Outside the Beltway

Richard And Pat Nixon Predicted The Trump Presidency

Did Richard Nixon have knowledge of the future?

Doug Mataconis
10

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RIchard Nixon Donald Trump

Guess who saw Donald Trump as a potential President thirty years ago?

Richard Nixon.

To be fair, Nixon said that his wife Pat was the one who first suggested it and there’s no indication as to whether the former President and President-elect ever met, but this is just one of those bits of political history that come out at a time like this.

And it would explain one similarity between Trump and Nixon

Trump Nixon V

Nixon V

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10 responses to “Richard And Pat Nixon Predicted The Trump Presidency”

  1. al-Ameda Avatar
    al-Ameda

    That is interesting.
    There is one notable difference between Trump and Nixon: Nixon was smart.

  2. Doug Mataconis Avatar
    Doug Mataconis

    @al-Ameda:

    Also, Nixon didn’t treat his wife(ves) like crap.

  3. Kari Q Avatar
    Kari Q

    I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but dang I wish we had Nixon back in office.

  4. Doug Mataconis Avatar
    Doug Mataconis

    @Kari Q:

    Nixon was a complex man, something I didn’t appreciate until I read Stephen Ambrose’s three volume biography of him back in the 90s. For many reasons, I think he would have been a much better President had he won in 1960 than what resulted from his election in 1968. One of the reasons for that is that his inner circle in 1960 included a decidedly different character and caliber of people in 1960 than the crowd of advisers that followed him to office in 1969. In a lot of ways, that second group allowed the darker aspects of Nixon’s personality to fester, and that was ultimately his undoing.

  5. Franklin Avatar
    Franklin

    And it would explain one similarity between Trump and Nixon

    There’s more than one similarity between Nixon and Trump. As I think we will see in the coming years, if you can’t see it already.

  6. Kari Q Avatar
    Kari Q

    @Doug Mataconis:

    I think you’re right. I had long thought that the narrow loss to Kennedy was brutally difficult for him and sent him in a direction he might not have gone otherwise, but that was just from my intuition about human nature. I haven’t read Ambrose’s biography of him, but I will.

  7. JohnMcC Avatar
    JohnMcC

    @Doug Mataconis: I get the point you were making about the blatant misogyny. There were widespread press stories in the twilight of his administration that Pat Nixon was beaten badly enough to require medical attention and had a noticeable black eye.

    I say that as someone who hated Nixon with the heat of one hundred thousand suns. The SOB convinced me to cast my first vote for him while he was conniving with President Thieu to lengthen the war.

  8. Slugger Avatar
    Slugger

    Two thoughts:
    Is this the only Nixon note of that era that predicts nice things for people? I generally send out pretty positive notes; if I have negative thoughts I keep quiet. Except on the internet where I generally insult gratuitously.
    Secondly, I agree that the 1960 defeat set Nixon on a bitter path with the ’62 loss leading to the start of the Republican disdain for the media. However, your comments regarding the 1969 crew is interesting. Did you mean Kissinger?

  9. Doug Mataconis Avatar
    Doug Mataconis

    @Slugger:

    Did you mean Kissinger?

    I meant people like Haldeman, Erlichman, and the people who were on the personal White House staff. The people like Kissinger that Nixon put in policy and Cabinet positions were, I think, generally fairly mainstream and at least didn’t actively encourage the worst aspects of Nixon’s personality.

  10. gVOR08 Avatar
    gVOR08

    @JohnMcC:

    The SOB convinced me to cast my first vote for him while he was conniving with President Thieu to lengthen the war.

    I’ve noted elsewhere that it seems you always find out later that Republicans were actually worse than you thought they were. This is a prime example.

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