taking sides: lyndon baines johnson vs. richard milhous nixon

you should read caro's means of ascent -- a/k/a how LBJ got his original nickname, "landslide lyndon" -- for some real hellish machiavellianism!

Johnson's "sonofabitch" vs. Nixon's "cocksucker"

Nixon who saw the same political facts and in response devised the infamous "Southern strategy" to win the solid South for the Party of Lincoln, by turning it into the party of preference for southern racists.

LBJ also had the guts to withdraw from the race after the New Hampshire primary, even though he was a sitting president and he actually won that primary. Eugene McCarthy only got 38% of the New Hampshire vote in '68.

Nixon, even after Watergate had busted wide open and his many, many crimes were common knowledge practically had to be pried out of office with a crowbar.

LBJ screwed up badly in Vietnam and mired the country in an unwinnable war. Nixon was a flat-out war criminal.

So, LBJ gets my vote, if those are the only two choices. No contest.

er not to be an apologist (I don't think this is being one anyway but still need to put that disclaimer out there) but the political facts were not the same as Nixon had to contend with George Wallace running against him, whereas LBJ didn't.

1. he was running barely less than a year after JFK ate it in Dallas.
2. he was running against Goldwater, a total nutcase who LBJ very astutely portrayed as such.

But Nixon's southern strategy was more a long term plan than a short term tactic. A glance will show that the solid south has now turned pretty solidly Republican - which is where Nixon wanted it. He taught others to follow the path he trod first.

Nixon - a raving lunatic. The nearest thing to a certifiably insane nutbag the USA has ever had in the White House.

Both therefore have their advantages.

"If you think the United States has stood still, who built the largest shopping center in the world?" - Nixon

hunter s. thompson, "he was a crook," rolling stone (Jun. 16, 1994).

http://www.albion.edu/history/tchambers/mencken.htm

Love this thread, and also just finished Walter Isaacson's Kissinger; it's impossible, after also reading Sy Hersh's Kiss bio and Hitchens' Trial of Henry Kissinger to decide who was more corrupt.

Last time I get to do this: spend 15 minutes talking to nine-year-olds about Richard Nixon on his birthday. He’s the greatest object lesson ever in the lie being worse than whatever led to the lie, and if you frame his downfall that way, kids immediately understand. Trump’s lies are so numerous and (often) so bizarre, I don’t think there’s much meaning there. Nixon was a much more interesting liar.

Obviously, you won’t come across a clearer explanation of Watergate than my diagram. The burglars are the x’s at the bottom right, Nixon is the check mark at the top left.

http://phildellio.tripod.com/watergate.JPG

Nixon was born 106 years ago tomorrow—here in 1974 offering cake to dog King Timahoe, San Clemente: pic.twitter.com/1aZkYptdDW

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) January 9, 2019

https://i.imgur.com/O81x9cV.jpg

"Well I'll be damned – your birthday's the day before mine!"

RMN shares a birthday with Joan Baez. Guess where Joan was when Nixon bombed Hanoi at Xmas '72... Yep.

Graceland?

Hanoi Joan

I've read enough about Nixon that I ought to know the answer to this, but was he as aggressive as Trump in going after people from his own party? My sense of Nixon is that he had his inner circle of Haldeman, Erlichman, Kissinger, etc., and that the rest of the party--even his own cabinet--barely existed.

Nixon didn't do that shit in public the way Trump does afaik

Before he became president, Nixon was a tireless speaker for any republican candidate or party organ that wanted him, as a means of collecting chits for return favors in the future. When he became president he switched more into the mode of dictating terms in advance, but he was a party man top to bottom.

Nixon definitely obsequious in a way Trump has never had to be

I was thinking of Nixon in '72, heading into the election, when he--like Trump--felt all-powerful and untouchable. I don't think he was out there beating the bushes for disloyal Republicans and responding to every last slight. Not even privately, I suspect; he had moved beyond party in every sense. If you look at his '72 ads, there's just Nixon, nothing else.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dploiFDlRE4

Such an inspiring song.

Happy Earth Day.

http://phildellio.tripod.com/planting.jpg

every picture tells a story

"Goddamn it, Pat, is this really necessary?"

I wonder who on the shit list is under the dirt.

