The campaign to make Richard Nixon great again

[BumRushDaShow]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by GP6971 (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Source: NBC News

Nov. 29, 2025, 7:00 AM EST


During a segment on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” in August, activist Christopher Rufo astonished the studio audience when he said the Watergate scandal that toppled President Richard Nixon “was a setup from start to finish.” The crowd hooted. Maher retorted that there were plenty of “smoking guns” showing the late president’s guilt. But Rufo insisted that there were federal agencies that had had illegal backdoor meetings and that there was a judge who was “out to get Nixon.” Maher muttered, “Oh, geez,” to which Rufo replied with a grin and a prediction: “Nixon vindication by 2035.”

The Watergate scandal has long been viewed as a defining moment in presidential corruption and accountability, prompting a series of government transparency reforms and influencing generations of journalists. It became a shorthand comparison for political scandal and lent the omnipresent “-gate” suffix to many that followed.

But those lessons are now being flipped by some of the most influential right-wing figures, including people known to have President Donald Trump’s ear, who insist that Watergate was actually an underhanded scheme by the “deep state” and the press to take down a popular Republican president.

Watergate has often been invoked in comparison to Trump’s scandals, in both his first and current term. Many people — from historians to former Nixon officials — argue that were Watergate to happen in today’s media landscape, with the influence of conservative outlets and in particular Fox News, Nixon most likely would have survived it.

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/campaign-make-richard-nixon-great-rcna240000

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Must be a Roger Stone thing.

[NBachers]

1. Echoing up from the depths of hell: "I am not a crook"

[paleotn]

15. Yeah, Tricky. You are a crook.

And since you're down there. Go tell Jerry Falwell to go F himself.

[lastlib]

24. He's NOT a crook!

He went way BEYOND a mere crook! He's half-horse (the BACK half!), half-devil.

Well, okay, we can say he's a crook, too!

And since you're down there, DICKy, you can tell Falwell to self-fornicate for me, too. Robertson, too.

[rurallib]

2. from the "some people will believe anything" department

[wolfie001]

3. Maybe Bob Dylan can do some more music for this rePUKE too

When they do a tribute movie about all his "accomplishments". I mean, he helped with the ronnie rayguns movie. You know, the 'Destroyer of the Middle Class.'
[img][/img]

[Escape]

4. Anybody who loves and respects Trump...

would definitely love and respect Nixon.

He was a liar, a crook and an evil sonofabitch. He was a Maga precursor.

[Paladin]

5. trump makes Nixon look like Winston Churchill, by comparison.

Oh yeah, before I forget: fuck Bill Maher.

[travelingthrulife]

7. I forgot too. Fuck Bill Maher...although I don't think I have watched his show for

over a decade.

[Paladin]

9. Yeah, that's about when I stopped watching him.

Feels good, doesn't it?

[popsdenver]

25. It is more than obvious

that he has now joined in to all the Republican's REVISIONIST HISTORY also.........
I can hardly wait to see the RED states rewriting the history textbooks and science books in their public schools.....

[popsdenver]

27. AND

Nixon's clan were saints compared to HWBush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz etc.

When the surgeons removed Cheney's old heart for the new transplanted one, they had to have an exact match, and it took them forever to find one that was a Black one, made of pure titanium......

[travelingthrulife]

6. As soon as they find out how 'liberal' some of his policies were it should confuse

them even more.

[J_William_Ryan]

8. Trump's corruption and crimes are worse than Watergate.

But in today’s media landscape, with the influence of conservative outlets and in particular Fox News, Trump will in fact survived it.

Watergate was the triumph of democracy, the Constitution, and the rule of law over a criminal and corrupt Republican president.

Today a criminal and corrupt Republican president has triumphed over democracy, the Constitution, and the rule of law.

[popsdenver]

26. We shouldn't say "TRUMP" all the time

We all should be saying....THE REPUBLICANS........because there is no way Trump would exist through out his first term and especially this term without the Republicans Support. If this had happened back when the Old Republican Party was in place, Trump wouldn't have lasted more than a few days into his first term......

It actually is the fault of the NEW Republican CABAL........and couldn't have been done with out the U.S. Republican House, the U.S Republican Senate, and of course the Republican Supreme Court Justices......

We need to start saying Republicans this Republicans that, and not Trump, Trump Trump. Otherwise, when Trump crumps, literally or figuratively, the people will think that is the end of the nightmare, when in all reality the entire Republican CABAL will still be proceeding ahead, full force, because we haven't been alerting the voters, all this time, that it was the REPUBLICAN Party that truly was behind this chaos this entire last decade......

[cstanleytech]

10. Nixon was a downright honest man when compared to Trump.

[BumRushDaShow]

12. He was an entrenched governmental entity

He was a lawyer who eventually joined the Navy (despite being a Quaker), was elected to the U.S. House, then elected to the U.S. Senate, then served as VP under Eisenhower for 8 years, and finally became President for almost 2 terms.

No one could say that he didn't have "Executive Experience", which eventually became the idiotic nasty talking point hurled at Obama.

Contrast with 45 who had ZERO government experience, neither civilian nor military - in ANY level or type of government... and didn't care, and the media shrugged.

