Rewind to 1973 or so when Watergate was unfolding: (need some help)

[karlrschneider]

I was in and out of the country for most of the first half of the 1970s and didn't quite manage to watch the political pulse of the Amerikan electorate as Nixon was getting closer and closer to impeachment (was in Japan the week he finally resigned)

Reason I ask is that I'm seeing (mostly from reading the Yahoo boards) a lot of wingnuts that are virtually going ballistic...more than a few issuing "threats" (up to and including killing) against "libs." I can't recall that sort of vitriol from the far-right loonies back in Watergate days, does anybody else? (Maybe it was out there, just not as visible since Mr. Gore had not yet invented the internets...)
;-)

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Oh yeah

there were several times when I thought Nixon would shut down the Washington Post and jail Woodward and Bernstein. I was hoping against hope it would come out with Nixon in the dock. Well, he wasn't impeached, but he did resign.

[htuttle]

2. Remember the 'hardhats'?

Construction workers used to show up at Vietnam war protests and beat up on demonstrators. They had pro-Nixon rallies, too.



(mentioned on this page)

http://faculty.smu.edu/dsimon/Change-Viet4c.html

In the weeks after Kent State, "hard hats" --- the slang for workers in construction and the building trades --- staged a series of demonstrations in support of Nixon. In one New York city demonstration, the "hardhats" attacked a group of antiwar demonstrators with "fists, boots, and hammers, chanting 'Love It or Leave It.' " <17> These blue collar workers, traditionally Democratic voters, were one of the groups Nixon hoped to attract with the politics of polarization.

[HockeyMom]

9. Oh, don't talk to me about those hardhats

as a then 20 something office worker in midtown Manhattan. Many, many a time I had to tell them to take their hard hat and "shove it........".

ROFL, sorry.

[HockeyMom]

3. No there wasn't

At first they tried to label the opposition as left wing "hippies". but when mainstream middle America and the PRESS became outraged, there wasn't much they could go anymore.

When you look at these polls today (ALL of them) and the percentages are in the 80-90% range, that is NOT some left wing "lunatic" fringe, same as was for Nam/Nixon/Watergate.

[karlrschneider]

5. I do recall something of a turnaround in the press, finally.

thanks
I'm sure hoping we're seeing a reprise of it now...
:eyes:

[Gman]

4. Well, there was no Internet back then, of course

but I got into a fistfight with my dad because of my "Impeach Nixon" bumper sticker. I came close to going to blows with (it seems like) more than a few other wing nuts over that bumper sticker. All were WWII vets. I also replaced the sticker probably a dozen times or more. I remember buying 5 or 6 at one time expecting them to be ripped off.

But, by early 1974 they had all pretty much shutup and let the inevitable happen. They knew he was a crook. My dad even harkened back to the 1960 election and how Nixon was still a crook. But he never liked the impeachment.

Like I always say, it's the same people now as it was then. Only their faces have changed.

I only wish my dad had been alive for Monicagate! That would have reignited a good old argument!

[knowbody0]

6. the only reason he resigned

was because impeachment was eminent. i loved those days!

[Gman]

12. Impeachment and also certain conviction by the Senate

and you're right. That's the only reason Nixxon resigned.

And, it seems to me Nixxon's approval rating in early August 1974 was in the mid to high 20's.

[TahitiNut]

7. Remember, BOTH parties had "wingnuts" ... both left and right.

It was the watershed years of the "Nixon Strategy" (including the Reagan campaign) that drove the right-wing to the GOPhers and the left-wing to the Dems.

The first election of Reagan was a surprise, primarily because folks who were formerly partisan Democrats voted in droves for Reagan -- and subsequently became GOP Neocons.

[Pithy Cherub]

8. Was an avid watcher and reader as a tweener.

(summer injury and therefore immobile)I loved watching the people testify. The biggest thing I remember (in a giant jumble) was the details of something new every single day. Spiro Agnew resigning over bribes, the fight about who to replace him, Gerald Ford, then the 18 minutes on the tape, that Butterfield guy, John Dean and the cancer on his presidency moment, the sunday night massacre, sirica, the senators and they way they talked to each other was fascinating too.

Also remeber the immense jealousy W & B inspired too at the WP...

[Innoma]

10. What was the mood before Haldeman & Erlichman resigned?

You know, I was just thinking about all this today and was going to post pretty much the same question earlier.

From what I've read, it quite often looked like Nixon had things in hand -- the break-in story itself didn't make much of an initial splash, after all. But what I've always been curious about was the public and media perception of the scandal right before Haldeman and Erlichman (and Dean) got "deep-sixed" and were left "twisting slowly in the wind?" Those were the Big Dogs that fell, laying the scandal right at the doorstep of the Oval Office.

So, was there a clamor for Haldeman and Erlichman's head in the weeks before they resigned?

[mohinoaklawnillinois]

11. I think the turning point came when Alexander Butterfield

revealed the existence of the tapes. That really got things cooking.

The Saturday Night Massacre, October 20, 1973 was pretty crucial as well. I think that convinced a lot of ordinary Americans that Nixon was trying to cover something up. I could be wrong about this but shortly after the SNM wasn't that when Nixon made the statment "I am not a crook"?