Reddit reviews Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America

Not Netflix documentaries, but the three books by Rick Perlstein chronicling modern American conservatism are probably some of the best reads about this topic you will find.

Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus

Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America

The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan

I'm reading Nixonland and slowly realizing that Johnson's Great Society didn't fail because people didn't want it. It failed because people didn't want black people to have access to it.

Trying to catch stuff that hasn't been mentioned here already:

Films:

Bob Roberts (1992)

Bulworth (1998)

Primary Colors (1998)

Documentaries:

The War Room (1993)

The Century of the Self (BBC)

The Power of Nightmares (BBC)

Books:

Anything by Al Franken

Lies: And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them

The Truth (with Jokes)

Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations

Other authors:

Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam

Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America by Rick Perlstein

Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right
by David Neiwert

Nixonland might be the biography

https://www.amazon.com/Nixonland-Rise-President-Fracturing-America/dp/074324303X

I always recommend the 1 - 2 punch of Nixonland followed immediately by All the Presidents Men. The first is a fantastic over-view of Nixons whole career which really helped put the events of the second into perspective for me.

> The sad thing is that Nixon was actually a pretty good President.

This is a great book you might enjoy:

https://www.amazon.com/Nixonland-Rise-President-Fracturing-America/dp/074324303X


Remember that Nixon was the politician who recognized what an opportunity it would be for the GOP (and for himself) to run on a racist platform to attract white Southern democrats to the GOP. The Southern Strategy was executed by Nixon. He more than anyone else forged a path for white racists to preserve their own political viability; Nixon's victory in 1968 ended the Civil Rights Movement, and paved the way for its ultimate reversal and overturning -- a process that took decades to play out, but is finally being completed under Trump. (It was just a few years ago that the Roberts Court gutted one of the two key accomplishments of the Civil Rights Era -- the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which finally established the right of blacks to vote.

>Keep hammering partisan divides though, because that's gonna solve everything,

he said, without a hint of irony or self-awareness.

Again, you fundamentally fail to grasp my point: it isn't about "association," it's about rhetoric and electoral strategy.

But hey, don't let the lack of any substantial research get in the way of your very-serious opinions. I mean, not when there are paparazzi photos that can tell you what to believe.

Nixonland

No. Richard Nixon is the only president who voluntarily left office before the end of his term. Every other president left office after choosing not to seek another term, being defeated in an election, or dying in office. There are several presidents who were elected and served one term then were defeated in the next election (Adams, Q. Adams, Pierce, Hoover, Carter, etc.), but none of them can be fairly characterized as having been ‘protested out of office.’

The closest that the US ever came to protesting a president out of office would have to be Nixon’s immediate predecessor, Lyndon B. Johnson. Johnson became president in 1963 after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. During his first term (from 63-64, finishing JFK’s term), he had remarkably high approval ratings (an average of 74% according to gallup)). He succeeded in passing the Civil Rights act, then was re-elected in 1964 one of the most lopsided elections in American history. His second term included passage of the voting rights act along with the war on poverty embodied by the great society programs. However, he also began American involvement in Vietnam. By 1968, mostly as a result of the war, Johnson was deeply unpopular with the Democratic party, which was in the process of tearing itself apart. As he had taken over from Kennedy more than halfway through his term, Johnson was still eligible to run for re-election. Due largely to the unpopularity of Vietnam, he was challenged in the Democratic primary by the anti-war Eugene McCarthy. Although he won the first primary (in New Hampshire) McCarthy had a relatively strong showing, which demonstrated Johnson’s electoral weakness to the rest of the party. Seeing this, Robert Kennedy entered the race 4 days later. Realizing that he had no realistic path to victory, Johnson withdrew from the race on March 31, 1968.

As for Nixon, he left office ‘voluntarily,’ choosing to resign rather than be forced out by impeachment. Although there were frequent protests against Nixon during his administration (again largely due to Vietnam), he maintained high popularity for most of his time in office and was re-elected in 1972, winning with 60% of the popular vote and an electoral college margin of 520 to 17. Nixon’s popularity did not collapse until the full scope of Watergate came to light. After the congressional hearings in May 1973, his approval ratings collapsed into the 20s and never recovered. It is important to note that while the late 60s and early 70s are often remembered for being times of significant protests and counter-culture movements, it was still counter-culture. I.e. it often represented the views of a disproportionally loud minority. Nixon understood this and was able to use protests against him as a wedge issue to motivate his base. He coined the (frequently misused) term ‘silent majority’ to represent this division. The silent majority was the large group of Americans who supported the war and did not protest.



Sources / recommended Reading for Nixon and Johnson:

Nixonland by Rick Perlstein

All the Robert Caro LJB Books

All the President’s Men Woodward and Bernstein’s account of the Watergate investigation