Fifty years ago, Nixon was run out of politics mostly for the crime of having insulted the sensibilities of the new class in Washington. Through the Second World War, Washington had been a provincial backwater in terms of elite culture. The war changed that, turning the city into the imperial capital with a high culture of its own. Richard Nixon was an offence to the sensibilities of the bourgeois radicals who came to dominate what is now known as permanent Washington.
When you read the bill of indictment against Nixon from this point on the time line, it has a quant and innocent feel to it. Other than the Watergate break in, the rest of the alleged misdeeds look like an idealized version of the Clinton years. His accusers claimed he interfered in various executive agencies, which was a spurious claim at the time and laughably ridiculous from the perspective of this age. Nixon was a piker compared the presidents who followed him.
Proof that the universe has a sense of humor is that the the young radicals of half a century ago are now in charge, doing all of the things that supposedly outraged them back in the Nixon years. Joe Biden, who was in national politics fifty years ago, an incredible fact all by itself, was fond of saying of Nixon that he was a singular problem, not a reflection of the system or his party. The argument in favor of defenestrating Nixon was that it was in defense of the system.
It has been clear for a long time now that Biden is personally corrupt. His son is a drug-addicted degenerate who has made tens of millions for the Biden family by selling access to and favors from his father. Fifty years ago, Biden and all of official Washington would have said such behavior is a threat to the system and the offender must be removed from office. Today, they say talking about this is a threat to our democracy and you need to be removed.
Of course, the news of Hunter Biden’s sweetheart plea deal brings up another great parallel to the Nixon years. That is the modified limited hangout. A “limited hangout” is a bit of tradecraft used when the official story for an operation is blown. The operative then fully admits that the cover story is fake and volunteers some bits of the real story, but omitting the parts that he wants to conceal. This diverts public attention to the new narrative away from the real story.
In a meeting to discuss the unfolding Watergate scandal, H. R. Haldeman described to President Nixon the new public relations plan to contain the scandal. In the conversation he described it as a modified limited hangout. Interestingly, this is now common practice in Washington. We call it spin. Every day that goofy looking African woman reads the latest narratives to the Washington press zombies who then dutifully repeat the story on their platforms.
The Hunter Biden plea deal is a modified limited hangout. The first phase is the press release describing the deal. Then the media zombies will be fed some juicy details of the crimes in order to shift focus away from the other crimes. Anyone who raises the issue of Biden taking bribes from Ukraine will then get accused of being a conspiracy theorist or maybe a shill for Putin. In other words, the Biden family admits to a small crime in order to shift attention from the big crimes.
Obviously, the difference between now and then is the media. Nixon faced a much smaller mass media, but it was extremely hostile to him. Biden will never be asked about it or have it mentioned in his presence. This is why they went with such a small hangout, rather than something more substantive. In fact, this plea deal looks like a deliberate middle-finger to the rest of us. Even brain-dead zombies in conservative media have noticed this.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the degeneracy of the mass media since the Nixon years is quite a thing to behold. Not only are they defending this crooked deal, they are treating Hunter Biden as a victim. You see, these charges are never brought, but he is the son of the most popular man in human history, so he is being held to a higher standard of justice than mere mortals. The obsequious media rumpswab is the first line of defense for our managerial tyrants.
All that said, the argument against Nixon was fundamentally a republican one, in that his critics demanded that his defenders place loyalty to the institutions over loyalty to party or the man himself. There is no doubt that many of the Republicans who finked on Nixon thought of themselves as a modern Brutus. Even though they had doubts about the motives of his accusers, sacrificing Nixon in order to elevate republican virtue was a trade they made with conviction.
Now that the roles are reversed, those radicals of fifty years ago now demand loyalty to the man in order to defend “our democracy” which simply means the system that allows them to rule unchallenged. It is a good reminder that the lawful can never deal lawfully with the unlawful. That was the mistake fifty years ago. The lawful should have done what was necessary to physically remove the radicals from society. Instead, they thought their loyalty to the law would be enough.
It is an example of the Frank Herbert quote. “When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles.” For the radicals of fifty years ago, republican virtue was a bus they rode to power. They made those arguments because they thought they would work. Once in power, they got off the bus and climbed aboard the authoritarian bus.
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