WEBVTT - MY PROBLEM WITH NIXONMAXXING 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:19.640 The newest trend of unconservative young people is Nixon maxing. 0:00:20.079 --> 0:00:23.079 A recent article in The Wall Street Journal described the phenomenon. 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:27.000 Nixon has become a popular figure in viral YouTube, Instagram 0:00:27.000 --> 0:00:30.640 and TikTok videos, where his archival footage is typically paired 0:00:30.720 --> 0:00:35.480 with rap music. The Nixon Foundation is actively pushing this content. Now, 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:39.720 some of this hoopla is mere nostalgia, Nixon maxing, hats 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:43.080 and Nixon geear Nixon now more than ever, items, and 0:00:43.120 --> 0:00:43.440 so on. 0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:45.199 But there's more to it than this. 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:48.599 Nixon maxing means maxing out on Nixon, going all in 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:52.120 on Nixon, in a sense, resurrecting Nixon from the dustment 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:55.760 of history and making him an important and relevant figure again. 0:00:55.920 --> 0:01:01.120 Nixon has become the younger generation's uncool cool guy. The 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:03.680 Nixon revival is a bit surprising because for the past 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:08.360 several decades, the iconic conservative figure was Reagan. Reagan dominated 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:11.480 the era from nineteen eighty to two thousand and eight 0:01:11.560 --> 0:01:13.960 these are my dates for the Reagan era, and Trump 0:01:14.040 --> 0:01:20.039 has dominated from twenty fifteen to now. Other figures Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, 0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:22.640 the two Bushes have been consigned to the shadows. To 0:01:22.720 --> 0:01:27.840 the hazy background of history. Young conservatives, however, seem a 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:30.679 bit out of sync with Reagan. They don't identify with 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:36.559 Reagan's sunny optimism, his big sky conservatism, and so they've 0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:39.880 picked Nixon as a sort of anti Reagan. They picked 0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:42.640 the guy the left hated the most, the president they've 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:46.039 tried to stomp on for fifty years, and that guy 0:01:46.120 --> 0:01:49.840 is now their new hero. Now I'm not a Nixon Maxer, 0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:53.080 but I think the reappraisal of Nixon is both welcome 0:01:53.200 --> 0:01:56.840 and overdue. Jade Vance recently said nice things about Nixon 0:01:56.840 --> 0:02:00.400 at the Nixon Library, comparing Nixon to Trump. To give 0:02:00.440 --> 0:02:02.840 my own take on Nixon, which comes not from a 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:05.360 millennial or gen Z, but from someone who came to 0:02:05.400 --> 0:02:09.239 America as a teenager in the aftermath of the Nixon era. 0:02:09.320 --> 0:02:12.040 I came to America in nineteen seventy eight. Nixon had 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:14.440 been out of office for four years, and Jimmy Carter 0:02:15.000 --> 0:02:17.960 was elected in nineteen seventy six. Now, Republicans suffered a 0:02:18.080 --> 0:02:21.839 terrible wipeout in the midterm election of nineteen seventy four. 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:24.920 This was the year Nixon resigned his office. Ford was 0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:29.560 the well meaning but clumsy successor. Nixon's failure, I have 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:33.360 to say, gave Democrats not only the presidency, but large 0:02:33.440 --> 0:02:36.840 majorities in the House and the Senate. Yes, Nixon one 0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:39.959 forty nine states in nineteen seventy two, but he still 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:43.120 never had the sweeping control of the government that his 0:02:43.680 --> 0:02:48.400 removal and disgrace gave the Democrats. Jimmy Carter almost destroyed 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:51.240 the country until the American people came to their census 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:56.440 and elected Reagan. Reagan defined a whole era as Nixon 0:02:56.480 --> 0:02:59.160 did not. Both served two terms and both one with 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:03.320 big majority. But Reagan had a revolution and Nixon didn't. 