[paleotn]

14. Is that bar lying on the ground?

[WestMichRad]

21. No, I think it's dug in quite a bit deeper than that.

[cstanleytech]

41. It's at the bottom of The Mariana trench and not even James Cameron could raise it.

[ChicagoTeamster]

11. That's why Nixon's media consultant Roger Ailes started FOX News, to be a Republican messaging tool.

[BattleRow]

18. And it has not been good for what Ailes us.

[paleotn]

13. America. Not land of the free. Land of the fucking nutters.

[Mblaze]

16. Innocent men

Usually don't quit and run away from the verdict.

[patphil]

17. I lived through the Nixon era. This wasn't a setup.

It was vintage Tricky Dick; totally consistent with his everyday actions.
Rufo is full of shit.
All part of the white washing of history.

[erronis]

19. And changing textbooks to reflect the New, Revised, Improved History.

[thought crime]

32. Same bunch that call Nazis "socialists" and Reagan a Saint.

[cstanleytech]

42. Still Trump makes Nixon look like a minor league player.

[Zorro]

20. Rufo was born in 1984

He doesn't know what he is talking about, but what he has is an agenda to convince those who weren't around then that Nixon was railroaded.

Those of us who were around remember what a rotten bastard Nixon was; he is the progenitor of what the Republican Party has devolved into these days.

And Rufo is also someone who DeSantis appointed to New College's Board of Directors.

[BumRushDaShow]

28. Exactly

Most of these idiotic RWer "influencers" weren't even born until well after that whole episode of history went down. He was called "Tricky Dick", only because "polite society" couldn't say "out loud" what they really wanted to call him.

And then 45 took Nixon's "Saturday Night Massacre", pumped it up with steroids, and then in a psychotic rage, is literally still massacring people in the federal government going on 11 months straight now.

[patphil]

31. Yeah, Nixon was a first class scumbag.

He's the one who brought us Spiro Agnew; the "effete snob" who projected that onto his enemies.
After Agnew's downfall, Gerald Ford was appointed by Nixon to be VP, and when Nixon resigned, Ford became the first and only president who was never elected to either the Presidency or Vice-Presidency.

Isn't it amazing how the shadow government fixed things to insure Agnew wouldn't replace Nixon?

[lastlib]

22. Christopher Rufo's name......

should be "Christopher MOfo"!

Eff this shit. Nixon was a F*CKing CRIMINAL, period, END of discussion.

[WestMichRad]

23. Gee, are they gonna try to whitewash Spiro T., too?

Disgusting revisionists!

[BumRushDaShow]

30. Agnew would be welcome in this current administration

because he knew how to wheel and deal and handle bribes.

[WestMichRad]

34. He'd need to update his methods.

I’m not sure office delivery of bags stuffed with cash is up to today’s level of crypto grifting!

[BumRushDaShow]

36. Well folks like

former NJ Senator Bob Menendez, made "tangible loot", popular again!

[Turbineguy]

29. Just compare him to trump

he'll be the best there ever was.

[LudwigPastorius]

33. Watergate "was a setup".

True.

It is little known that, using a George Soros-funded time machine, Peter Strozk went back to 1974 and replaced the perfectly innocent Oval Office tapes with ones that used an AI generated Nixon voice making incriminating statements.

[WestMichRad]

35. So THAT's what happened to those missing 18 minutes of tape!

[BumRushDaShow]

37. It was actually

the 4-year old Peter Strzok who snuck in and ripped the shiny tape out of the cartridge!!!11!!!11!

[DJ Synikus Makisimus]

38. Does this rehab movement have bipartisan support?

"Nixon liberals," mostly from the northeast and west coast, were a thing amongst Republicans until the Powell Memorandum* begat the Federalist Society, who primaried the Nixonians out of the GOP. That led directly to Trump. The last prominent Nixon liberal I can think of was Arlen Specter, who ultimately defected to the Democrats in 2009. He wasn't the only one to do so. Nixon liberals found a home in the Democratic Party, where they're known as "moderates," beginning with Jimmy Carter's move to the right. Their position was cemented by Bill Clinton and his people (James Carville, in particular, continues this ideology), and they now pretty much comprise the entirety of the party's establishment.

Nixon liberals tended not to be down with Nixon's authoritarian tendencies, but were very much in line with his promotion and protection of the wealthy, privileged and powerful and their corporations (particularly multi-nationals). They tended to do very well by their capitalist backers (donors), too, amassing comfortable wealth while being largely exempted from insider trading rules or scrutiny. The "revolving door" between government and corporations was solidified into practice by these folks.

So you might wanna be careful about criticizing Nixon, or people might start thinking you're a progressive or, shudder, a DSAer.

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*https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/assets/usa-courts-secrecy-lobbyist/powell-memo.pdf; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_F._Powell_Jr.

[Martin68]

40. I've never met a "Nixon liberal." Sounds like an oxymoron to me.

[Martin68]

39. If it was a setup then Nixon framed himself when he recorded hours of planning and grousing sessions.

[GP6971]

43. Locking per Host Consensus. Feature Piece, Analysis

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