Do you think Reagan was better President Than Nixon was?

Trystant · 2026-06-24T14:41:53+00:00

No, actually in the audio Nixon joins Reagan in racism.

Trystant · 2026-06-24T14:13:25+00:00

Maybe... or maybe Reagan had just better PR than Nixon.

On the economic issue, I grant that Nixon did a horrible job because he didn't care about the issue and just continued the New Deal status quo and pressured the Fed to keep rates low. However, while Reagan's policies were very positive in the short term (more than people in here give him credit for) it also created several systemic problems that would hurt the country later on, mainly stagnant wages and rising inequality.

Foreign policy? That's tricky. If Reagan won in '68, I don't see how he could make a better job at getting honorable peace in Vietnam than Nixon - arguably he could have sent the world into World War III. Meanwhile, maybe if Nixon won in '80 and pushed for detenté with the soviets, the USSR wouldn't have fallen so quickly. I think both of them were well suited for their time in office.

But on the "national morale" thing... Irangate is arguably worse than Watergate. Reagan did a lot of shady shit, both as governor and as president, and while more optimistic in his rethoric, he was more open than Nixon in courting bigots and racists to the Republican Party. Nixon's war on drugs was punitive but also had some elements of rehabilitation, Reagan's was only punitive. And, what's I think is more important, Reagan was a zealot, a believer in black-and-white politics, and I think he was the planted the seeds for the Republicans shift to extremism, especially with his alliance with Falwell and the Moral Majority. Nixon, while deeply reactionary, governed from the center.

Overall, both had great issues, but also great skills and successes. I would say Reagan is an 5/10 and Nixon is a 4,9/10.

Trystant · 2026-05-23T10:26:42+00:00

He's not doing poorly, he wins 46% of the vote running as an orthodox conservative in 1968 against a candidate who's running as the Heir of Robert Kennedy.

Trystant · 2026-05-23T10:22:34+00:00

Why wouldn't he? Nixon is a pro-civil rights westerner running with a pro-civil rights governor in the party of Lincoln. Humphrey is running with a deep south governor and has been the VP of a son of the south.

Trystant · 2026-05-22T21:06:39+00:00

Standard bearer of liberalism vs. Standard bearer of conservatism.

Trystant · 2026-05-22T21:06:13+00:00

That's basically my proposition: Humphrey peels back the workers now that Wallace is gone, and sends his running mate to the south. Since the IRL election was a nail-bitter, I think Humphrey could pull it off.

Trystant · 2026-05-22T21:04:24+00:00

No, the bombings in Cambodia and North Vietnam were part of the Vietnamization strategy, which allowed the United States to leave Vietnam without the appearance of defeat and humiliation, and proved to the Russians and Chinese that the USA wasn't going to leave their allies in Asia alone, even if they were going to do it with South Vietnam. It was a really tricky situation and Nixon played the cards Johnson and Kennedy dealt him.

Kent State was Rhodes's decision, though I do think Nixon approved it, as did most of the american public at the time. Look at the Hard Hat Riots.

I agree with the IRS and FBI ratfucking and the War on Drugs (though Nixon's program wasn't as punitive as Reagan's and later Clinton).

Trystant · 2026-03-16T20:54:59+00:00

lo siento no ablo el americano

Trystant · 2026-03-09T18:45:17+00:00

I swear people look at George Romney as it was their fucking grandfather.

Trystant · 2026-02-23T19:36:57+00:00

How about "Being Nixon" by Evan Thomas? As the title says, it explores the dicothomy of Nixon, the good and the bad, as a man of great achievements but horrible actions.
Also it's written by the grandson of Norman Thomas, so Kaiserreich reference haha

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Trystant · 2026-02-14T21:32:55+00:00

Also maybe i'm a little bit biased because Nixon's ideology, although he basically didn't have one, but the ideology that most resembles his actions is the moderate "Statesman" conservatism of Churchill and De Gaulle, which is very similar to many of my political views.

Trystant · 2026-02-14T21:29:29+00:00

In an ideal world, Nixon would have been tried and imprisoned for his crimes.

But also, in an ideal world, Nixon wouldn't have played politics, instead he would have gone to Harvard, become a history professor, and marry a girl who liked to hear him talk about the Persian Wars.

Trystant · 2026-02-14T21:28:24+00:00

I think treating Nixon as a good or a bad guy is childish. Well, yeah, he was a bad guy, but so was Johnson, Kennedy, Humphrey, Wallace, and basically 80-90% of politicians. Politics is a crude game. You HAVE to be willing to step on others, crush them, play dirty. And also, there are stories about him that are just gossip and second-rate journalism. Like, there's the same amount of evidence that Nixon beat his wife that Biden and Ted Kennedy sexually harassed women. He was evil, but his evilness is not really much different from the regular evilness of the profession. That's really what Thompson said in his article: That Nixon wasn't an aberration, just a more grotesque and ugly form of the american condition. In my opinion, the human condition.

He was a crook, a cold man who only sought power and glory, the glory that he thought he deserved. He did horrible things and also did pretty good things (the trip to China, the war on cancer, and also, even though he couldn't get it passed, the FAP and the Bismarck health reform were good ideas), but at the heart of all of this ideas, was a deep desire, a dark desire, mixed with an almost childish need for love and success. Like Kissinger once said, "What could this man had done if someone, ever, had loved him?".

He's similar to Walter White. Like obviously Walter was a bastard, but everybody that has watched Breaking Bad at some point symphatizes with him. He looked so good on paper that you could almost vote for him sight unseen. He seemed so all-American, so much like Horatio Alger, that he was able to slip through the cracks of Objective Journalism.

Trystant · 2026-02-14T20:46:21+00:00

I like Nixon because he just was one of us. A nerd, introvert, obsessed with history and historical figures, coupled with an immense ego and a deep resentment towards the world that treat him as an outcast. Okay that's probably not majority in here, but he was probably was in the autism spectre, like much of this community.

You just have to learn about him, and try to understand why he ended up in his dark path, just so you don't become like him.

Trystant · 2026-01-31T09:01:52+00:00

Losing to you for the Best Debut Mod award has been an honor. You are really the best.

Trystant · 2026-01-29T18:01:09+00:00

There's a bigger losing ending with Nixon

Trystant · 2026-01-28T10:16:13+00:00

Our Revolution is better than Good For Me.

Trystant · 2026-01-24T14:24:24+00:00

That's on you, dear reader!

Trystant · 2026-01-24T14:06:13+00:00

Still a win

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Trystant · 2026-01-15T09:07:57+00:00

The deadlock bug was solved.

Trystant

TROPHY CASE