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:06.560 Reagan brought the top marginal tax rate down from seventy 0:03:06.600 --> 0:03:09.959 percent to twenty eight percent. Reagan won the Cold War, 0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:14.239 helped deliberate Eastern Europe, and brought down Soviet Communism itself. 0:03:14.639 --> 0:03:15.800 Now what does Nixon have. 0:03:15.760 --> 0:03:16.600 To compare to that. 0:03:16.760 --> 0:03:19.760 Well, Nixon went to China and he played an important 0:03:19.800 --> 0:03:23.280 role in breaking a potential Soviet Chinese alliance. In a way, 0:03:23.639 --> 0:03:27.840 he separated the Russian Communists from the Chinese communists. Nixon's 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:31.560 bold move did contain Soviet expansion, but it opened a 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:34.760 pathway to closer ties with China. And what has that 0:03:34.960 --> 0:03:38.280 brought us well a mixed bag. China was a sleepy, 0:03:38.320 --> 0:03:42.600 backward nation when Nixon went there. Since Nixon opened up China, 0:03:42.640 --> 0:03:45.720 it's become more dangerous than the Soviet Union ever was. 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:50.320 It's now an economic and military juggernaut, basically the manufacturing 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:53.720 hub of the world, and China's become our new rival 0:03:53.720 --> 0:03:57.520 and adversary. So the Soviet bear has been displaced by 0:03:57.560 --> 0:04:01.960 the Chinese dragon. Reagan described the Soviet Union as an 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:08.800 evil empire. Nixon never understood the ideological dimension of Soviet totalitarianism. 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:11.680 For him, the Russians were no different than the Prussian 0:04:11.720 --> 0:04:16.440 Empire or Napoleon. Nixon studied Klauswitz and Sunsu to learn 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:20.240 how great powers deal with one another. Nixon was into 0:04:20.279 --> 0:04:24.320 the art of warfare because that's what statesmanship was for him, 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:27.039 and art. He agreed with the Democrats and the need 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:30.400 for arms control, but insisted on what he called hard 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:34.920 headed deton He scorned Reagan's goal of rolling back the 0:04:34.920 --> 0:04:40.799 Soviet Empire itself, regarding that prospect as an ideological pipe dream, foolish, reckless, 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:45.480 and dangerous. Now domestically, Nixon was a liberal. Not only 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:48.840 did he lavishly fund New Deal in great society projects. 0:04:48.839 --> 0:04:52.520 He's also, in a sense, the founder of DEI. When 0:04:52.600 --> 0:04:56.919 Lyndon Johnson advocated for government sponsored affirmative action, the first 0:04:56.960 --> 0:05:00.680 significant affirmative action project on the part of the government 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:04.240 was carried out by Nixon. He backed racial preferences for 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:08.159 blacks in the public sector unions in Philadelphia. Nixon's program 0:05:08.279 --> 0:05:12.880 was called the Philadelphia Plan. Now, Nixon's motive was Machiavelli, 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:15.919 and Nixon was a sneaky political operative. He knew the 0:05:15.960 --> 0:05:20.359 Philadelphia unions were dominated by working class white Democrats. He 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:23.359 wanted to drive a wedge between the blacks and the 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:26.599 working class whites. So this was his reason for pushing 0:05:26.600 --> 0:05:29.799 affirmative action or DEI. But hey, in the end, Nixon's 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:32.920 maneuver backfire. The Democrats got the blacks and they kept 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:34.080 the white working class. 0:05:34.120 --> 0:05:35.320 The joke was on Nixon. 0:05:35.760 --> 0:05:39.760 The EI became expanded and embedded in the American workforce, 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:42.600 first in the public sector and then in the private sector. 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:45.200 So Nixon, I'm sorry to say, had a big role 0:05:45.360 --> 0:05:49.760 in starting it. Nixon was not really a conservative. How 0:05:49.760 --> 0:05:52.560 could he be. He didn't even know what conservatism was. 