A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Photo Credit: Pixabay What's wrong with the Republican Party in the 21st Century? I mean, seriously, people. I've been around long enough to see the GOP, the supposedly grown up and sober party that allegedly promotes civilized behavior and "upholding the rule of law" that elected Richard M. Nixon to the Presidency 51 years ago morph into the "winning at all costs" wild bunch that supports Donald J. Trump in 2019. Well, if one cares to examine the historical record, the Party of Lincoln has been taking the nation to oblivion for a long time, even though pinpointing the exact era of American history in which Republicanism lost its way is difficult. In my lifetime, though, I'd say that the madness that has led us to Trumpism and its bizarre, MAGA cap-wearing cult of personality began in the mid-1960s with the aforementioned 1968 Presidential race. That campaign season, which took place during a tumultuous year that included the Tet Offensive in V...

Why was Nixon impeachable but somehow Trump isn't? The times, they have a-changed since the 1970s. There are various reasons as to why Richard M. Nixon was easier to consider impeachable in the 1970s and Donald J. Trump seems to be “untouchable.” The biggest factor is, of course, the differences in the political environment in which both Administrations existed. Nixon was elected in 1968 and took the Presidential oath of office on January 20, 1969, and was re-elected in November of 1972 and managed to stay in office until he resigned on August 9, 1974. Trump was elected in November 2016 in a vastly different electoral and cultural environment. Nixon’s Presidency took place at a time when the Internet was not quite a thing; a proto-Internet existed in 1969, but it was essentially limited to the federal government and academia. The Vietnam War and its divisiveness were sowing the seeds of social discord that made Trumpism possible. The war - which America was losing an...