is that what made Nixon corrupt never was successfully expunged from the Republican party and has cast a shadow over how it operates for going on 50 years now.

This doesn't have to be the case. But the argument is that it is in the case of Nixon. Reducing that argument into, "Hurr durr. Anytime I see a president do something I don't like, I call that Nixonian" is a strawman.

[_honorentheos]

So now it's the Nixonian deep state? Huh.

Yeah, I'm not investing in this discussion to take what you say seriously enough to respond to it thoughtfully. I don't think it deserves the time. Turning the proceedings into a subpoena fest for everyone who ever sat in on a call between Trump and pretty much anyone else would be disasterous but since you feel parody and appeals to invisible authority Trump precedent and a clear path to reframing impeachment as a political tool in an expansive way, feel free to carry on. Nixonian deep state. Didn't realize there was a libertarian version of QAnon out there but here we are.