I made Nixon2012.com just after I was laid off in order to keep my skills sharp and, frankly, to do something that felt useful. It is a satire website, but it is not satirizing Richard Nixon. It is satirizing America in general, and the modern conservative movement in particular.
Political affiliation is about disgust, and it is about metaphor, but it is also about stories (not to say that Lakoff and Haidt don’t talk about stories, but it’s not their main focus). These stories help us make sense of the world by providing answers for broad questions such as:
- What got us here?
- Where are we going?
Most liberal voters old enough to be political conscious at the time of Clinton seem to hold the belief that everything was awesome under Clinton and then everything went bad under Bush. They are probably moderately disappointed in Obama but optimistic for his second term. Still, they probably point towards victories in LGBT rights and the increased representation of women and non-whites in high levels of business as signs that our nation has been arcing towards justice, and think that if we repeal the Bush tax cuts we’ll be on the road to fiscal stability.
Conversely, most conservatives seem to believe in the same set of “facts,” but interpret them differently. They view LGBT rights as a sign of the end-times and think both Obama and Clinton’s policies are collectivist enough to make Leon Trotsky blush.
But the point that most political pundits – with the exception of Chris Hedges – miss entirely is that both of these stories are completely false. Richard Nixon was our last liberal president, and he was a Republican. Regardless of what you may believe about Nixon, the reality is that he created the EPA, withdrew from a major overseas war (we’ve got 2 right now), integrated schools, instituted affirmative action, and had serious plans at the time of his resignation to institute both guaranteed minimum income and universal healthcare. The top tax rates for personal income and capital gains were 77% and 36.5% respectively, versus 35% and 15% now. Nixon would currently be considered unelectable in either party, and Reagan would be a strong contender for the Democratic nomination.
I’m not really interested in spewing a partisan rant here. I’m just trying to get liberals to realize that they’re losing, and to get conservatives to realize that the nation has been heading demonstrably to the right. The golden era liberals are trying to reclaim was under Richard Nixon, not Clinton, and for conservatives it was under Herbert Hoover, not Reagan.