Not feeling that great about yourself these days? Look at it this way. At least you’re not Kellyanne Conway.
Already, Trump is dangling pardons. Disgusting. And he’s still going after Pence? Why?
I’m looking forward to Tuesday. Raffensperger’s testimony will be devastating.
BB and I have been watching all of the 50th anniversary Watergate documentaries. We’ve both been knocked over by the parallels between what was going on then and what is going on now. Once you correct for different personality quirks, Nixon and Trump were the same dudes. (Also except for the fact that Nixon, for all of his psychosis, had at least 50 IQ points on Trump.)
Paranoia. Dirty tricks. Party over country. Pathological lying. Enemies lists. Attempts to rig elections. Attempted coups, really, in both cases. “Plumbers.”
But here’s my frightening takeaway. Our citizenry was way smarter—and way more rational and way better informed—then than it is now. Sure, Nixon had his blind supporters. But once the White House audiotapes were released, that was pretty much a wrap for the Nixon presidency. The evidence was simply overwhelming, irrefutable and undeniable. You heard what you heard. Tricky Dick had to go. And responsible and patriotic Republicans showed him the door. Get in that ‘copter and get your treasonous ass outta here.
Flash forward. If anything, the evidence against Trump now is even more conclusive than it was against Nixon a half century ago. You want inculpating tapes? You want documentation? For Pete’s sake, they’ve all admitted it!
But unlike Watergate, there is no nationwide realization. And there’s not going to be.
The Cult will continue to insist that we didn’t see what we saw, that we didn’t hear what we heard and that we didn’t read the documents we read. And that none of that really happened anyway. And if something did happen it was no big deal. Hoax. Fake news. Witch hunt. Meedja Bias.
The evidence now is even more overwhelming than it was then.
But our citizenry is not as forthright now as it was then. They got rid of Nixon. Now we have half the people in our country wanting to re-up with Trump.
Insanity.
In Watergate, ultimately Lady Liberty was still carrying her luminous torch.
Now she’s hoisting a gaslight.
One more note from these documentaries. Just as Cronkite really ended it for LBJ in Vietnam, it was also Uncle Walter who brought down Nixon, even more than Woodward and Bernstein.
