I had just hit my teens when Tricky Dicky was elected. The granddaughter and great granddaughter of career politicians, I was raised to take an interest in the political process. So, I had watched the election, though it would be years before I would be old enough to vote.
That spring, I had read about the New Deal, and was beginning to think I was going to be a Democrat when I grew up.
I knew it wouldn’t be easy. My family were Republicans. They had been Republicans, as far as I know, for as long as the party had existed.
But their party was changing. Four years ago, Barry Goldwater had been the Republican candidate for president. My parents agreed, they couldn’t vote for him. His ideas were too far right for them
In the fall of 1968, my mother resolved she wouldn’t vote for Nixon. She said she couldn’t trust him.
The nation was in turmoil. That spring there had been riots following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. The summer brought more violence at the Democratic convention.
People were angry, frustrated with what was happening in what they were told was the greatest nation on earth.
Nixon, shifty eyed, paranoid, combative, promised peace and order.
Anyone who remembers Nixon, remembers his infuriating habit of grabbing airtime, just any old time he wanted it.
One minute you were watching “Gunsmoke”, the next minute there was Tricky Dick, telling you something that just couldn’t wait until the next press conference.
Johnson had done the same thing, but not with the same frequency.
It would be worse after the 1972 election.
If you ask me, George McGovern lost because he ran a bad campaign. He didn’t expect to get the nomination. He ran to get an anti Vietnam war plank on the Democratic platform. When he got the nomination, he wasn’t sure what to do, and he didn’t address the very real concerns of the electorate.
Neither of my parents voted for president in the ‘72 election. A lot of people stayed home that year. They didn’t like McGovern, but they weren’t going to vote for the man who was coming across as a demagogue.
(I was not yet old enough to vote, but in the school mock election, I wrote in the name of the lady who taught history and civics. I figured she would do a better job than either candidate. It was a small school, and my handwriting is atrocious. So she knew I had voted for her. It didn’t hurt my grade any. I still think she would have made a good president.)
But Nixon didn’t notice. He was sure he had a mandate. He was certain he could do as he liked. He even began plans for a third term.
He wouldn’t finish his second.
His party deserted him.
Of course Nixon didn’t have Trump’s charisma. Whatever else he is, Donald Trump is a brilliant self promoter. Nixon’s supporters liked his policies. They didn’t like him. He wasn’t someone you could like.
Trump doesn’t really have policies, just a corps of devotees, who are sure that he’s working for them, despite a great deal of evidence to the contrary.
I was in college, taking summer courses, studying for a history exam, when Nixon grabbed airtime one last night, to announce he was resigning.
His fellow Republicans were insisting. He faced impeachment the first time in over a hundred years a president had been impeached. So, he stepped down.
For the first, and only time, in my life I admired the man. His last speech was filled with humility and something that resembled contrition, before he boarded the plane that would take him away from Washington
I could imagine George H.W, Bush doing the same thing, in similar circumstances. I could imagine his son conducting himself with the same propriety.
We know what Donald Trump did after he lost the election. He behaved with all the dignity and decorum of a spoiled preschooler.
When Nixon was facing impeachment, some of my friends were certain he would go on television one last time, to make one last speech, before he shot himself.
I didn’t think something like that would happen. Nixon was a career politician. He would choose dignity over drama.
I find myself missing good old Tricky Dick. He was dishonest, shifty and paranoid. But he was not Donald Trump!