Watergate - Fifty Years

By all accounts, Richard Nixon knew nothing about the planned break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington before the operation was executed - and thwarted - on Saturday, June 17, 1972.  When told about it, President Nixon is said to have thrown an ashtray across the Oval Office and called the burglary "the dumbest thing I've ever heard of." 

But - and you knew this was coming - Nixon oversaw "dirty trick" operations against the Democrats that were far better planned and far more successful, having already knocked Maine senator Ed Muskie out of the 1972 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination and assured himself of getting the arch-liberal South Dakota senator George McGovern as his general election opponent, and once Watergate blew, he needed to cover up the burglars' connection to the White House to control the damage.  And of course, the cover-up was worse than the crime.  As for the investigation itself . . . there are documentarians who can explain it and put it into perspective far better than I can in a silly blog.

I can, however, say this - though President Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon after Nixon's resignation, Nixon still lost the Presidency and was publicly shamed, making the return to respectability as an elder statesman a long and arduous one - and it's said that he had great remorse for what he did in the last days of his administration.  Nixon hardly got away with anything he did wrong.  Donald Trump, on the other hand, not only escaped punishment for his crimes as President, he's been escaping crimes he committed as a private citizen all of his life.  And the January 6 insurrection - the select committee hearings for which resume in the House today - had hardly diminished his power; rather, it's enhanced it, like a severe summer thunderstorm.  Even as the House 1/6 select committee lays out a compelling narrative of Trump and how he planned to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, Republicans are nominating Trump toadies to run for governorships or secretaryships of state, who hope to get elected and control the means of counting votes in the 2024 election to ensure a Trump victory even against the will of the people.

Donald Trump learned something invaluable for his own survival - as long as you have a devoted fan base on your side, nothing you do can bring you down, and nothing anyone else does to you can stop you.  Richard Nixon wasn't that type of politician.  Also, Trump was a celebrity businessman who took his cue from celebrity entertainers on how to survive when he realized that any press - even bad press - is good press.  Nixon was too thin-skinned to let bad press roll off his back.  

Now would be a good time for America to learn the lessons of Watergate before Trump gets away with hijacking our democracy.  Because once he does hijack it, it's game over.