What's the secret of Nixon's unpopularity?

[Zorro]

Most American presidents' reputations improve after they leave office. In the warm light of history, once-derided chief executives seem to gain retroactive stature.

The most vivid example is Harry Truman, who left the White House during the Korean War with the lowest job approval ever recorded by Gallup — 22%! — but has since steadily risen in the eyes of historians and the general public. The same is true of Bill Clinton, who left office under a hail of ethics questions but is now considered a bona fide Wise Man by Democrats and even some Republicans. It's even true of Lyndon B. Johnson, whose achievements on civil rights have almost balanced out the agonies of the Vietnam War.

But not Richard M. Nixon.

Nixon, who resigned 40 years ago Saturday, has somehow managed the opposite feat: A generation after his departure, he looks even worse.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-mcmanus-column-nixon-resignation-tapes-20140809-column.html

Nixon is the progenitor of all the Republican assholery this country has endured over the past 40 years. It's quite understandable why he remains so unpopular.

[onehandle]

1. He was a better President than Ford, Reagan, Bush, and Shrub.

Quitting was his undoing.

[Zambero]

5. Quite correct

I would have traded Nixon for any of those four, especially the 2nd on 4th on the list. However, he quit only after being informed be Goldwater that he would be impeached in the House and convicted in the Senate, with few in his own party willing to bail him out. So he resigned as the "best" option.

[immoderate]

2. Nobody wants to have a beer with him?

--imm

[DonCoquixote]

3. Charisma

I really hate to say it, but if Nixon had the Charisma of Bill Clinton, he woudkl have gotten away with it. Look at what Ronnie Ray Gun pulled off, not to mention Clinton, who very likely would NEVER have founded an EPA.

[Zambero]

4. His creepy personality or paranoid obsession with political foes?

He was brilliant in many ways, quite skilled in diplomatic circles, and a pragmatic politician whose approach to domestic policy was mainstream for the most part. But at the end of the day he was his own worst enemy.

[cyberswede]

6. His reputation as a crook, imo.

He got caught.

Once all of us who were alive during his presidency are gone, maybe that will change. Currently, there are too many of us with good memories. (I was only 8 when he resigned; it will take a while for all of us who remember to be gone).

[cyberswede]

7. On a related note...What's the secret of Reagan's Popularity?

Seriously...that dude was more damaging to the U.S. than anyone I can think of, yet there's a bunch of folks who adore the guy - WTF is up with that?

[Thor_MN]

15. The Cons learned from Nixon, wrote him off and defended Ronnie.

They didn't change anything other than how to defend the crimes committed by their presidents.

[jmowreader]

16. Reagan knew how to act

Ronnie played the part of everyone's favorite grandfather.

[Warpy]

8. Yeah, I keep pointing out to younger folks that every asshole, crook and thug

in every GOP administration since Nixon got his start with Nixon. I don't have to point out his rabid anticommunism and paranoia over a bunch of scruffy college kids led to a 40 year program of militarizing the police, something now having devastating consequences, we're all feeling those consequences every time we see a cop.

It's not what he did, which was bad enough, it was the way he changed his party over the next decades. It was his total disdain of the rule of law covering even a president. It was his pardon that gave all his demons, imaginary and real, a get out of jail free card along with him and allowed the GOP to pursue the malignant idea of the "unitary executive," AKA dictator.

In addition, he looked like what he was, jowly, dark and brooding. That's probably 50% of his unpopularity right there, keeping him unpopular with the fake celebrity fans.

[Zorro]

13. Roger Ailes, Pat Buchanan, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Karl Rove

and on and on and on...they all started infesting government and the media under Nixon.

The war on drugs was Nixon's "fuck you" to the college students protesting the Viet Nam war.

I was in college during the Nixon years and I remember his assholery quite well -- as well as his indicted VP Spiro, who was taking bribes in his government office.

[applegrove]

9. I read Nixon's authorized biography in the early 1990s. I was a kid when he abdicated.

Knew the Watergate story as seen in the movie. Didn't have enough perspective on American politics to see the book as the con job it was. I walked around thinking Nixon was not so bad for a bit.

[unrepentant progress]

10. He did a lot of good for entirely the wrong reasons

He did many more horrific things for even worse reasons.

To my mind, if it wasn't for Nixon's character defects, and the actions arising from them (which include sabotaging the Paris peace talks before he was elected), he could have been the 3rd greatest president of the 20th century.

[customerserviceguy]

11. Vietnam

If he had either won the war, or just bugged out of there in a hurry, leading to the same outcome that an additional half dozen years of war produced, then he wouldn't have been despised. He ran on having a secret plan to end the war, and by 1968, a lot of Americans were tired of it and wanted to get it over with.

Had we saved tens of thousands of American lives by either winning or withdrawing, he might have gone down in history as a great leader. I doubt that he would have pulled the cover-up shit had he felt more confident about his chances for re-election.

[Brigid]

12. Nixon was devious, paranoid, and utterly devoid of charisma.

Even my kid brother didn't like him, and he was in grade school back then.

[jwirr]

14. You had to have been there to understand. He was not likable. And his actions and paranoia added

to his problems.