Poll of the Day > What did Nixon really do that was so bad he had to quit?

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I really want to know. What did Nixon do that was so bad that the American people unitedly turned on him, forcing him to quit? Yes, I know the basic answer is Watergate with the phone tapping, but that doesn't help me understand the situation that led to his resignation. How is he considered to be so bad among all of the other presidents we have had or currently have?

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Simply put the evidence against him was so concrete there was no way anyone could cover for him. The money that was used to pay the 5 people who broke into the Democratic hedquarters came directly from Nixon's campaign. Nixon was recorded on tape saying that he had organized the whole wiretapping scandal and actually tried to cover up the investigation into it.

After that, pretty much everyone in congress, even the people in his party were all against him and he had to resign or else we was going to be impeached. Many people think he resigned just so that Ford could pardon him (which he did), but I don't know if it was ever found out for sure.

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Politicians hadn't realized yet that if you just ignored scandals you would face zero consequences

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Depends on if you hold Nixon in good faith or not.

If you do, then it's because his party turned against him due to his unpopularity as a result of several public scandals (including VP Agnew's tax fraud)

If you don't, then it's because he fired the team investigating him which is super suspicious as well as the almost comedy of errors around the oval office recordings (tapes were hidden, only transcripts provided; 18 minutes of time were missing from the tapes, etc)

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I don't think you can say that Nixon resigning and Trump not resigning is evidence that one is better or worse than the other. The current Senate may not have convicted Nixon if he were currently in Trump's position.

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He literally was responsible for orchestrating a burglary of a political opponents office for purposes of influencing an election.

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I'm 100% sure if I typed in "what led to Nixon's resignation " in google I would find faster, more reliable information than waiting for a bunch of dudes to argue about it.

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He quit because he thought he was going to be removed from office anyway and wanted to spare himself the embarrassment. However, as we learned from Bill Clinton -- who encouraged Nixon to quit -- it's pretty easy to weather an impeachment, even when there are legitimate concerns. And then nowadays impeachment and the threat of impeachment is purely partisan.

As for "What did the president know and when did he know it?", it's possible that his staffers had been acting on their own initiative but as soon as he chose to help them out -- and seemingly agreed to pay them off -- it made him look complicit in the initial crime.

Dikitain posted...

Nixon was recorded on tape saying that he had organized the whole wiretapping scandal

Link? Because I can't seem to find a citation for that claim. And that would have been the ultimate smoking gun, yet they were relying on other stuff to try to demonstrate complicity.


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Zeus posted...

Link? Because I can't seem to find a citation for that claim. And that would have been the ultimate smoking gun, yet they were relying on other stuff to try to demonstrate complicity.

I can do you one better, here is the actual recording:

https://tinyurl.com/yygzzm3q

Here is the transcript, since the audio is a little hard to understand:

https://tinyurl.com/y2kyrb92

And this audio tape was the one called "the smoking gun" oddly enough, and was ultimately the reason Nixon resigned because there was no way anyone could say he didn't try to cover up the scandal after this was released.

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Dikitain posted...

I can do you one better, here is the actual recording:

https://tinyurl.com/yygzzm3q

Here is the transcript, since the audio is a little hard to understand:

https://tinyurl.com/y2kyrb92

And this audio tape was the one called "the smoking gun" oddly enough, and was ultimately the reason Nixon resigned because there was no way anyone could say he didn't try to cover up the scandal after this was released.

You said there was a recording of him orchestrating the break-in, but you're talking about the recording discussing the cover-up afterward. Is there something here that specifically implicates him in planning the break-in? Because the fact he tried to cover it up afterward was never disputed, but you'd talked about there being a recording of him organizing the break-in.


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Zeus posted...

However, as we learned from Bill Clinton -- who encouraged Nixon to quit -- it's pretty easy to weather an impeachment, even when there are legitimate concerns. And then nowadays impeachment and the threat of impeachment is purely partisan.

I think it also moreso has to do with the current state of the Union (mainly the economy)...if the economy is doing well (as were when Clinton and Trump was impeached), unemployment low, etc I think a Prez is less likely to get kicked outta office.

Because I'm pretty sure if Trump was being impeached during this Pandemic, his Butt mostly likely would've been kicked out.

KaijunoKami posted...

I really want to know. What did Nixon do that was so bad that the American people unitedly turned on him, forcing him to quit? Yes, I know the basic answer is Watergate with the phone tapping, but that doesn't help me understand the situation that led to his resignation. How is he considered to be so bad among all of the other presidents we have had or currently have?

Yes what he did was that bad and he should have been impeached and removed from office if he didn't quit.

Just like what Trump did was that bad and he should have been removed from office after being impeached.

I don't know the specifics, but.....I'm pretty sure it involved pickles.

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He uppercutted a bunch of kids off a bus

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He sold all of our children's organs to zoos for meat, and he goes into people's houses at night and wreck up the place!

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What is this? Demanding sources on *the* most chronicled political scandal in world history, on PotD?

Folks, this is how narratives get rewritten. The facts aren't negotiable - but our associations are. There are those who are planting the seeds of doubt far and wide to later cash in on a new wave of deniers; you won't know why you know "it was all a lie", but you'll feel you came to that conclusion organically.

The top is spinning.

EvilMegas posted...

I'm 100% sure if I typed in "what led to Nixon's resignation " in google I would find faster, more reliable information than waiting for a bunch of dudes to argue about it.

Told you.

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I think it was Maple Story that did it

EvilMegas posted...

I'm 100% sure if I typed in "what led to Nixon's resignation " in google I would find faster, more reliable information than waiting for a bunch of dudes to argue about it.

I'm pretty sure that would defy the point of my posting this.

To be it bluntly, I'm trying to figure out what exactly Nixon did that led to his resignation of president when I don't see anything he did being worse than what the orange oompa loompa has done and he is running for re-election.


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KaijunoKami posted...

I'm pretty sure that would defy the point of my posting this.

To be it bluntly, I'm trying to figure out what exactly Nixon did that led to his resignation of president when I don't see anything he did being worse than what the orange oompa loompa has done and he is running for re-election.

Nixon didn't have Fox News. Pretty sure I recall seeing people dropping quotes suggesting Fox News was created to prevent there for ever being another Nixon.

BlackScythe0 posted...

Yes what he did was that bad and he should have been impeached and removed from office if he didn't quit.

Just like what Trump did was that bad and he should have been removed from office after being impeached.

The only thing that Trump did was be elected. They wanted to impeach him before he was inaugurated.

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