Trump Hat Meme Make Nixon Great Again
Stop Besmirching Richard Nixon's Good Name With Comparisons to Donald Trump
Ever heard of Warren G. Harding?
by MATTHEW GAULT
There are a lot of memes and hot takes going effectually correct now besmirching the good proper name of Richard Nixon. According to the online punditry — and at least one senator — Pres. Donald Trump'southward firing of FBI director James Comey is a scandal of Watergate proportions.
According to the memes that blend photos of Trump and Nixon, nosotros're now dealing with the most corrupt president of all time since Tricky Dick.
Please. Ever hear of the Teapot Dome Scandal? What well-nigh the entire Reagan administration?
Nixon has long been a political boogeyman for liberals. He launched the drug war, after all. And bombed Cambodia. And had his goons beat up hippies. And bewitched his opponents.
He was a wiggle and a crook with no good domestic or foreign policies to hang his hat on. Trump is worse, the thinking goes, merely only considering he'southward as well incompetent to be as willfully evil as Nixon was.
I won't stand for it any longer. Nixon was crazier than a shithouse rat, but he definitely care about the American people. He probably cared more about them than whatsoever president — and certainly any Republican president — has washed since.
Nixon did, in fact, suspension the law and abuse his power. He was likewise our last corking liberal-progressive president.
Let me be clear. Nixon was a bad guy. But presidents are complicated and to focus on Watergate and Nixon's disregard for the dominion of law to the exclusion of his progressive political tape does both history and the truth a disservice.
Let's start with the big surprises. In the summer of 1969, Nixon tried to provide universal basic income to all Americans. His program was to terminate welfare as we know it … and replace it with something amend. The Family Assistance Program would have scaled dorsum welfare and guaranteed a living wage to all families living below the poverty line.
The nib passed the House of Representatives with an overwhelming bulk but died in the Senate. It wasn't political enemies that felled the plan, but a coalition of concerned moderate Democrats and ultra-conservative Republicans.
Which brings united states of america to another fun and funny fact almost Nixon — he fucking hated the far-right. He would have detested the Tea Party. Nixon was always an outsider. He was a weird, sweaty man with a foreign religious background and a lower-grade upbringing. He didn't fit in well in Washington.
"The trouble with far-right conservatives … is that they really don't give a damn nearly people and the voters sense that," Nixon told his adjutant John C. Whitaker. "Yet whatsoever Republican presidential candidate tin can't stray too far from the correct-wingers because they can dominate a main and are even more important in close general elections."
"The far-right kooks are only like the nuts on the left," Nixon connected. "They're doorbell-ringers and airship-blowers, only they turn out to vote. In that location is only one affair every bit bad as a far-left liberal and that's a damn right-wing conservative."
Nixon was, for all his faults, a true homo of the people. He created the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Prophylactic and Health Administration and signed the Clean Air Deed into law. Every time you lot beverage make clean drinking water or use a not-rusty ladder at work, thank Nixon.
All his budgets favored domestic welfare programs at the expense of the military. Can you imagine a Republican president doing that now? For his office, Trump wants to "make America great once again" by slashing the safety net while lavishing the war machine with greenbacks.
When Nixon entered office in 1970, we spent $55 billion on welfare. When he left office in 1975, that number was $132 billion. Nixon supported cost of living adjustments for Social Security recipients, expanded the rolls to include the blind and disabled and raised nutrient-stamp spending from $610 million to $2.5 billion.
Oh yeah, he as well opened up relations with China, ended the draft, imposed a minimum tax on the wealthy and established the first federal quotas for hiring minorities. That'southward right — Nixon, one of the most vehemently racist presidents in modernistic history, helped create affirmative action.
Then please. Stop calling him the nigh decadent president of all time and cease comparison him to Trump. Nixon was an asshole, aye, but he was also way smarter and, dare I say, more empathetic than Trump is. As for abuse … accept ya'll never heard of Warren One thousand. Harding?
We won't know the full depth of Trump's corruption for years, merely information technology'll be hard for him to top Harding. Elected in 1920, the homo but served ii years earlier dying, but during those two years he did everything he could to enrich himself and his buddies.
Harding's cabinet was the offset in U.Southward. history to lose a member to a criminal investigation. His secretary of the interior leased the Navy'south oil reserves to private companies at cut-rate prices in exchange for bribes. His attorney general resigned in 1924 when investigators revealed he was in the pocket of gangsters and bootleggers.
Harding'due south man in accuse of veterans' affairs built hospitals vets didn't need then he could hire his friends and skim cash off the upkeep. The man Harding appointed to sort through goods seized after Globe State of war I went to jail for defrauding the U.Southward. government and stealing German patents.
Hell, even Ronald Reagan managed to oversee a more decadent White House than Nixon did. During his eight-year presidency, 138 assistants officials were investigated or charged. That'south more whatsoever other president in U.S. history.
Everyone remembers the Iran-Contra thing, but few recall Operation Sick Wind, when the FBI discovered that defense companies had colluded with war machine officials to bilk U.Southward. taxpayers. Navy and Air Force officials went to jail.
The Reagan assistants too used the Department of Housing and Urban Evolution to reward Republican donors. Reagan officials rigged the behest organisation and dished out lucrative government grants like role favors. Courts convicted 6 assistants officials, including Reagan's secretarial assistant of the interior.
That doesn't even take into account the EPA scandals, the savings-and-loan crisis, the Inslaw matter and the Wedtech scandal. In terms of corruption, Reagan'due south eight-yr assistants eclipsed Harding'southward two-twelvemonth administration, if but because Reagan had more fourth dimension to rob the American public.
But yeah, keep telling me how Nixon was the almost decadent president in U.S. history.
Stay defiant.
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Source: https://medium.com/defiant/stop-besmirching-richard-nixons-good-name-with-comparisons-to-donald-trump-e5a2d5450877
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