J.D. Vance Identifies With Nixon, Which Says a Lot |
One of the odder but also most telling quirks of the more intellectual of the MAGA warriors is a decided soft spot for Richard Nixon. That’s right: the disgraced 37th president of the United States, forced to resign to avoid almost certain impeachment and removal from office, is a not-so-secret heartthrob for devotees of the 45th and 47th president.
During the 2024 presidential campaign, Vivek Ramaswamy raised some eyebrows by insisting that Nixon (you know, the president who opened diplomatic relations with Red China, promoted détente with the Soviet Union, and perpetuated a forever war in Vietnam) had forged the original America First foreign policy. He was far from alone in his nostalgia for The Tricky One. Highly influential culture warrior Christopher Rufo has treated Nixon as Trump’s progenitor on a broad range of issues, from law-and-order appeals to the demonization of academia and the liberal media, with special emphasis on Nixon’s battles with the federal bureaucracy he inherited from the New Deal and Great Society initiatives:
The question that troubled Nixon during his presidency was the basic one of politics: Who rules? He saw that the deepest conflict in the United States was not along lines of class, race, or identity but between the bureaucracy and the people.
The question that troubled Nixon during his presidency was the basic one of politics: Who rules? He saw that the deepest conflict in the United States was not along lines of class, race, or identity but........