When looking at our own political scene today it's hard not to draw connections to the Watergate scandal of 1972; a Republican president attempting to elicit information that could be used to harm their Democratic rival in the race in an illegal way. Similarly, both times the President was elected and the scandal-plagued their time in office, and both times the media played a large role in what narrative was dictated to the American people about what was happening.
Watergate was a political scandal that took place leading up to the election of 1972 between the incumbent, Republican, candidate Richard Nixon and Democratic candidate George McGovern. In an attempt to gain "dirt" on the Democratic candidate George Mcgovern Four Ex-CIA operatives and a member of the Committee to re-elect the President often called CREEP were caught on June 17th. Though no direct evidence link was found connecting the President to the incident it became clear that something wasn't right. The Washington Post picked up the story and played a key role in pushing the scandal into the spotlight of most Americans. The administration came under fire, resisting attempts at government probing and refusing to release tapes discussing the scandal. Causing a constitutional crisis in which the supreme court unilaterally ruled, in Nixon Vs. The United States, that Nixon must hand over the tapes. When it was discovered that Nixon did indeed play a role in covering up the scandal the republican party who had clung to Nixon throughout his Presidency now were forced to turn their back. The mounting pressure and looming impeachment forced Nixon to resign on August 9th, 1974.
Compare that to the 2016 scandal that started with the Russian Hacking of the DNC's servers releasing private information. Then as many Americans discovered after the infamous 2016 election between Doland Trump and Hillary Clinton that there might be collusion between the Trump Campaign and the Russian Government. At first, James Comey ex-director of the FBI started a probe but was soon fired with little to no reasoning given. Then Robert Muller was appointed to lead the Southern District of New York's investigation into possible Russian Collusion. They discovered that big names such as George Papadopoulos, a former Trump Campaign Manager, and Doland Trump Jr had both met with Russians in an effort to try and gain campaign information that would damage Hillary Clinton. More recently Rodger Stone and Michael Cohen two extremely senior and close personnel to Trump have been arrested in their efforts to cover up something pertaining to the Russian Collusion scandal. Michael Cohen said as of Feb. 27, 2019, that "He [Trump] is a racist. He is a con man. And he is a cheat." Yet it seems that the Republicans learned their lesson from last time, realizing the importance of having news on your side, in fact, Roger Ailes the founder of Fox News promoted its founding due to the importance of having news on your side even stating to Nixon that, “Television is not a gimmick, and if you think it is, you'll lose again." Now, it seems that Fox News is doing its job, churning out a constant stream of pro-GOP content in which Trump is never to blame for anything. It seems to be working too, ask any Trump supporter why the most recent development in this scandal isn't Trump's fault and chances are that they'll give you a ready-made answer straight from Sean Hannity, Fox and Friends, or Tucker Carlson. Yet, we see all the warning signs, perjury, hush money, obstruction of justice and the president's close personnel being arrested and charged. We as the American people must learn to study the past and consider the blatant paterns in history and how this might end up this time.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/glanton/ct-met-dahleen-glanton-trump-nixon-corruption-20181130-story.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/richard-nixon-and-roger-ailes-1970s-plan-to-put-the-gop-on-tv/2011/07/01/AG1W7XtH_blog.html?utm_term=.8f0ad3839b7e
https://www.britannica.com/event/Watergate-Scandal
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/09/20/us/politics/russia-trump-election-timeline.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/27/us/politics/michael-cohen-trump.html
This was a very interesting post, and it's interesting to see the parallels in the two events. We all know that Nixon left office following the Watergate scandal, but he did so by resigning from office. It's interesting to think if our current president could resign from office if enough evidence comes to light, or maybe we'll see a true impeachment of the president.
ReplyDeleteI think that it's very interesting and very true what you are saying about the warning sign such as perjury, hush money, and obstruction of justice. I also feel as if people already know about these signs but because they feel as if they don't have power to change this they don't do anything.
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