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:55.799 He was certainly a patriot and anti communist. That's why 0:05:56.000 --> 0:05:59.480 he liked Pat Buchanan so much. Buchanan, too was fiercely 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:02.640 pro man American and anti communist. But Buchanan recounts in 0:06:02.640 --> 0:06:05.680 his autobiography how Nixon kept asking him, Pat, who are 0:06:05.720 --> 0:06:09.920 these conservatives? What did the conservatives believe? Nixon was asking 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:13.120 as an outsider. Not only did he not regard himself 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:17.480 as a conservative, but he viewed conservatives as some strange breed, 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:19.919 and he had to investigate. 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:21.520 Who they were and what they believed. 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:26.120 For these reasons, Nixon's blindness to Soviet ideology, his welfare 0:06:26.160 --> 0:06:29.560 state liberalism, his role in affirmative action and DEI, and 0:06:29.600 --> 0:06:33.920 his manifest ignorance of conservatism, many conservatives at the time 0:06:34.320 --> 0:06:37.320 did not like Nixon. Several times did I hear the 0:06:37.320 --> 0:06:40.920 publisher of National Review, Bill Rusher say I hated Nixon 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:44.440 until Watergate. Russia's point is that only when the left 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:48.680 tried to destroy Nixon did conservatives rush to his defense. 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:51.400 Given all this, I asked myself, what is the great 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:52.920 appeal of Nixon? 0:06:53.200 --> 0:06:53.440 Now? 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:56.520 Why do young people today find Nixon a more interesting 0:06:56.560 --> 0:06:59.680 figure than Reagan? Why do we have Nixon maxing but 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:02.440 no Reagan maxing? Is this simply a case of the 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:05.920 younger generation rebelling against its elders and picking its own guy? 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:06.279 Well? 0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:09.240 Maybe, but why him? I think a single experience I 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:11.720 had with Nixon, the one time I met Richard Nixon, 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:13.800 the one time I got a photo with Richard Nixon, 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:16.800 might help to answer this question. I can't remember the 0:07:16.880 --> 0:07:20.200 year exactly, it was in the early to mid nineteen nineties. 0:07:20.240 --> 0:07:21.960 I lived in Washington, d C, where I was a 0:07:21.960 --> 0:07:25.240 scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Several of my a 0:07:25.320 --> 0:07:28.080 Dartmouth buddies, about ten of us also came to d 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:30.720 C to be part of the Reagan Revolution, and we 0:07:30.760 --> 0:07:33.920 asked ourselves who is the person we would like most 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:37.840 to meet? We had a list, was it Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, 0:07:38.000 --> 0:07:42.520 like Valenza Gorbachev, Pope John Paul the Second. We agreed 0:07:42.760 --> 0:07:44.960 that the person we most wanted to meet not the 0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:49.680 most consequential person, but the most interesting, was Richard Nixon. 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:51.200 But how to meet him? Well. 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:53.600 One of our group, Greg Fasstal, a dartmucd grad who 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:56.440 worked as an editorial writer at the Wall Street Journal, 0:07:56.520 --> 0:07:59.240 was a Nixon admirer. Greg was brilliant, but also a 0:07:59.280 --> 0:08:01.920 little bit of an extra centric and Nixon was also eccentric. 