Breaking: Nixon Resigns

[Newest Reality]

(a little nostalgia here and inspiration for a second resignation)

Richard Milhous Nixon announced last night that he will resign as the 37th President of the United States at noon today.

<snip>

After two years of bitter public debate over the Watergate scandals, President Nixon bowed to pressures from the public and leaders of his party to become the first President in American history to resign.

"By taking this action," he said in a subdued yet dramatic television address from the Oval Office, "I hope that I will have hastened the start of the process of healing which is so desperately needed in America."

I am not kidding around. I think it is a viable option if the impeachment proceeds. It doesn't hurt to float the idea.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. I remember watching that speech with great glee.

I don't expect Trump to do the same thing, though, because while Nixon was a bad guy he was nevertheless sane and realistic. Trump is neither.

[Aussie105]

2. A new phrase for the common use thereof:

Nixon became known as 'Tricky Dicky'.

Now, I suggest another easily recognised saying:

'Doing a Trump'. Someone so obnoxious, someone so oblivious to the accepted rules, that you just have to do something. Anything.

UK residents can use 'Doing a Boris' to mean the same thing instead.

[Newest Reality]

3. I would hope so.

I also think the word "trumpian" should eventually go in the dictionary with several definitions that we all can already anticipate.

That's a great way to commemorate this long debacle.

[Aussie105]

4. A great challenge

for any speech writer: attempting to write Trump's 'abdication' speech, and make it sound acceptable.

Will he totally flip out, and blame others, or just sulk and say nothing?

So far we have the standard 'witch hunt' and 'Presidential harassment'.

[Wednesdays]

7. He will be like that, until the very end

"Witch hunt" and "Presidential harassment" will echo from his lips as he's being hauled off.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

5. I was a ticket agent at National Airport that evening.

I have NEVER seen the airport so dead as it was during his speech. Planes did not load at the gates so people could watch it. Not a single person came up to our counter for maybe a half hour. Absolutely unprecedented.

When I was watching the speech, especially when he said, "I've never been a quitter" I was certain the next words out of his mouth would be "and therefore I am not quitting now. I will remain in office and fight these charges," or words to that effect.

Every time I have ever watched that speech I've been in mortal fear that he won't resign, and that all of a sudden I'll be bounced into the world where Nixon somehow remained in office.

[spinbaby]

8. Nixon was embarrassed into resigning

He was never actually impeached. Dump has no shame, so he can’t be embarrassed into quitting.

[Newest Reality]

9. Trump has a brand.

I think that still matters to him. I have been giving this some thought.

My hypothesis is that he can lie about resigning and evade the quitter/loser with the manipulative rhetoric he employs. "Oh, the corruption was just too much. They had a agenda. They were always out to get me. I couldn't get anything done because of the constant witch hunts." He can play the victim well and maybe save a little face.

Now, impeachment. I don't think having that on record for committing x, y and z would be so easy to play down and it gets stamped right on his record and equated with his name which affects his brand. His mob family has something at stake with that, as well.

So, no, no shame. Embarrassment is not going to induce him to resign, but maybe other factors will.

[marked50]

10. It would be difficult to extrapolate from Nixon's resignation to today.

It was a relief that we ( as a nation) didn't have to go through an "official" impeachment in Congress, but in retrospect it seems that the groundwork of creating a stronger, constitutional framework to prevent such abuses of power in the future were aborted.

With the resignation of Nixon, without the full use of our constitutional remedies, we allowed the following President Ford to just issue a full pardon for all illegal and unethical actions that had occurred. It was something that we allowed to happen because we did not want to want to face all the ugly truths that were there- "Let's move on" would be the mantra. The full attack on our values was "swept under the rug".

It seems that we missed the opportunity to put these assaults on our system of governance into a ray of sunlight that Impeachment may have given it.

This "simple" solution may have given to rise to the concept in Republican values that you can push those concepts of our Democracy and values towards something we do not wish to live in with truly a minimum of retribution- just the lost of a President.

This may have likely given the subtle "OK" for Reagan to engage in undermining Carter in "Iran-gate" (because Nixon did it with Vietnam and LBJ / Humphrey). The end result of this was that Republicans were even more emboldened to engage in what we may call "pushing the boundaries".

"Pushing the Boundaries" would now be included in the Republican Playbook. It would encompass many Republican players that many would consider people without any ethical boundaries. An example of this is in the area of voter suppression, that we have seen spread in Republican controlled areas and resulted in the election of GWB.

With all the subterfuge that has enabled Trump, it will be critical to our Democracy that all that has delivered us to this point be revealed. A Resignation will not be sufficient. All must be exposed. And all must be accountable.