Nixon's freak-out period was really only a few weeks of serious depression in his final days in office in 1974. Nixon, for all his character flaws, had a top rate intellect and a pragmatic turn of mind. He'd hired around himself a cabinet that left the government's non-political functions operating quite well across all departments. He'd also brought in, after the Watergate resignations came through, a pretty competent White House staff that kept the routine administration tasks moving smoothly. And for those who've read Woodward & Bernstein's book The Final Days, General Alexander Haig did a near heroic job as Chief of Staff, keeping the president on task and away from giving into his worst excesses.
Reagan and Wilson's degrees of incapacitation may never be known. But both had entered office with strong mindsets and had around them key staffers who continued their work and sense of national mission while the chief executive was somewhat un-marbled. Wilson actually recovered a bit from his stroke during 1920. The importance here is that there was already a forward motion, a residual propulsion toward responsible behavior, that lingered after the boss lost his competency. Reagan had Don Regan and Howard Baker to support him. Wilson had Edith Wilson mother-henning him through the worst of his illness.
With Trump, we don't have that. He walked into office determined to do bad things. All his little toadies are there to plunder or to bring the rot of white nationalism into public policy. At their worst, Nixon, Reagan, and Wilson were engaged in misadministration. Trump's goal seems to be maladministration. It's both a bursocracy, government by bribe, and a kleptocracy, government by theft (or, more properly, a leilacracy--government by looting). There's no one around trying to right the course (ironically, the course to the far right). The tone Trump is setting is "let's crush the opposition; let's win by making everyone else lose". As bad as Reagan and Nixon and the Bushes ever were, their goals were more or less national success. Trump's seems to be using the bait of success to hook more of America under his power. In a word, fascism.
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