Watergate (1994)

[jazzfish]

Mick Gold et al, Watergate

I yield to rydra_wong regarding a four-hour Watergate documentary that I watched over the weekend: WHAT THE ACTUAL EVEN: a BBC/Discovery co-production.

I love the fact that nearly everyone I've made watch this documentary has the same reaction at around [the half-hour] point, because WHAT THE ACTUAL EVEN (you'll know it when you reach it). And then it continues to be jaw-dropping in a variety of different ways (moving, bizarre, mind-boggling, entertaining ...) for the next three and a half hours.

It's an in-depth and intensely, shockingly, compelling work of visual journalism/history. It opens with an almost unbelievable "yeah, we set out to do all these highly illegal things," and then the whole situation spirals far out of control before tightening back in. There are lengthy, candid interviews with just about everyone who was still alive at the time of filming (1994): the only exception I can think of is Nixon himself.

What gets me about the whole of l'affaire Watergate is the sheer number of things that had to go wrong for there to be any accountability at all. If Liddy had been less of a nutcase, or if he'd been more competent. If the cops hadn't checked on the office complex that night, if the FBI hadn't been able to connect the burglars to Howard Hunt, if Hunt hadn't gotten greedy. If John Dean hadn't developed a sense of self-preservation (something notably lacking in Ehrlichman and Haldeman) that turned into a genuine concern for the rule of law. Above all, of course, if the tapes hadn't existed, or if Nixon had set fire to them before they were subpoenaed. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that the only reason anyone higher than Hunt and Liddy suffered any consequences at all, even in an era of decreased partisanship, is because Nixon was literally caught on tape authorizing felonies.

I'd love to see a similar documentary in 2040 about the Trump administration, or even in 2030 about GW Bush's. I doubt we will, though. I expect the only reason so many of the principals spoke so freely is that all their actions had been a matter of public record for twenty years. Don't Get Caught remains the operating principle of the Republican party.

Ah well.

(Available on Youtube, though with poor video quality. Also available on BBC's iPlayer for the next eleven months. Highly recommended.)

Comments

[shadowkat]

The Republican Party has gotten increasingly more socially conservative over the years. Nixon was actually fairly moderate in some respects, also more experienced for the job. Of the two, Trump kind of makes Nixon look almost Saintly. So being a Nixon supporter back then is actually less...nefarious and/or idiotic than supporting Trump now. I know there were folks who supported Nixon but not Trump. And supported GW Bush but not Trump.

But just as there folks who hate the Clintons now, there were folks who hated the Kennedys and for that matter Roosevelt and Truman. (My grandparents despised Roosevelt.) The statement that we've never been this "politically" divided in our Nation's history - is a giant misnomer. I mean the US has been fighting against itself politically since its inception. There were quite few people who did not want to separate from Britain.

[jazzfish]

There's a definite regression from Nixon to Bush II to Trump in terms of competence and interest-in-governing, while maintaining a consistent level of evil. Like, Nixon was clearly a terrible human being who supported terrible policies but at least he HAD policies? "Nihilists. Fuck me. Say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, at least it's an ethos."

And entirely agreed re the long history of divisions. I think it's more that these days the divisions have finally finished sorting themselves out along party lines.

[shadowkat]

I don't know if that's true - they were pretty divided along party lines in the 1800s (Democrates were slave holders, the Republicans were abolitionists in the 1800s. And 1700s was Federalists vs. States Rights which lead into the early 1800s. I mean it's not at all surprising we had a Civil War.)

Andrew Jackson was a lot worse than Trump - he was behind the Trail of Tears and the genocide of the American Indian tribes. A populist President, who was rough and known at the time as the People's President. Nasty piece of work. That was the Democrats.

The change was in the 1960s, when LBJ signed the CIVIL RIGHTS BILL, and the DixiDemocrats jumped parties to the Republican Party, and the Republican Party began to slide downhill. But up until roughly the Vietnam War, it was moderate, and just fiscally conservative.

The division now is mainly due to the extremists within the two parties. On the left - the extreme left, and on the right - the extreme alt-right. And in between well everyone else. But of the two extremes - most people have decided they have a better chance of pulling the left towards the center, than the nutty far right. As a result a lot of Moderate Republicans and Fisically Conservative Republicans have jumped to the Democrat and Independent Parties, abandoning the sinking ship.

The reason Biden won the primaries and the election has a lot to do with the Moderate and fiscally conservative Republicans who hate Trump and the far right edge of the party. And that group switched to Democrat in 2018-2020. So what we have is a split Democrat Party (moderates, fiscal conservatives, progressives, and well the crazy people.), The Republican Party is basically just die-hards, alt-right, and crazy people. I think in ten years, the Republican Party will disappear and the Democrat Party will splinter off. It's what has happened in the distant past. The Federalist became the Republicans, and the Democrates - State's Rights, then they flipped.

[jazzfish]

I pretty much agree with you, except to note that the "extreme left" is still pretty marginalized within the Democratic party, while the "extreme right" is, well, the mainstream Republican position. It is gonna be interesting to see how things play out in the next few years. As you noted, the Democrats are the party of Not Totally Batshit, which is a big tent that can only hold together for as long as there's a Batshit Party to contrast against.

I really, really hope the Republican Party goes full Batshit and fades off into irrelevancy, because that could give us a decent chance to pass some decent LBJ-ish legislation before the inevitable fracturing.

Although... I don't know how inevitable the fracturing is? Plenty of states have been functionally one-party for a long time (Rhode Island and its awful Democrats, or various places in the South at various times). I don't know if that can translate to a national level or not. Basically moves all the fights to the primaries, which ... is not ideal.

[shadowkat]

No, we pretty much agree. You're correct that batshit branch of the Democrat party is rather marginalized within it - and doesn't have a substantial voice much to their considerable annoyance(or Bernie Saunders or the crazy lady two steps left of him would have gotten the nomination not Biden or Hillary (in 2016) ). While, yes, the batshit right has pretty much taken over the Republican Party and become mainstream.

What happens next will have a lot to do with whether they manage to get the New Voting Rights Act Passed, and kill the filibuster or at the very least scale it back to its former incarnation in the Senate. I think it will be scaled back, and possibly done away with - in order to pass the Voting Rights Act. The Voting Rights Act - will kick some of the new state level restrictive voting legislation and gerrymandering to the curb.

If they pass that Act, then yes - the Republican Party most likely will begin to disappear into irrelevancy. And lose the Senate within two years. With no candidate getting very far into the elections of 2024 and onwards. If they keep going the way they are - the Presidential Elections may well be decided within the Democratic Primaries, or with be a Democrat vs. an Independent, with the Republicans in third party status.

If they don't pass it? We're stuck with the fascist bastards.