The Second Coming of Nixon
President Donald Trump's obsession with finding and punishing leakers evokes memories of Richard Nixon.
By Kenneth T. Walsh | Contributor
March 10, 2017, at 6:00 a.m.
Increasingly, the behavior of Richard Nixon and Donald Trump, and their reactions to adversity, seem eerily similar. I've written here about how both presidents believed that the news media were out to get them. But it turns out that the resemblance goes far deeper. Both felt that their enemies were everywhere and had to be fought tooth and nail. Both were infuriated by leaks from inside the government that embarrassed them. Both ordered efforts to find and stop the leakers that in some ways made matters worse by creating an atmosphere of suspicion in their administrations, which became infectious.
Nixon's war against unauthorized disclosures got him into big trouble because his minions – called, internally, "the plumbers" because their job was to fix leaks – crossed the line and went too far. Nixon was implicated in a coverup. All this and additional abuses led to congressional impeachment proceedings against Nixon and caused him to resign – the only president to do so – in August 1974.
President Trump is falling into the same psychological trap that led to Nixon's downfall. Trump has plunged himself and his presidency into a swamp of distrust and over-reaction – seeing enemies around every corner and becoming obsessed with punishing them. Last Saturday, Trump claimed his predecessor Barack Obama was behind a plot against him. Without citing evidence, Trump wrote on Twitter: "Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!" He was referring to Wisconsin Sen. Joe McCarthy's often baseless accusations which were part of his attempt to identify and remove communists from the government in the 1950s. In another tweet Saturday, Trump wrote, "How low has President Obama gone to tapp (sic) my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!"
A spokesman for Obama said Trump's accusation was "simply false." Facing a rising furor, Trump's aides said he will ask Congress to investigate Obama's alleged role in ordering surveillance and won't address the matter again until the investigation ends. His critics see this as an abdication of responsibility, since he is making a charge and then letting it stand even though it remains apparently unfounded.
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https://www.usnews.com/news/the-report/articles/2017-03-10/donald-trumps-presidency-mirrors-richard-nixons?emailed=1&src=usn_thereport
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