Was the Watergate scandal more than just a burglary and a cover-up? Was Richard Nixon targeted by elements of the deep state? Were Democrats, bureaucrats, and journalists working together to construct a delegitimizing narrative about Nixon? The scandal resembles what we saw happen to Donald Trump during his first term and in the interregnum afterward. More than resembles—it looks like it’s from the same playbook.
Several of the Watergate burglars had intelligence backgrounds, and the key leaker, “Deep Throat,” turned out to be FBI deputy director Mark Felt, who hated Nixon. It would be naïve to deny that entrenched figures in the CIA and FBI resented Nixon’s efforts to rein in and reform the intelligence agencies. Were their leaks and maneuvers part of a broader struggle for control?
President John Kennedy was likely assassinated over his intent to reform the intelligence apparatus. We don’t think these same forces would bring down a president by manufacturing a scandal? It would also be naïve to not wonder if Democratic operatives and sympathetic journalists weren’t simply investigating or reporting events but actively shaping the narrative and timing to maximize Nixon’s political damage.
Back then, the public had more trust in the media than they do now, and there were only a handful of TV stations—and they were all pumping out the same gospel. Imagine if Americans had had the Internet back then and the myriad of alternative news channels they now enjoy. However, then, Democrats had been through a period of remarkable hegemony going back to Roosevelt. A popular and populist president in Nixon threatened the administrative state project and consolidation of progressive power across all facets of government. Moreover, having so successfully crushed Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential election, to have Nixon crush the Democrats in 1972 must have been an insufferably humiliating moment.
The same rhetoric we hear today used against Donald Trump was used against Nixon back in the day. In this frame, Nixon was an authoritarian who sought total state power. His support for law and order, his crackdowns on “peaceful protestors,” his push for expanded executive authority—his exercise of Article II powers were cast as excesses and used to paint him as a “fascist.” Taken together, it feels less like an isolated scandal and more like a historical example of lawfare and a propaganda offensive being deployed to remove a president who had become a threat to the existing order. Had I recognized this growing up, the persecution of Trump might feel more like Nixon 2.0 than a novel historical moment. But I was just a kid—and my parents raised me to hate Republicans, especially Nixon.
I wasn’t alive—nor anybody living—when Democrats and journalists incessantly accused Lincoln of being an authoritarian, likening him to a dictator or a king. They decried the extraordinary powers he claimed during the Civil War—his suspension of habeas corpus, his use of military tribunals, and his expansion of federal authority—as unconstitutional grab” meant to centralize power in Washington. Democratic newspapers railed against Lincoln as a “tyrant” who was destroying “states’ rights.” Democrats in the North painted him as a usurper bent on establishing despotism under the guise of “saving the Union” (i.e., “Make America great again.”)
These criticisms emanated from the executive branch itself. Secretary of the Treasury Salmon Chase criticized him over the “expansion” of presidential power. General George McClellan criticized him as incompetent and too willing to transgress the guardrails of the separation of powers. Democrats and journalists of the era advanced a narrative of Lincoln as a threat to democracy, not unlike the charges later hurled at Nixon and Trump. A Democrat assassinated Lincoln.
As I have argued on this platform, the Democratic Party, going all the way back to the Slavocracy, is hellbent on undermining the American Republic. They don’t believe in the Constitution, re-describing the inherent powers of the Executive as authoritarian in themselves.
Humans are pattern recognition machines. However, some forces would throw a wrench into the machine and accuse those recognizing patterns of being “conspiracy theorists.” I see patterns. They’re everywhere. Watergate fits a pattern—the pattern of lawfare.
freedom and reason 