Republicans Turned on Nixon. Here's Why They Won't Turn on Trump.

[babylonsister]

Republicans Turned on Nixon. Here’s Why They Won’t Turn on Trump.
As was not the case in 1974, Republicans now have counterfactual media that allows or compels them to ignore blatant lawbreaking.
by Harold Meyerson
October 1, 2019

snip//

So why the difference between 2019 and 1974? Why no Republican demands to investigate Trump? What changed the Republican Party over those 45 years? Nixon, after all, relied on tribal enmity no less than Trump. Nixon’s campaigns railed against Democrats, whom it mushed together with radicals, crazy kids, militant blacks, and hippies. His 1972 campaign turned George McGovern, his Democratic opponent, into the candidate of acid, amnesty, and abortion. His history of red-baiting went all the way back to his initial 1946 run for Congress, when he linked the liberal Democratic incumbent he unseated, Jerry Voorhis, to the Communist Party, which Voorhis opposed. And as president, Nixon and his vice president Spiro Agnew went after the “liberal media”—specifically, the Times, the Post, and CBS—claiming they distorted the news and secretly sought to bring America down. Nixon was a vastly more intelligent pol (and man) than Trump, but he built his career on the fear and loathing he stoked within his base for his political adversaries.

Nonetheless, Nixon’s tribe bowed to the evidence and deserted him at the end—all of the Republican electeds, and probably most of the rank and file.

So why the difference now? What enables Republicans to deny, ignore, or not care about the evidence—not just in the Ukrainian affair but the little kids in cages and the thousand other shocks to which Trump has subjected the nation? That denial, ignorance, and indifference extends well beyond the case of Donald Trump, to such other notable realities as planet-threatening climate change. How did the “ism” that Republicans scorn the most become empiricism?

There are a host of explanations for why and how Republicans have cocooned themselves from reality, not least the realignment of Southern whites into the GOP, which pushed the party to embrace a much more hard-right politics that drove many moderates into the Democrats’ ranks. But the rise of right-wing mass media may well be the most important factor differentiating ’19 from ’74. In 1974, right-wing media remained on the fringe, save in portions of the white South. Most Americans came to understand Watergate from the newscasts of the three national television networks, and from the hearings those networks aired. There was no counterfactual counternarrative coming from Fox News, as there was no Fox News. There were right-wing radio commentators, but few if any were national: Father Coughlin was gone and Rush Limbaugh had yet to arrive. Rupert Murdoch had only recently relocated to Britain from Australia (to which, if we had an immigration policy that penalized the truly evil, he would be instantly deported). If Trump is polling at twice Nixon’s final-days level, and if congressional Republicans still sing Trump’s praises for fear of estranging their counterfactually oriented base, Fox and its ilk are substantially to blame.

more...

https://prospect.org/impeachment/republicans-turned-on-nixon-trump-impeachment-media/

[dem4decades]

1. I'll shorten it to The Idiot Horde and their Fox News propaganda.

[Lulu KC]

2. Fairness Doctrine?

I'd forgotten it ever existed. Then discovered a rather motley crew trying to renew it. It sounds like such an antiquated way of thought, like something from Downton Abbey.

[moose65]

11. Possibly. However....

The Fairness Doctrine did not apply to cable stations. It only affected stations that broadcast using the public airwaves. So, it wouldn't have any effect on Fox News. What it DID affect, though, were those AM radio stations that have now been completely taken over by right-wing hate fests.

[Thomas Hurt]

3. Moral Cowardice and hypocrisy.

They are cutting and running or enabling him. It is embarrassing that they have place a second criminal in the WH.

[honest.abe]

4. They will if the public turns on him.

I suspect if his numbers drop below 30% then he is toast.

[underpants]

5. Spot on. We can't really compare the realities of two times

because the right doesn’t live in reality now.

[stopbush]

6. The rise of the Christian right is the real problem. Belief in make believe

and putting make believe on an equal footing with facts. It’s all there in the Buy-bull.

The Rs simply hitched their political fortunes to the fantasies, and that decision has paid dividends.

Barry Goldwater warned us about these Christians years ago. We should have listened.

[ConnorMarc]

10. Being a Christian has nothing to do w/it

But the thing is, these people are not Christians.

They're anything but that. They're radical far rightwing reactionary partisans.

Plain and simple.

[stopbush]

12. Sure they're Christians.

Tired of the excuse that Christians behaving as Christians are somehow not Christians.

[PJMcK]

13. Exactly!

When a "Christian" minister essentially calls for a civil war to protect a lawless president, he's hardly acting as Jesus would. The minister's followers are just as bad.

[stopbush]

14. Er, Jesus said he came not to bring peace, but a sword.

[PJMcK]

15. I remember that one!

Something about beating plowshares into swords, right?

[DBoon]

17. Another example of counter-factual media

In addition to Fox and AM blowhards, ministers also provide political commentaries disguised as preaching.

The Southern Baptist Convention was largely apolitical until the late 1970s.

You tell someone they will burn in hell forever for voting (D), you have someone who will vote against reality.

[Kid Berwyn]

7. Morons can't live by FOX alone...

There’s Internet and the Facebook now.

Based on Watergate, I think we’ll see Trump’s base of support shrink to poll at around 20%.

[PoliticAverse]

8. Consider that at a certain point those people will realize that maybe they'd rather have Pence

as President.

[babylonsister]

9. But all bets are off if Pence is embroiled in this Ukraine mess. nt

[Blue_Tires]

16. They'll turn on him just as soon as they realize

that sticking up for this insanity will cost them re-election

[GusBob]

18. I just got done re-reading All The Presidents Men

Trump is using what happened to Nixon as a guideline
Especially attacking the press

I think Roy Cohn taught him some stuff