Trump's favorite argument against impeachment fails the Richard Nixon test
On Sunday, President Trump revived one of his favorite arguments for why he shouldn't be impeached: Essentially, that he is too great a president to impeach. His supporting claims are all false or exaggerated, but Trump has two larger problems: First, the Constitution says nothing about accomplishments in its section on impeachment. And secondly, the only president to resign from office because of an impeachment investigation, Richard M. Nixon, was objectively a more accomplished president.
Nixon ended Vietnam, opened up China, founded the EPA, signed Title IX so women could play sports, helped end desegregation in southern schools, lowered the voting age, created the National Cancer Center, plus he was a dog owner https://t.co/T6P0CuSwN9
— Matt Oswalt (@MattOswaltVA) September 29, 2019
The comparison isn't entirely fair — Nixon had nearly six years in office before he resigned in the face of certain impeachment and likely conviction, while Trump has been in office only three years — but the principle is the same. Not all Nixon's accomplishments were positive, of course.
Nixon extended the Vietnam War for domestic political gain, secretly bombed Cambodia at the cost of 1,000,000 lives. Bush lied the country into war, broke the law by reintroducing torture, Trump is bad, and may yet do worse, but this kind of thinking does us all a disservice. https://t.co/SlzvrPpQj4
— Nikhil Pal Singh (@nikhil_palsingh) September 29, 2019
Nixon was forced from office in 1974 because an anonymous whistleblower revealed that his campaign cheated in the 1972 election by sending henchmen to dig up dirt on his Democratic rival, then covered it up. Trump is being accused of trying to send henchmen to dig up dirt on a Democratic rival, only his alleged malfeasance was discovered before the election, and he involved a foreign country.
Trump's daughter-in-law, Lara Trump — who works for his campaign — made a similar argument about Trump being too successful to be impeached, and faced similar Nixonian objections:
Trump took 46.1% of the popular vote and won the electoral college 304-227 -- 46th out of 58 elections.
Nixon took 60.1% of the popular vote in 1972 and dominated the electoral college 520-17.
He resigned before the House could finish impeaching him.https://t.co/n3krmzXxow— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) September 29, 2019
This is Nixon’s map from 1972.
We did. pic.twitter.com/oxaw2PVeVW— Danny Deraney (@DannyDeraney) September 29, 2019
Why is Lara Trump inviting so many comparisons of her father in law to Nixon?
— Liz Mair (@LizMair) September 29, 2019
Nixon, as many analysts have pointed out, did not have a powerful conservative media apparatus to support him. Maybe that will help Trump survive the impeachment process. Or maybe it will help ease him out.
If Fox News just started hammering how Nixon cleverly outsmarted the Democrats so history couldn’t show him as impeached, this could be over by Christmas.
— Schooley (@Rschooley) September 27, 2019