It used to be that those guys were on the fringes of the party. Nixon was a crook, but he established the EPA and OSHA. That was just a normal thing for a Republican to do in the 1970s.

The GOP is a big tent party, and so they've always had room for the extreme right wing. These days, the tent is getting smaller, and unless you're an out-and-out fascist you're not really welcome. Unfortunately, half the country feels a stronger tie to that party than to their country, so they're squeezing into that smaller tent.

I mean yes, but this feels intentional.

It's different though. Even W and his admin at least felt that they had to keep up a certain decorum. Trump said shit every day that Bush would have probably considered political suicide to even get caught saying in private, if a recording got out.

Nixon resigned when things were looking bad for him, Trump just doubles down. Like this entire campaign is pretty much him trying to get a crown because, for a while at least, it looked like that would be his only way of avoiding consequences for some of the shit he's done. Though, to be fair, Nixon resigning might have been his way of avoiding the consequences because he knew he was getting a pardon. But even that shows a difference because Nixon never seriously considered just trying to pardon himself, at least not in public, while it was a big topic during Trump's presidency.

Also Nixon resigned because he knew impeachment was a real possibility because even his own party wouldn't risk their own political careers to protect a criminal president. With Trump, my pov is the rules need a complete overhaul because they can't handle the level of bad faith present in the government now.

In hindsight, it was naive to rely on gentlemen's rules to keep the government running smoothly, but those rules were at least followed in appearance until 2016 (though the conservatives did start using them in bad faith before that, like with Obama's supreme court nomination).