this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2026
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I think it's important to differentiate between what Nixon did and the spirit of the time. Many of Nixon's reforms, while positive, were done in the interest of staving off more radical reforms by the Democratic Party, many of which had become extremely popular over the past decade.
My how the Overton Window has shifted eh?
tbf, the period of popularity of these issues was pretty brief. Proposals which were passed by Nixon ~1970 would have been unthinkable ~1950.
... but yeah, we've also lost a lot of fucking ground.
Yeah, wild to see even in my lifetime how much things have shifted.
I've moved to a much further left country (Denmark) and hearing and seeing how it's slowly moving to the right as well is fascinating. It's of course a much smaller world than it used to be but it's wild how unified all of that effort it
Yep. I don't think anyone will say "Nixon was perfect!"; it's more that he is a nuanced and complicated figure that has some good amongst all the evil.
EDIT : It's easy to just look at watergate and the list of enemies, the rage and swearing and backstabbing, low charisma and say "Nixon bad". Some of the things that drove him are from his upbringing, things that were unfortunate, some based on genuine desire to be moral and do the right thing, some as a twisted form of self preservation. Do I like him? No. Do I think he's a good person? No.
I just want people to know about the depth of character he has and not just dismiss him as a cartoonish two faced villain.
Although I mock him and do the Billy West impression of him. Arooooo.