0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:05.200 So Greg identified with Nixon, and he had several years 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:08.800 earlier written a letter to Nixon, and Nixon at courteously replied, So, 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:12.120 Greg was kind of our in with Nixon, But what 0:08:12.160 --> 0:08:14.000 to say to him? We came up with the idea 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:17.640 of inviting him to address the Dartmouth Breakfast Club. Of course, 0:08:17.680 --> 0:08:20.000 there was no such thing as a Dartmouth Breakfast Club, 0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:22.920 but on the spot we started it. We made up 0:08:22.960 --> 0:08:25.480 a letterhead and Greg sent an invitation to Nixon. To 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:29.040 our amazement, he said, yes, we had breakfast, if I 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:32.360 recall correctly, at the hay Adams Hotel. We rented a 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:34.440 room and had a photographer. That's how I got my 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:37.800 photo with Nixon. He was very generous with us. After 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:40.760 the breakfast, he gave a fifteen minute talk on foreign policy, 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:44.880 a brief tour de horizon of current events. He took questions, 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:47.320 and it's one of those questions and his reply that 0:08:47.400 --> 0:08:48.040 has stayed with. 0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:49.800 Me over all these years. 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:53.960 Now, Greg, who was never shy to ask awkward questions, 0:08:53.960 --> 0:08:56.840 put this question to Nixon. How is it He asked 0:08:57.240 --> 0:09:02.280 that Reagan survived the Iran contrast, but you were forced 0:09:02.320 --> 0:09:05.680 to resign over Watergate. In both cases, the Democrats tried 0:09:06.000 --> 0:09:08.400 to impeach and destroy a Republican president. 0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:10.520 But in Reagan's case they failed. With you. 0:09:11.040 --> 0:09:13.000 They didn't impeach you, but they did get you out 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:15.679 of office. So what did Reagan have that you didn't 0:09:16.720 --> 0:09:20.559 A bombshell of a question. Now, Nixon paused, he he scowled, 0:09:20.559 --> 0:09:23.240 a famous Nixon scowl. I could see he was annoyed. 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:25.800 I mean, got to feel a little uncomfortable. Several people 0:09:25.840 --> 0:09:28.160 in our group gave Greg a dirty look. We were like, 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:31.000 how could you ask that? And then Nixon replied it 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:33.960 was one line, very nixony. And Nixon said, ah, yes, 0:09:34.080 --> 0:09:38.000 Ronald Reagan. Well, at least he could say he was stupid. 0:09:39.200 --> 0:09:40.040 And there you have it. 0:09:40.440 --> 0:09:43.600 What an insight. Not so much into Reagan as into Nixon. 0:09:44.120 --> 0:09:48.320 Nixon never understood how Reagan survived, but he didn't. More broadly, 0:09:48.360 --> 0:09:52.560 he never understood how Reagan succeeded in transforming the world, 0:09:52.640 --> 0:09:56.160 and he didn't. Nixon always considered himself smarter than Reagan, 0:09:56.160 --> 0:09:57.559 and academically. 0:09:56.960 --> 0:09:57.960 Speaking, he was. 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:03.200 Thus, Nixon concluded that Reagan's secret was his stupidity. People 0:10:03.280 --> 0:10:06.400 expected Reagan to be clueless about Iran contra. I don't 0:10:06.400 --> 0:10:08.800 know what happened, and that's how he got away with it. 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:11.520 No one would say Nixon was stupid, and therefore Nixon 0:10:11.559 --> 0:10:14.720 couldn't claim ignorance, and that's why he was held fully 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:19.000 accountable for all the deceptions around Watergates. So here in 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:22.840 a nutshell, we see several of Nixon's signature qualities, which 0:10:22.840 --> 0:10:26.720 become even more clear when they are contrasted with Reagan's qualities. 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:30.480 Reagan was fundamentally an optimist, and that optimism characterized the 0:10:30.520 --> 0:10:33.840 Reagan era and also the Reagan generation, me included that 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:37.040 came of age in that era. Nixon was fundamentally a pessimist, 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:40.800 as I guessed many of his contemporary millennial and gen 0:10:40.880 --> 0:10:44.600 Z admirers also are. Nixon was also paranoid, and we 0:10:44.640 --> 0:10:47.559 see this from the Watergate scandal itself. Remember, Nixon was 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:50.520 on the verge of winning forty nine states. It was 0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:54.200 not exactly a close presidential election in nineteen seventy two. 0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:58.680 So what's the justification for organizing elaborate spying campaigns on 0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:00.839 the other side than you have to do so elaborate 0:11:00.880 --> 0:11:04.400 covers up and then you have to do elaborate cover ups, 0:11:04.720 --> 0:11:08.520 and you end up throwing away your presidency over the scandal. 