From Watergate, which took place 50 years ago next week, to January 6 is a measure of a transformed society. Though Nixon had just been re-elected by a landslide — the largest Republican presidential victory in history, with 61 per cent of the vote — the US Senate voted unanimously to open an investigation into the Watergate burglary. Not one Republican dissented. The allegation that the US president might be a crook was too serious to be treated as normal politics.
Donald Trump, by contrast, had recently been defeated for re-election when all but two Republicans voted against a House of Representatives inquiry into the January 6 2021 storming of Capitol Hill. The two profiles in courage, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, are now likely to be finished as Republicans. Their party successfully filibustered an attempt to set up a Senate committee. That is one yardstick of how much has changed…
Whatever Nixon’s psychology, exposing what he had done shocked the nation and changed tens of millions of minds, including loyalists. But it was the criminal methods he used to cover it up, rather than the underlying crime, which flipped the public mood. Trump, by contrast, is an open book. He publicly incited an attempt to reverse an election and owns “Stop the Steal” as a rallying logo. Moreover, this is not the America of 1973. Most minds are already made up. More than 40 per cent of Americans agree with Trump.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member