taking sides: lyndon baines johnson vs. richard milhous nixon

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