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:12.520 Nixon is no longer with us, but as paranoia surely is. 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:17.160 In fact, we live in a paranoid epoch of Nixonian dimensions. 0:11:17.440 --> 0:11:19.839 I can see how the paranoia of our own era 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:23.360 where it came from. It came from numerous conspiracy theories 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:27.679 coming true. It came from previously trusted institutions, the CDC, 0:11:27.840 --> 0:11:33.079 the nihd FBI, all forfeiting their public trust. It also 0:11:33.160 --> 0:11:37.520 came from bitter disappointments in American society, the outsourcing of jobs, 0:11:37.559 --> 0:11:41.080 the march of technology that also takes away jobs, the 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:44.800 erosion of the family and the old civic sense of community, 0:11:44.880 --> 0:11:48.520 the collapse of normal dating and courtship, the experience of 0:11:48.600 --> 0:11:52.640 censorship and political targeting, and in general, the brutishness of 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:55.400 the left. All of this is not only fostered paranoia, 0:11:55.840 --> 0:12:00.960 but also a profound sense of victimization, since paranoia and 0:12:01.040 --> 0:12:04.080 his sense of victimization are both palpable. Even in the 0:12:04.080 --> 0:12:07.800 one incident I recounted, Nixon remained paranoid to the end. 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:10.840 He never gave up the sense that he was shafted. 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:13.400 And here's the thing. He was right to be paranoid. 0:12:13.440 --> 0:12:17.960 Remember the saying, even paranoids have enemies. Nixon feared the 0:12:18.040 --> 0:12:22.080 Eastern establishment, even the Eastern establishment in his own party, 0:12:22.160 --> 0:12:24.320 and he was right to fear them. He hated the 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:27.360 Ivy League people and the mainstream media, and he thought 0:12:27.360 --> 0:12:30.199 they were out to get him, as they were. Some 0:12:30.240 --> 0:12:33.120 of the most amazing material in the Nixon libraries tape 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:36.800 recordings of Nixon talking about Jews and Ivy leaguers. He 0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:38.960 says things like, Henry, there are too many Jews on 0:12:39.040 --> 0:12:41.400 the invitation list, or Henry, I don't want to have 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:43.520 dinner with anyone who went to the Ivy League. He 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:46.000 hated those people, and in the end, I suppose they 0:12:46.000 --> 0:12:50.360 got him. So Nixon was justified also in regarding himself 0:12:50.360 --> 0:12:52.400 to be a victim. He was in fact ousted in 0:12:52.480 --> 0:12:55.520 a coup that goes by the name of Watergates. So 0:12:55.559 --> 0:12:58.800 I can understand to appoint young people's enthusiasm for this 0:12:58.920 --> 0:13:02.480 strange fellow who took on an all powerful establishment and 0:13:02.520 --> 0:13:07.400 the paranoid conspiratorial belief that it was secretly arrayed against him. 0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:12.520 Nixon's paranoia, his conspiracy mindedness, even his borderline craziness, have 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:16.560 many counterparts on our social media platforms today, and in 0:13:16.600 --> 0:13:19.040 some ways what they like best about Nixon is that 0:13:19.120 --> 0:13:22.560 he lost. They destroyed his presidency and his reputation, and 0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:26.680 this confirms the notion of an omnipotent, omniscient elite that 0:13:26.840 --> 0:13:29.760 always wins in the end. Many young people today don't 0:13:29.800 --> 0:13:31.520 really see a way out. They don't see a way 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:34.000 to win. They expect to lose, and they want to 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:36.960 lose like Nixon, ignominiously, to be sure, but also in 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:41.800 a way that supports and confirms the utter feelings of hopelessness. 