Yowza!
When the guy who was in the middle of Watergate, demonstrated personal integrity and morality in spite of looming consequences, and has become an authority on corruption calls someone out, I pay attention.
John Dean was one of the few people in the Nixon White House who put ethics and the law above politics. He identified the crime and coverup as a "cancer" in the White House and was rewarded by being fired. His testimony was compelling even at the time and has become moreso as time goes by.
Yeah, that guy, who stood up to his colleagues and the President of the United States has written that Scott Walker is more Nixonian than Nixon.
And he goes here:
...Dean said Walker’s “amorality” dates back to his time at Marquette University, when the school paper said he was unfit for office.
Dean wrote Walker’s “lying is notorious,” pointing to his record with PolitiFact Wisconsin, which found that the vast majority of Walker’s statements it examined ranged from “half-truths” to “pants-on-fire false.”
Yes, he used the "L" word. And there's a lot more analysis from him.
Dean wrote of Walker: “If I lived in Wisconsin, I would be uncomfortable with this man, whom I find more Nixonian than even Richard Nixon himself (the authoritarian leader with whom I was, and am, so very familiar).”
Yes, he went there, too. Astonishing.
In a nutshell, Dean says his research suggests Walker is a “classic authoritarian,” which he defines as someone who seeks to dominate others, opposes equality, strongly desires personal power, and is amoral.
I can affirm this. He takes a My Way or the Highway approach to governing. When negotiating union contracts, his style was threats, not negotiating. He always threatened massive layoffs in order to gain concessions, something
illegal in the private sector (prohibited by the National Labor Relations Act), but perfectly legal with public employees not covered under the NLRA.
Dean said he saw Walker's “union-busting” and our massive protests in the national media. “His style struck me as strikingly Nixonian, so I began reading more about him,” Dean said in an email.
“As I said in my column, I find Walker more Nixonian than Nixon, meaning that Nixon did not always live up to his reputation, but Walker never seems to fall short of the Nixonian standard. … Walker is a power-abuser like Nixon.”
Dean continued, “I had hoped that Watergate would end Nixonian politics, but as Dick Cheney showed as vice president, some long for the pre-Watergate abuse of power standards.” (Cheney was also a youthful GOP aide in the Nixon era.)
In his book,
“Conservatives without Conscience”, Dean describes the results of social research to argue that Republicans tend to favor authoritative personalities. He uses those traits to analyze Walker:
First is a personality that seeks to be a “social dominator.” Dean cited how Walker formed a “Jesus USA” club as a young child, mixing Baptist religion and patriotism, and he seems to have been running for something ever since.
“He attended Marquette University (but has no college degree from there or any other school),” wrote Dean. “At Marquette, he was elected to the student senate, and twice sought but failed to get elected president of the student body. He ran for the Wisconsin state Assembly the same year that he lost his bid to be student president at Marquette, losing the Assembly race as well.” He added, “Walker has never stopped running. This is the behavior, writ large, of a dominator.”
Second, Dean said, is how Walker opposes equality. “There are many examples of Walker’s harsh and uncaring treatment of those whom he does not believe to be entitled to equality,” Dean wrote. “None is more glaring than his intolerance of gays and lesbians,” referring to Walker trying to stop same-sex couples from being recognized as next of kin for hospital visitation rights.
On the third "authoritarian" theme, seeking personal power, Dean pointed not only to how Walker undercut public employee unions to increase his own power, but on how he has made many more jobs political positions instead of civil service positions.
Fourth, Dean writes about Walker’s approach to morality. “To be amoral, of course, is to be insensitive to moral matters,” writes Dean. “A politician like Scott Walker will wrap himself in a cloak of morality, while, in fact, acting anything but morally."
For a national figure, like John Dean, to focus on a Governor is astounding. To compare him with Richard Nixon, a prime example of corruption and coverup, says a lot about how Scott Walker is governing and a good reason to get him and his cronies out of office.
What Walker and his GOP legislative majority have done in 1 brief year has undone much of what makes Wisconsin a great state to live in. He truly believes in the "winner takes all" dictum and has done so with a callous disregard towards the citizens and pandering to the monied interests and Republican special interest groups. He has created a political divide in this state that won't heal any time soon.
“One of the reasons I write about authoritarian conservative politicians is that many people confuse a strong leader with an authoritarian leader,” he continued. “Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower were strong leaders, but not authoritarians. We have never had a so-called ‘double high’ authoritarian in the White House.”
Dean went on: “So most people do not understand what a ‘double high’ authoritarian like Scott Walker is capable of doing. The recall vote will be an interesting test to see if the innate wisdom of the people of Wisconsin prevails and they send Walker into another line of work.
Walker cannot prevail in the recall election. Our state is at risk unless the Walker agenda is rolled back. He has moved us backward into a time when the Golden Rule meant that those with all the gold made all the rules; when corporations did what they pleased; when we didn't care about our water, air, or environment; when anything goes if you're politically connected; when lives and health were at risk from lack of regulations and enforcement (you have only to look at expanding hunting into our state parks to see how citizens using those parks for hiking or other recreational use are at risk of personal injury
John Deans full article can be seen here.
The Capitol Times article and Deans full article are well worth a read.