Our Reverse-Nixon Era
Back then, the White House was obsessed with enemies lists and conspiracies, now we have a President trying to calm crowds riled by the prospect of death panels and plots to steal its freedoms. As Obama’s approval ratings fall, pinpointing American paranoia is much harder than it was in the 1970s.
Just as the social upheavals of the 1960s allowed Richard Nixon to play on the anxieties of what he called The Silent Majority, the Era of Change has stirred up primal fears among Americans who need someone or something to blame for their unhappiness–Big Government, Obama’s race, anything Other they can find to hate and vilify.
“Never forget,” a Nixon tape revealed him telling his advisors, “the press is the enemy. The establishment is the enemy, the professors are the enemy… Write that on a blackboard 100 times.”
Now, instead of hate flowing outward from the White House, it is being directed at everyone in Washington–the Administration, Congress, the media–and no amount of rational argument about the specifics of health care reform will make it all go away.
The current rage is no doubt being stoked by fringe activists, but its persistence has to be taken seriously as a reaction to something that has unsettled millions.
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3 Responses to “Our Reverse-Nixon Era”
The fundamental problem with all this is the internet. No one can control it, and opponents are using it to undermine Obama, just like liberals used it to undermine Bush.
I lived those times.
I can clearly remember being in the military standing in morning formation. A sergeant major dressed in a civilian suit and tie wearing a fedora walked through the ranks saying over and over “vote republican” as he strolled past us before a national election. A clear violation of law. I of course I exploded and thus remained a private far longer than anybody else on every trumped up BS UCMJ charge they could bestow on me.
The Vietnam war was on hot and heavy and I was determined to serve and defend my country, but naively I believed that our leaders from that sergeant major to the president should be better at serving our country than an eighteen year old kid like me. In my mind, serving our country started by respecting other legitimate political opinions, but certainly by obeying the law. Boy was my world rocked by the raw truth of corruption, greed, and, self serving abuses of power. I can tell you that it is a fact that many young people serving in the military back then did in fact die uselessly directly attributable to our leader’s corruption that stemmed from the sergeant to the president. So when Nixon was “busted” and resigned in disgrace, that is when I began to believe in my country again. I had renewed hope which diffused my anger.
IMO, the “current rage”, is based in the fact that nobody really knows the truth or where to turn for the truth and it is clear that the truth is being manipulated, but unfortunately nobody knows to what extent that manipulation exists. In this, the media has utterly failed to serve our country and has become a propaganda machine somewhat emulating of what existed in the soviet union. Unfortunately today, I see no hope.
What's most remarkable to the intelligent is the pathological backlash by the Left rather than honest and open admission that the health care effort is in trouble and that the House legislation effort in particular is increasingly rejected by the public (predictably mischaracterized as part of the hate-filled Left backlash).