“Watergate” grew to become so synonymous with scandal and political corruption that the media took to easily including “gate” to any recent controversy. But the unique has been referenced quite a bit these days, because of these drawing direct comparisons between Donald Trump’s use of the Justice Division and the lawlessness of Richard Nixon.
Regardless of Trump shattering presidential norms and two first-term impeachments, critics say final week’s indictment of former FBI Director James Comey — which Trump publicly demanded on Reality Social — represents utilizing the regulation to do the president’s bidding at a degree Nixon might have solely dreamed of.
For that, Trump owes a debt of gratitude to somebody who labored for Nixon, the late Roger Ailes, who after serving as a White Home advisor went on to create Trump’s most boisterous media protect, Fox Information Channel.
Ailes noticed Fox Information as a option to degree an unequal media enjoying subject that was tilted in opposition to conservatives. Within the Trump period, Fox has change into a daily booster of his alternate model of actuality, serving to justify and clarify his actions. It’s a symbiotic relationship that has facilitated Trump’s efforts, together with his weaponization of the Justice Division to go after perceived enemies.
Earlier than the election in October 2024, the Washington Submit’s Bob Woodward, who broke the Watergate story with Carl Bernstein, warned that Trump is “far worse than Richard Nixon.” To many political observers, Trump is proving that time in his second time period, as he has openly known as upon the DOJ to prosecute his enemies in public, crusing previous Nixon’s schemes that have been performed below the veil of secrecy.
Certainly, whereas Nixon stored an “enemies checklist” and wished to wield the levers of presidency “to screw our political enemies,” as White Home counsel John Dean wrote in a 1971 memo, he wound up resigning after efforts to halt the FBI investigation into the Watergate break-in have been uncovered.
In contrast, Trump has not solely overtly abused the Justice Division’s independence however has engaged in different actions which have enriched him and his household, equivalent to their crypto investments, which have authorized students shaking their heads, sounding alarms that in some other time would sound like hyperbole.
Showing on MSNBC final week, former Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman advised host Ari Melber, “I by no means anticipated after Watergate to see one other state of affairs like that once more, however we’ve it now on steroids.”
Watching Trump climate varied scandals, debate has endured over whether or not Nixon may need survived Watergate had Fox Information existed, which Ailes envisioned lengthy earlier than Rupert Murdoch gave him the assets to launch it in 1996.
Ailes and different Nixon aides hatched the plan for a Nixon-friendly TV community that may push pro-administration propaganda in 1970, writing in a memo on the time, “Persons are lazy. With tv you simply sit — watch — hear. The pondering is finished for you.”
Nixon favored the concept of disseminating what was described as “our personal information,” however the plan didn’t come to fruition earlier than Watergate triggered his downfall in 1974. Greater than twenty years would cross earlier than Fox Information got here into being the identical 12 months as MSNBC, increasing the cable information menu whereas funneling that house into ideological silos, leaving the class’s founder, CNN, stranded someplace within the center.
That polarization, which has come to incorporate a refrain of Trump-defending voices on social media, has certainly proved advantageous because the president seeks retribution in opposition to these he perceives as having crossed him — a technique met with enthusiastic assist from high-profile Fox hosts like Sean Hannity, Jesse Watters and Greg Gutfeld.
Their arguments boil all the way down to the declare Trump’s opponents pursued “lawfare” in opposition to him by means of a collection of lawsuits, investigations and felony indictments, thus justifying no matter Trump does in retaliation. Different pesky particulars, like the actual fact a New York jury discovered him responsible on 34 counts of falsifying enterprise data as a part of a hush-money scheme, are merely dismissed on account of geography (New York, in spite of everything) or bias.
Positioning the dialogue that manner permits supporters to defend something Trump or his inside circle do, as podcaster (and Fox alum) Megyn Kelly illustrated when bribery allegations surfaced in opposition to Trump border czar Tom Homan, using the imperial “we” to tweet, “We don’t care.” (The Homan story has one other Nixonian precedent, since Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned within the face of comparable fees.)
Throughout Trump’s first time period, Dean contended Fox insulated the president in a fashion that may have saved Nixon, telling Politico in 2018, “There’s extra chance he may need survived if there’d been a Fox Information.”
Others echoed the purpose, together with Geraldo Rivera, who mentioned to Hannity on his radio present, “Nixon by no means would have been compelled to resign when you existed in your present state again in 1972, ’73, ’74.”
In some respects, that line of pondering has much less to do with Trump than Republican lawmakers, who broke with Nixon when proof of his efforts to impede justice grew to become public through the Watergate tapes. Immediately, Fox and different conservative media present a protecting bubble that not solely wards off destructive reporting however helps implement social gathering loyalty, with those that don’t toe the pro-Trump line risking being labeled “RINOs” (that’s, Republican In Identify Solely).
Though many have drawn Trump-Nixon parallels earlier than, the Comey indictment has revived the dialog. The problem for media elevating the difficulty is that particulars surrounding Nixon aren’t recent in folks’s minds a half-century later, regardless of the various dramatic (and comedic) depictions of him and Watergate, together with productions like “Gaslit” and “White Home Plumbers” in the previous couple of years.
Whereas Nixon’s title is inextricably linked to political corruption, it’s price recalling how Trump mirrors or surpasses him, together with animosity towards the press, paranoia about enemies and a way of victimhood, all qualities that Fox Information’ largest names assist reinforce.
In a Salon column, Heather Digby Parton known as the Trump-Nixon connections “uncanny,” writing, “Trump has gone farther than Nixon ever contemplated,” including that not like Republican lawmakers who turned in opposition to Nixon, in Trump’s case, “As his corruption and retribution have gone into overdrive, he maintains the complete and enthusiastic assist of his social gathering.”
To the extent Democrats and historians have puzzled whether or not GOP legislators may expertise pangs of conscience or develop spines, it’s price noting the media incentive construction is way totally different immediately. Republican lawmakers looking for re-election know the worth of Trump’s assist in addition to cable-news hits or appearances on pleasant podcasts; they perceive what they need to say.
Ailes died in 2017, however he has solid a protracted shadow. And whereas he didn’t understand his grand plan in time to save lots of Nixon, as Trump takes unprecedented steps to test names off his enemies checklist, Ailes’ imaginative and prescient for Fox Information continues to play a significant co-starring function in letting Trump be as dangerous as Nixon wished to be.
