Donald John Trump and Richard Milhous Nixon
“And the years rolled slowly past.
And I found myself alone.
Surrounded by strangers I thought were my friends,
I found myself further and further from my home.
And I guess I lost my way,
There were oh so many roads.
Against the wind.
I’m still running against the wind.
I’m older now but still running
Against the wind.
Against the wind.”
On the surface, it doesn’t seem like Presidents Nixon and Trump have much in common. They are of different generations having been born 33 years apart. Nixon grew up in modest circumstances and was never rich. Trump was born into a well-to-do family and has obviously been a billionaire for decades. Nixon spent most of his life in public service, first in the Navy during WWII, then as a Congressman, US Senator and Vice President before being elected to the White House in 1968. Trump was in the private sector all of his life and his first elected office was that of president. Nixon was married to only one woman, Pat Nixon. Trump has had three wives, and allegedly multiple other “relationships.” Their character was not similar. They even had very different hair with Nixon’s thinning scalp contrasting against Trump’s famous mop.
But in terms of the policies they sought to achieve and the things they did or attempted to do, there are many similarities.
Let’s start with foreign policy. Richard Nixon inherited a war in Vietnam from his Democratic predecessors. He pledged to end the war. “Peace with honor” was his goal. He did so with the Paris Peace Accords in 1973. Donald Trump is inheriting two wars started due to the weakness of his Democratic predecessor. Unlike Vietnam, there is no direct involvement of U.S. troops yet. Donald Trump is pledging to end both wars and although I am not aware that he has used the term, I’m sure he intends to end them “with honor.
In 1972, Nixon famously went to China. He met with Mao Zedong, arguably the greatest mass murderer in world history with perhaps 50 million dead at his hands. Nixon saw that the Soviet Union was the greatest threat to freedom and democracy in the west. He “opened” China to make sure that China did not become an ally of the greater Soviet threat. It worked.
In 2025, Trump will likely meet with Putin. While his body count is no where near that of Mao, Putin is an authoritarian dictator. He is not a nice guy. But Trump sees that China is the greater threat today to western civilization. Biden’s nonsensical foreign policy pushed Russia and China together. Like Nixon, Trump wants to pull them apart so that China has no powerful allies.
Nixon said “the greatest honor history can bestow is the title of peacemaker.” That quote is on his tombstone. Nixon was a peacemaker. He ended one war a prevented World War III. Trump has the same ambition over 50 years later.
When Nixon took office, the U.S. had run deficits for seven straight years. This was due to the costs of the Vietnam war as well as Johnson’s “Great Society” initiative. Deficits continued during Nixon’s first term as both of those costs continued. The numbers seem small by today’s standards of trillions, but remember you could buy a decent house for $5000 back then.
After the end of the war, Nixon was determined to get the deficit down. Also, it was during the late 60s and early 70s when the seeds of what we now know as “woke leftism” were planted. Eldridge Cleaver and Angela Davis and others of their ilk were avowed Marxists who began much of and language and the concepts that have been adopted as Democratic Party orthodoxy today. Nixon could see this coming and he was determined to root it out of government and society.
The left, the Marxists, the Media and the Democrats could see this coming. Watergate was their response. Nixon knew nothing of the break-in and was forced out of office because of the “cover up.” What Nixon did was far, far less onerous than many things we now know were done by JFK, LBJ, Clinton and certainly Biden. The press know the bad things they did but reported nothing because they were Democrats. They were not forced to resign. Nixon was because the press even then, was in league with the Democrats.
Back then, there was not only no X or Daily Wire or Joe Rogan or Fox News, but conservative talk radio had not even been started. (Rush Limbaugh’s nationally syndicated show did not begin until 1988). Everyone watched or listened to NBC, CBS and ABC because that was all there was in addition to your local newspaper. The Democrats also had majorities in both Houses of Congress which they had held since the 1950s. Nixon was fighting all of the media in addition to the government bureaucracy, the Democrats and the rising Marxist left. He didn’t have a chance. In 1974 under duress from Watergate, he signed into law the budget process that we still live with. It enshrined spending and made spending cuts hard. The budget deficits ballooned starting with Nixon’s departure in 1975 and didn’t look back for decades. And those Marxists entered universities where they had the money, influence and protection to advance their evil agenda.
Donald Trump also wants to cut spending, reduce the deficit and root out the woke Neo-Marxist disease out of government, education and our culture. That sickness is much more ingrained in many institutions than it was in 1972. But, Trump has many advantages that Richard Nixon did not have. He has Republican control of both Houses of Congress. Nobody watches or listens to CBS, NBC and ABC news anymore. There are a plethora of new media outlets that are not beholden to the lies of the Democrats and the left.
Just as an aside, did you see the CBS News anchor last weekend say outloud what is clearly the mainstream view of Democrats today? That “free speech” led to the rise of Hitler and we have to do away with it? I always knew they hated the second amendment. But apparently, they now hate the first amendment to the constitution and probably a bunch more of them as well!
You have probably gathered by now that I was and still am a fan of Richard Nixon and much of what he did or tried to do. I volunteered to work on CREEP (Committee to REElect the President) in 1972. He was politically executed for trying to control spending and root out Marxism. The photo attached to this missive is of the back of my 1977 Buick Riviera. The car was bought new by the best man in my wedding in 1976. I have owned it since 2007. The car was built after Nixon left office, but I still believe it is a good place to display “President Nixon - Now More Than Ever.”
Can Trump finish what Nixon started? Time will tell. As the Bob Seger song at the top of this blog says, they were and are both “running against the wind.” I understand that both men had and have flaws. We all do. May none of us be measured by our flaws but by the entirety of our life’s work. In my mind, Richard Milhous Nixon passed that test.
I pray to God that Donald John Trump will go down as a great and transformative president who was a peacemaker.
I will be guest hosting The Hugh Hewitt Show on Tuesday, February 25th from noon to 3PM Pacific. Listen in!
I remain respectfully,
Congressman John Campbell
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