Just posted today--your dreams have been answered.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hOqnG9UHLE

http://phildellio.tripod.com/resignation.jpeg

Does anything say Valentine's Day better than Richard Nixon?

https://phildellio.tripod.com/nixon-2.jpg

somewhere, Roger Stone just got hard

You just sent me to therapy.

Screenshot I took from Versailles '73: American Runway Revolution.

https://phildellio.tripod.com/fashion.jpg

CNN starts an LBJ series tonight (yeah, I know, "Turn Turn Turn"):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pND1mP0Rwpo

That trailer's voice-over has a definite "In a world..." vibe.

a bit of a Casey Kasem vibe too

Still wishing for the day when the Mothers' "Trouble Every Day" becomes the go-to music for the mid-late '60s.

Jesus, I think it involves reenactments. I'll be out of there with the first one.

I bailed, indeed--the Man on Wire documentary might be the only one I ever saw where I reached a level of tolerance with the reenactments.

The other guy in the thread title has a new ally:

https://www.hotnewhiphop.com/kanye-west-shares-his-long-list-of-enemies-including-skete-davidson-news.147986.html

111th--planning something monstrous with Kissinger right now.

has already fired the special prosecutor in Hell

Still intrigued by what kind of balancing act he'd do with regards to Trump. He was the ultimate company man, but I think he'd try to figure out some way to create a little distance--a non-endorsement endorsement, if you will.

I was not quite eight when Nixon resigned. My most vivid memory of him is that, when he was on TV, he sweat. Like, a lot. His upper lip was slick.

This is my all-time favorite Nixon pic. It says so much about the man.

https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2021/08/31/14/47274247-9943475-Pictured_Nixon_checks_his_watch_as_he_shakes_hands_with_a_member-a-12_1630417756875.jpg

I don't think he was a political genius so much as an amoral survivor. His only goal was his political survival, and any means to achieve that goal was acceptable.

If there has been a true political genius in the U.S. in the past 100 years, it was Bill Clinton.

Nah, man. FDR. At least his feral genius produced tangible good for decades.

FDR I'd put up there also. I obviously didn't experience the man first-hand. But Clinton has (or had) what Apple developer Bud Tribble, referring to Steve Jobs, called a "reality distortion field."

Nixon was at least complicated (Title 9, the EPA, detente with China)... for all his base amorality he actually did a thing or two

But yeah, we still live daily with FDR's legacy, maybe even a little LBJ as well

My very Republican grandmother used to fake gagging whenever the name Franklin Delano Roosevelt was mentioned.

Lol... so much of his 'pinko' stuff (via Keynesian economics) was a desperate attempt to avoid actual pinko shit; the 1930s was probably the most marxist decade the U.S. ever experienced

My very Republican grandmother used to fake gagging whenever the name Franklin Delano Roosevelt was mentioned.

LOL no

That didn't stop her from saying that FDR had "ruined the country."

So the US was a better place in 1933 than in 1945... that is some take

I can't separate "political genius" from the morality of those decisions, and FDR followed by LBJ are so obviously the winners. Bill Clinton, the only Dem we could've elected, alas, in 1992, left office having prevented the worst of a GOP counter-revolution who thought the presidency belonged to them after a dozen years, nominated good judges and (sure) justices, and was a charming rogue, but I don't wanna think about him anymore.

So the US was a better place in 1933 than in 1945... that is some take

Yes . . . and this from a woman who had truly harrowing stories of the Depression. There were times she was literally starving.

Nixon gets mistakenly called a liberal -- or, worse, "would never have been nominated by today's GOP!" -- because he endured an immovable Dem majority in both chambers of Congress and, trying to begin a political revolution that culminated with the election of Reagan, he signed their legislation.

Died 30 years ago today (Nixon, that is), although I think he still tweets.

Nixon never suffered enough for his crimes to satisfy me, but Kissinger's decades as an éminence grise were even more sickening.

He doesn't tweet. That's just some weirdo making goofy statements and thinking he sounds just like Richard M. Nixon.

he's pretty good!

Not Nixon good.

YouTube has been recommending a lot of videos from the Nixon Foundation, which I guess runs the presidential library, sells merch, etc. Feel like their social media team is really leaning into "bet you miss him now, eh?" (I don't, though.)

I'm surprised there isn't a counter-propagandist "Nixon still a craven shitbird" group pumping out unflattering videos

https://i.postimg.cc/t4j8Gzm5/nixon.jpg

"Summer," "fun," and "Nixon," all in the same sentence.