0:13:42.200 --> 0:13:46.360 Here's the mantra of the Nixon maxers. See, we told 0:13:46.360 --> 0:13:48.880 you we were doomed, and now we are just like 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:51.280 we said. I suppose it could be said of Nixon 0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:54.960 that he remained interesting even in defeat. He said things 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:57.600 like you won't have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore, 0:13:57.920 --> 0:14:00.920 which is not surprising for the bitterness, but but surprising 0:14:00.920 --> 0:14:04.199 that someone would publicly say it. He was more of 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:07.000 a thinker than a doer. He read the nineteenth century 0:14:07.040 --> 0:14:10.760 historians as Reagan didn't. He didn't defeat the Soviet Empire 0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:12.959 as Reagan did, but he could give an analysis of 0:14:13.000 --> 0:14:16.680 Russian history in a manner that Reagan never could. Kissinger 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:20.120 and his memoirs recounts the culmination of a brilliant negotiation 0:14:20.240 --> 0:14:23.360 in the Middle East. He was astounded by Nixon's grasp 0:14:23.400 --> 0:14:27.760 of events and his negotiating prowess, and Kissinger writes his 0:14:27.800 --> 0:14:31.080 regret was that Hey, even now, he says, Watergate is 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:33.840 closing in on Nixon. So from Kissinger's point of view, 0:14:34.160 --> 0:14:37.480 a great thinker and strategist of a kind America rarely 0:14:37.520 --> 0:14:42.560 gets was being undone kick. Kissinger saw it almost in 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:46.440 terms of Greek tragedy. Nixon was ultimately defeated not by 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:51.680 his foreign adversaries, but by his Hamartia, his own tragic flaw. 0:14:52.280 --> 0:14:54.560 Nixon wanted to be a populist, and he used the 0:14:54.560 --> 0:14:57.920 campaign theme of the forgotten man in his nineteen seventy 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:00.280 two campaign. He was quite right to stand up for 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:04.320 the ordinary American against the hippies, the druggies, the nudists, 0:15:04.360 --> 0:15:08.560 the angry feminists, and the Black power revolutionaries. Yet while 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:12.080 Nixon identified with the working class American, he didn't relate 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:16.239 to him. He remained aloof an insular, a real contrast 0:15:16.280 --> 0:15:20.560 with a genuine populist like Trump. Nixon was a loyal friend, 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:24.440 but he was also a great hater. He didn't conceal 0:15:24.520 --> 0:15:26.760 his envy of Reagan. All it took was a single 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:30.080 question to bring it into full display. He was still 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:32.120 the guy who walked with his two arms moving in 0:15:32.160 --> 0:15:35.360 the same direction, not swinging opposite ways like most people. 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:36.360 He was still the. 0:15:36.280 --> 0:15:38.720 Guy who walked in the beach in his leather shoes. 0:15:39.400 --> 0:15:42.640 The philosopher Nietzsche said of the Greek tragedians that they 0:15:42.680 --> 0:15:47.000 took the crushing burden of human suffering and made it interesting. 0:15:47.360 --> 0:15:49.720 Nixon was a deeply flawed man, but he had a 0:15:49.720 --> 0:15:53.360 way of making the world and himself interesting. We never 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:55.880 regretted our choice to have breakfast with him. 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Please join 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:17.359 me in welcoming Destiny. 0:19:20.600 --> 0:19:22.760 Now, if you look at this Iran war and we've 0:19:22.760 --> 0:19:24.679 got to try to be adults about all this. If 0:19:24.720 --> 0:19:27.800 you get into a war and you have clear objectives, 0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:31.000 the simple truth of it is, if you then turn 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:34.199 around and say, well, yes, we've lost seven men, or 0:19:34.880 --> 0:19:37.920 Iran fired a missile and it got through to Israel 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:43.840 and killed two dogs, you're talking about a really powerful country. 