Nixon Administration

• Nixon won his re-election by a landslide

  He ran Spanish-speaking campaigns, Silent Majority

  Southern Strategy- turn the south Red (vote for Republicans) and then later have a probable outcome that they’ll win the south over in the next election.

  Dog Whistle- you say something where normal people hear one thing, and the directed audience hears something differently.

  Tough on crime, allows Nixon’s men to be the dominant party: Nixon increases police presence, funds FBI, anything to protect the people from crime.
• War on Drugs- news is everywhere about people using drugs and going crazy or violent despite drug use going down: if people feel like crime is rising, they’ll want someone who is “tough on crime”.

  The south hears: “We’ll make laws to arrest black people but since we can’t say a certain word i’ll just say Tough on Crime”
• 80s: south is permanently red
• Nixon was the first president to take a trip to a communist nation (China), something never seen in a president.

  Since WW2, there was an economic high called Stagflation.

  Stagflation: wages not increasing over time, when coupled with inflation it is BAD.

  Why?

  1. all money spent in Vietnam gave us a huge war debt
  2. foreign businesses become competitors to the US (VW who was originally for Hitler, Toyota who is based in Japan)
  3. Oil Crisis- OPEC (Org. of Petroleum smth) most of the countries are middle eastern in OPEC, we are allies with Israel and OPEC doesn’t like that so they embargo us.
• Gas prices skyrocketed, gas was like $13 (in today’s money), schools closed because no gas, lines for gas lasted hours.

  Even when embargo is over people still struggle with gas money and stuff.

  Stagflation is the root of this.
• Nixon tried to do something about Stagflation but couldn’t get enough Congressional support for it.

  Nixon got a lot of criticism for EPA and “RINO” policies (Republican In Name Only)

  He tried to make the family assistance program.
• Spring 1972: break-in at Watergate building, DNC is in there, people who broke in got arrested, goes viral.

  Almost 1 year later, people who got arrested are about to finish getting their sentences, they found that these crooks could have been trying to bug Watergate.

  They go to jail.
• James McCord- one of the burglars that broke in, used to work for CIA, used to work for Nixon’s campaign.

  He said someone told him to do it, said it goes “all the way to the top”, officers believe he’s talking about the White House, FBI investigates James’s confession.

  A lot of the evidence turns to Congress bc they can’t immediately arrest the president.

  Watergate Hearings- televised hearings about the robbery, people believe the president told James to do it.
• Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein: The Washington Post reporters who broke the Watergate scandal and brought more attention to the hearings.

  They were contacted by a mysterious source and told to call a certain person, person who they call is like meet me somewhere, this man says the president is trying to cover the Watergate incident and the white house’s involvement with it using his president powers.

  Bob and Carl never out this man, man tells them to “follow the money” so it’ll lead them to Richard Nixon.
• Deepthroat (by Cupcake)- the name that Bob and Carl gave to this anonymous man, kept people intrigued.

  Nixon forms an investigation to find Deepthroat and arrest Bob and Carl.

  The two reporters are investigating everything and interrogating everyone they can link to James McCord.

  One of the people they talk to says “the president records all the convos that he has in the oval office” and the Senate is like great, give us the recordings. President says NO.
• Nixon doesn’t want to give them the tapes, claims executive privilege. Congress says they’re gonna get the tapes either way and sue him.

  U.S. v. Nixon- Supreme Court sides with Congress and Nixon’s secretary sends boxes of copies and Congress starts investigating.

  Theres empty spots in the tapes and Congress finds out the secretary tampered with the tapes.
• June 23rd, 1972- one of the tapes that was released was the one where Nixon was talking about the Watergate scandal, shows that Nixon was actually trying to cover up the scandal and he is now guilty of being invlolved with this crime.

  Nixon gets removed from office, charges of purgery, tampering with evidence, but Nixon resigns and isn’t impeached.
• VP Spiro Agnew resigned during the scandal and now Pres. has to chose a new VP.

  Nixon chooses Gerald Ford as VP.

  Ford becomes president after Nixon in 1974.

  He pardons Nixon of all possible crimes WTF.

  Most of America says “this is bs, its a set-up”

  It’s likely that Nixon and Ford made an agreement for Ford to pardon Nixon.