No Moorings

Donald Trump's recent actions have harkened back fifty years to another time and another president -- Richard Nixon. But, Paul Krugman writes, Trump is no Nixon:

The Trump-Nixon comparisons are obvious. Like Nixon, Trump has exploited white backlash for political gain. Like Nixon, Trump evidently believes that laws apply only to the little people.

Nixon, however, doesn’t seem to have been a coward. Amid mass demonstrations, he didn’t cower in the MAGAbunker, venturing out only after his minions had gassed peaceful protesters and driven them out of Lafayette Park. Instead, he went out to talk to protesters at the Lincoln Memorial. His behavior was a bit weird, but it wasn’t craven.

And while his political strategy was cynical and ruthless, Nixon was a smart, hard-working man who took the job of being president seriously.

More importantly, despite his character flaws, Nixon did some good things:

His policy legacy was surprisingly positive — in particular, he did more than any other president, before or since, to protect the environment. Before Watergate took him down he was working on a plan to expand health insurance coverage that in many ways anticipated Obamacare.

Trump, by contrast, appears to spend his days tweeting and watching Fox News. His administration’s only major policy achievement so far has been the 2017 tax cut, which was supposed to lead to surging business investment, but didn’t.

As in life, Trump in government has screwed up or destroyed everything he has touched.  The COVID crisis is a horrific example of the damage he does:

He responded to the Covid-19 threat first with denial, then with frantic efforts, not to control the pandemic, but to shift the blame for shambolic, ineffective policies to other people.

Nixon's times were different times.  The Republican Party was a different party. Things have changed:

The reason democracy is threatened in a way it never was under Nixon is not simply that Trump is a worse human being than Nixon ever was; it is the fact that he has so many enablers.

Trump’s authoritarian instincts, his admiration for and envy of foreign strongmen, his desire to militarize law enforcement have long been obvious. These things wouldn’t matter so much, however, if the Republican Party were still the institution it was in the 1970s — a big tent with room for a variety of views, represented in the Senate by many people with real principles. These were people willing to remove a president, even if he was a Republican, when he betrayed his oath of office.

The modern G.O.P., however, is nothing like that. Many of its leading figures — people like Senator Tom Cotton — are every bit as authoritarian and anti-democratic as Trump himself.

The rest, with hardly any exceptions, are loyal apparatchiks, intimidated into obedience by an angry base. This base gets its information from Fox and Facebook and basically lives in an alternate reality, in which protesters demonstrating peacefully against police brutality are actually a radical horde that will begin a violent insurrection any minute now.

The point is that today’s Republican Party wouldn’t object to a Trumpian power grab, even if it amounted to a military coup. On the contrary, the party would cheer it on.

The bottom line is that while parallels with the Nixon era are very real, there are important differences between now and then — and the differences aren’t reassuring. In many ways we’re a better country than we used to be, but we’re in dire political straits, because one of our two major parties no longer believes in the American idea.

Nixon was a dangerous man. But Trump is much more dangerous -- because the Republican Party has completely lost its moorings.

Image: The New York Times

In His Pocket

Robert Reich writes that both Richard Nixon and Donald Trump abused the power of the presidency. But there is one big difference between the two men:

The difference between Richard Nixon's abuse of power (trying to get dirt on political opponents to help with his 1972 reelection, and then covering it up) and Donald Trump's abuse (trying to get Ukraine's president to get dirt on a political opponent to help with his 2020 reelection, and then covering it up) isn't just that Nixon's involved a botched robbery at the Watergate while Trump's involves a foreign nation.

It's that Nixon's abuse of power was discovered during his second term, after he was reelected. He was still a dangerous crook, but by that time he had no reason to inflict still more damage on American democracy.

Yesterday's revelations, from both Trump and three congressional committees, make one thing  -- as Nixon used to say -- "perfectly clear." If Trump wins the 2020 election, all bets are off:

As we've learned, Trump uses whatever bargaining leverage he can get, for personal gain. That's the art of the deal.

Who can we count on to protect our election process in 2020?

Good question. Don't look to the Justice Department to ensure justice:

Certainly not Attorney General William Barr. Trump urged Zelensky to work with Barr to investigate Joe Biden, even telling Zelensky that Barr would follow up with his own phone call.

Barr's Justice Department decided Trump had not acted illegally, and told the acting director of national intelligence to keep the whistle-blower complaint from Congress.

This is the same Attorney General who said Mueller's report cleared the Trump campaign of conspiring with Russia when in fact Mueller had found that the campaign welcomed Russia's help, and that Mueller absolved Trump of obstructing justice when Mueller specifically declined to decide the matter.

The ultimate check is Republican senators. And, at this point, they're in Trump's pocket.

Image: CNN.com

Sometimes It Rhymes

William Ruckelshaus  knows something about desperate presidents. He was Elliot Richardson's deputy during the Saturday Night Massacre. He writes in The Washington Post:

In October 1973, Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Cox. Richardson refused and resigned. As deputy attorney general and next in line, I was ordered by the president to fire Cox; I also refused and resigned. Cox was finally fired by Solicitor General Robert H. Bork. The result is what came to be known as the Saturday Night Massacre.

Neither Richardson nor I saw any justifiable reason for Cox’s dismissal. When it became clear that Cox would not give up his pursuit of the Oval Office tapes, Nixon took the only action he could to protect himself: He tried to get rid of the man charged with investigating him.

Like Trump, Nixon was a desperate man:

Nixon was desperate. His goal was to shut down the Watergate investigation by ridding himself of Cox. Instead, Nixon got Leon Jaworski, the highly respected former president of the American Bar Association. Nine months later, the Supreme Court handed down a unanimous decision forcing Nixon to release the tapes that proved his guilt. Shortly thereafter, the president resigned.

Trump might attempt to shut down the Mueller investigation, but if he fires the special counsel, he could face the same result Nixon faced. He would look like a president with something to hide. He would unleash forces bigger than one man, because Americans believe no one is above the law, not even the president.

Nixon was brought down by his disrespect for the rule of law. The hundreds of letters I received after my refusal to fire Cox enshrined this thought in my head for the rest of my life.

It’s hard to believe that, 45 years later, we may be in store for another damaging attack on the foundations of our democracy. Yet the cynical conduct of this president, his lawyers and a handful of congressional Republicans is frightening to me and should be to every citizen of this country. We are not playing just another Washington political game; there is much more at stake.

History doesn't repeat itself. But, Mark Twain wrote, "sometimes it rhymes."

Image: World Resources Institute