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:47.320 If you had to specify in advance, you would expect 0:19:47.400 --> 0:19:50.920 that there would be enormous casualties in Middle Eastern countries, 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:54.359 in Israel, that Iran would be hitting American targets on 0:19:54.400 --> 0:19:55.480 a daily basis. 0:19:55.960 --> 0:19:56.800 This is a war. 0:19:57.720 --> 0:20:01.399 So what I'm suggesting here is that what Destiny is 0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:05.640 doing here is setting up an absurd calculus. Iran is endured, 0:20:05.960 --> 0:20:09.280 Well what alternative they have? A guy getting his ass 0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:13.160 kicked in ana fight is enduring, but that doesn't mean 0:20:13.160 --> 0:20:17.760 he's winning. Similarly, Iran is able to lash out here 0:20:17.800 --> 0:20:18.720 and lash out. 0:20:18.560 --> 0:20:20.320 There, which we would fully expect. 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:25.320 They're grabbing onto their own backyard. No surprise, they're unable 0:20:25.359 --> 0:20:28.399 to maintain even control over their old network. So we've 0:20:28.480 --> 0:20:31.119 disrupted the whole Iranian system. 0:20:31.200 --> 0:20:32.359 So when you talk about. 0:20:32.080 --> 0:20:36.119 Places like Russia and China, they're like, Trump actually is 0:20:36.160 --> 0:20:39.320 willing to use force. He's willing to do it prudently, 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:42.760 but he is willing to kick ass. And this was 0:20:42.800 --> 0:20:46.359 what makes him different from, for example, an absolute mindless 0:20:46.440 --> 0:20:51.119 Joe Biden, a giggling, idiotic Kamala Harris. So again, when 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:53.639 you're measuring Trump, you have to measure him against the 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:59.119 absolutely impermissible alternative. Can you imagine what America would have 0:20:59.119 --> 0:21:02.520 been like the Democrats one? Can you imagine the world 0:21:02.560 --> 0:21:06.520 we'd be living in, the rottedness of the system would continue, 0:21:06.760 --> 0:21:10.480 the censorship would be accelerated, the surveillance would be going on. 0:21:10.920 --> 0:21:13.480 There would be political targeting to a degree that we 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:16.760 probably never imagined. Trump would probably be serving a life sentence. 0:21:17.200 --> 0:21:19.800 So this is who these people are, this is what 0:21:19.840 --> 0:21:23.280 they do, and I just Trump has liberated us from that. 0:21:24.000 --> 0:21:28.560 So it basically every single thing of senators is not true, 0:21:28.800 --> 0:21:32.440 not true. But I mean, I guess the metal meats 0:21:32.440 --> 0:21:33.960 the road. I mean here with the rubbers the road. 0:21:33.960 --> 0:21:35.880 I guess what do you think a successful end state 0:21:35.960 --> 0:21:37.760 for Iran looks like? What do you think it's going 0:21:37.800 --> 0:21:39.479 to look like for the United States to leave that 0:21:39.560 --> 0:21:41.840 conflict to emerge feeling like we were victorious, because I 0:21:41.840 --> 0:21:44.720 will tell you that when Obama was in office, supposedly 0:21:44.760 --> 0:21:46.760 inep president who didn't know what he was doing when 0:21:46.760 --> 0:21:49.000 it came to foreign policy, we had a deal on 0:21:49.040 --> 0:21:51.320 the table with inspectors in the country, and we had 0:21:51.359 --> 0:21:54.240 a pathway to some kind of normalization with Iran, where 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:57.040 there was still intense pressure on that country. When Trump 0:21:57.119 --> 0:21:59.199 came into the first term, he tore up the JCP 0:21:59.320 --> 0:22:01.920 away with nothing to replace it with. He set off 0:22:01.960 --> 0:22:04.200 the Abraham Accords and claimed piece of the Middle East 0:22:04.280 --> 0:22:07.040 without dealing with the Palestinian issue. Biden comes in and 0:22:07.119 --> 0:22:09.679 lo and behold what happens. Every time the Palestinians are ignored, 0:22:09.800 --> 0:22:11.639 they rise up and they do an attack. It happened 0:22:11.640 --> 0:22:13.640 with the first Hintevada, It happened with a second intevada, 0:22:13.680 --> 0:22:15.800 and it happened with October seventh. Go you know, go 0:22:15.880 --> 0:22:18.879 figure big surprise. Trump comes in the next time after 0:22:18.920 --> 0:22:21.200 achieving peace in the Middle East, and then he comes 0:22:21.200 --> 0:22:22.680 in and he does peace in the Middle East again 0:22:22.720 --> 0:22:23.639 by attacking Iran. 0:22:23.720 --> 0:22:24.239 And then he's done. 0:22:24.280 --> 0:22:25.720 Pieces in the Middle East again by getting us in 0:22:25.760 --> 0:22:28.040 a war with Irun. What does the end state here 0:22:28.119 --> 0:22:30.720