Quote of the Day (Rick Perlstein, on Richard Nixon’s Rage)

“Richard Nixon was a serial collector of resentments.”— Rick Perlstein, Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America (2008)

Sixty-five years ago today, Richard Nixon saved his still-young career with the first national political speech to be televised live. For years afterward, even after he became President, his associates referred to the half-hour address as the “Fund Speech,” a reference to the campaign kitty set up for the candidate’s use that became the subject of charges that it was an illegal operation. 

To others across the country, however—including contemporary historians—his purgatory under the TV lights became known as the “Checkers” speech.

The speech took its name from the family pet, given by an unnamed “man down in Texas” who, hearing of the Nixon children’s desire for a dog, shipped the family a black-and-white cocker spaniel. Nevertheless, the candidate vowed, “regardless of what they say about it, we're gonna keep it.”

The unprecedented level of detail about his family finances ensured that Dwight Eisenhower would retain Nixon on the GOP ticket in 1952 (though Ike was annoyed by a subtle dig by his young running mate, in which Nixon asked all candidates to be more financially transparent--which would have forced disclosure by the national hero of favorable tax breaks he'd received for his memoir, Crusade in Europe).

But that unmistakable note of defiance, that sign of resentment, would remain the dominant note of his career, driving a wedge through the electorate until, in the end, it made him so paranoid that it hastened his downfall because of the Watergate scandal.

The speech, according to Perlstein, “became a watershed for the way Americans were coming to divide themselves.” Although Nixon’s detractors—the “cosmopolitan liberals, in this historian's words”--criticized its nakedly maudlin appeal to sentiment, his supporters--more suburban/rural, and decidedly conservative--saw it as another example of how the elites were out to get their candidate, who then exhibited ‘a brave refusal to let haughty ‘betters’ have their way with him.”

In terms of attitudes of these groups, the parallels between Nixon and the current occupant of the Oval Office are impossible to miss. But, while Nixon became known in his rise to the top as “Tricky Dick,” he still observed contemporary norms where he could. (Thus, the charge of hypocrisy.) Donald Trump observes no such niceties. It is impossible to imagine Nixon even bragging about grabbing women by the genitalia, let alone doing so--and, of course, one cannot think of him consorting with the Russians.