Nixonland
Richard Nixon's political history, from Congress to the White House, with an emphasis on his political strategies.
Stats for nerds
6recommend
7mentions
7people
2013–2025years
86% recommend14% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Has it occurred to you that the people who feel rage fundamentally understand the situation, and you may be undereducated in this area? What do you think are the root causes of that “senseless partisan drive”?
I’d suggest starting with Rick Perlman’s book “Nixonland” if you’re interested.
- People were talking about this nonsense polarization during Nixon’s term. Read Nixonland to get an idea.
Listen, guys, all of you have an external locus of control. Facebook is doing things to you that you are unable to control. You have a paternalistic view of people. Grandpa is too dumb to evaluate on his own. Facebook made him a Nazi.
Gonna be honest with you. It’s the people. Facebook didn’t exist when Nixon was elected. No one made grandpa a Nazi but grandpa and no one is doing things to you but you.
- The idea of "tough on crime" was born from the political elites though. Read the Rick Perlstein trilogy, particularly the first two books "Before the Storm" and "Nixonland", which go into this depth. It was used to exploit racial resentment in the civil rights era as part of the "Southern Strategy" as Democrats began accepting civil rights into their political program (and eventually to blame the Civil Rights Act for crime). Racism is obviously a persistent problem here, as well as classism (which is often an unexamined cultural phenomenon in the US) and a culture of vengeance. Vengeance is a DISTINCTLY American idea that has been with us since our calvinist roots and is part of our cultural image in everything from our forever war of foreign intervention to our films (particularly Tarantino films exhibit this). It's a sick, contemptible cultural tenet.
We can begin to reverse this by electing DAs like Philly just has: Larry Krasner, a civil rights attorney who has made lowering sentences where he has prosecutorial discretion and refusing to try insufficient cases a part of his platform ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsEFPHMrAKc ). It will also take citizen pressure to ensure these people follow through on their program as they join a thoroughly racist, punitive institution. Also, people must be willing to elect representatives that will cut criminal penalties across the board. Simply cutting them for nonviolent crimes will not solve the problem: https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/03/04/how-to-cut-the...
- I've been greatly enjoying Rick Perlstein's Nixonland [http://www.amazon.com/Nixonland-Rise-President-Fracturing-Am...], which traces the rise of modern Republicanism and is full of interesting anecdotes about this deeply weird man. I'd recommend it to anyone who isn't old enough to have survived Nixon firsthand.
- I'm too young to know Nixon and I've read Nixonland at the suggestion of someone who is old enough to remember him. Very interesting read, not just about Nixon but about the Republican party as you mentioned. Not nearly as dry as I had feared.
- If you're interested in learning more, "Nixonland" by Rick Perlstein goes into some depth on these and other shenanigans.
