I have been reading a couple of Bob Woodward’s books about Watergate recently, one I read many years ago and one I wasn’t all that familiar with.
I became aware of “The Last of the President’s Men,” Woodward’s book about the man who revealed President Nixon’s taping system, Alexander Butterfield, while reading Cassidy Hutchinson’s “Enough.”
When I was finished with thse books, I went back to reread Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s “The Final Days,” about the end of the Nixon administration. I was 24 when Nixon resigned.
I remember being so relieved when he resigned, thinking America had dodged a bullet and that there would certainly never be another Nixon.
But Nixon begat Ronald Reagan.
Reagan begat George W. Bush.
Dubya begat Donald Trump.
And 49-plus years after Nixon, with bad begetting worse and worse and worse, I find myself horrified and what could possibly come next.
I’m sure Nixon feels some sense of relief.
Of course he never was the worst. Nixon did some good things, among them starting the Environmental Protection Agency. He was also the last real Republican who made the rich pay their fair share of taxes.
Reagan ended that.
Dubya Bush got us involved in the longest wars in American history and ran up massive deficits with his own tax cuts for the rich.
And then came Trump, who stolen one election and tried to steal another. He couldn’t have succeeded if a solid third of the country hadn’t turned into imbeciles. There is no evidence at all that Trump actually won in 2020, but he says he won and his Trumpanzees insist he did.
So he’s running again, despite all sorts of criminal proceedings against him. He clearly learned one thing from Nixon. No matter how much evidence there is of your guilt, if you never admit it, some people will always believe you.
So who’s the next step on the route to American oblivion?
Do you really need to ask?
