Being of a certain age, I remember Watergate as it unfolded in real time. My recollection is that, although it was slow to pick up steam, by the time of the hearings the nation was riveted by the spectacle. I certainly watched a great deal of it on television.
The other thing that stands out is the sense of relative unity, not just in the sense of watching together but also in terms of the political parties. Nixon’s conduct was considered egregious enough that both parties wanted him out, and the Republicans told him that they would not support him in an impeachment trial:
The release of the “smoking gun” tape destroyed Nixon politically. The ten congressmen who had voted against all three articles of impeachment in the House Judiciary Committee announced they would all support the impeachment article accusing Nixon of obstructing justice when the articles came up before the full House. Additionally, Rhodes, the House leader of Nixon’s party, announced that he would vote to impeach, stating that “coverup of criminal activity and misuse of federal agencies can neither be condoned nor tolerated”.
On the night of August 7, 1974, Senators Barry Goldwater and Hugh Scott and Congressman Rhodes met with Nixon in the Oval Office. Scott and Rhodes were the Republican leaders in the Senate and House, respectively; Goldwater was brought along as an elder statesman. The three lawmakers told Nixon that his support in Congress had all but disappeared. Rhodes told Nixon that he would face certain impeachment when the articles came up for vote in the full House; indeed, by one estimate, no more than 75 representatives were willing to oppose impeachment. Goldwater and Scott told the president that there were enough votes in the Senate to convict him, and that no more than 15 Senators were willing to vote for acquittal–not even half of the 34 votes he needed to stay in office.
And so he resigned.
Now Nixon’s conduct in Watergate seems mild in comparison to what we’ve seen in Russiagate from the Democrats and agencies such as the FBI, conduct that half the nation has either denied or just shrugged off, or perhaps even applauded. The so-called “soft coup” of Russiagate hasn’t been condemned by even a single Democrat, as far as I know. And most newspapers and other media outlets have been engaged in a coverup rather than trying to get to the bottom of it.
That says a lot about where our country is now, and it’s not good.
I sometimes wonder whether, if the parties had been reversed during Watergate – if a Democratic president had done the same things Nixon and company did – would the Democrats in Congress have gone to that president and said they would not support him, suggesting that he resign? There’s no way to know, but I think it more likely than not that the answer is “no.”
Of course, when a president resigns under such circumstances, the vice president takes over. That means that the presidency doesn’t change hands in terms of party. So the damage is less compared to a successful attempt to throw an election, which would result in the other party winning.
Originally, I think Russiagate was designed to prevent Trump from winning. But once he had won, the efforts to frame him were not necessarily engineered to remove him and replace him with Pence, although the Democrats would have been okay with that result. I believe the post-2016 efforts were mostly geared towards hampering Trump’s entire administration and disgracing him, setting the stage for a huge Democratic victory in 2020 (even the impeachment had that goal, because the Democrats knew they would be unable to remove him).
The general effort worked in the 2018 Congressional elections, although not as well as they’d hoped. And the jury is still out for 2020.
