Tuesday, July 17, 2018

1974 or 2018? What's changed?

I finished up reading the Woodward abd Bernstein book The Final Days, and boy are things not that different today. Even down to the fact that the amoral GOP President goes to Russia/the Soviet Union in the Summer, and gets rolled in a 1-on-1 meeting with the Russian leader.

But this sequence in May 1974 really rings loud today.
[GOP leadership] would quietly poll the House Republicans. Each would talk,to about twenty-five members.

The message - and it came back very fast - was political: Above all else an overwhelming majority of House Republicans were terribly worried about their political futures, and the last thing they wanted to see was a March on the White House by their leadership. They didn't want to vote on impeachment until after the election, they didn't want to vite on impeachment period. They needed hard-core Republicans to win in November. They needed the people who run local campaigns, ring football's, raise the money. Nixon's fight was their fight. Those people saw Nixon as an underdog, a man under attack by their own enemies-the press and the Congressional liberals.

The only differences between Summer 1974 and 2018?

1. The Dems ran Congress in 1974, so GOPs couldn't avoid holding hearings and having subpoenas fly against the crooks.

2. Nixon wasn't getting help by the Russians and vote suppression from GOP guvs and legislatures at the state level.

3. Koched-up SuperPACS to try to keep rogue GOPs in line.

But worth noting- 3 months after that passage where GOPs were sticking with Nixon? Tricky Dick had barely 20% in either the House or Senate that didn't want him gone.

3 months later, the GOP got their asses rightfully kicked in the midterms. It better happen again in 2018, for everyone's sake.

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