Nixon was never formally charged with crimes because that was taken off the table by President Gerald Ford pardoning him. The quasi-religious backing of Trump among Republican base voters, and the presence of unrelenting Trump defenders in conservative media, have given him sanctuary from the tsunami of defectors Nixon experienced. Still, nothing so far presented by the January 6 committee has resulted in a wave of defections by Trump loyalists. It is far from certain the January 6 committee will find something as undeniably incriminating as the Nixon tapes, though the recent stories of potentially missing text messages by Secret Service agents have a distinctly familiar ring. Faith in national institutions, including the presidency, Congress and the Supreme Court, was much greater. Bomb-throwing commentators were not an everyday presence. The two parties were not so rigidly ideological that a dissenter (or truth-teller) would be ostracized or "censured." Nor was there formally partisan national media, like Fox News and MSNBC, or the din of political talk radio. Unquestionably, the state of American democracy was different in that era. The credibility of the Watergate committee was only enhanced. Many of Nixon's supporters began to abandon him after the massacre, the percentage of people believing he should leave office doubled from 19% to 38%. His order to fire the Watergate special prosecutor, in what became known as the "Saturday Night Massacre," provided a turning point the current hearings have yet to duplicate. Without an army of influential conservatives - aka Fox News hosts - to shield him by denying all the spectacular evidence uncovered about him, Nixon faced an untenable political position.
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And, eventually, there was: The release of the tapes that connected Nixon to the cover-up of the break-in at Washington's Watergate complex led to his resignation in 1974.
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Sitting through all the TV coverage half a century ago, the dominant theme was whether there would ever be a "smoking gun" - irrefutable evidence of Richard Nixon's malfeasance. Anyone who believed after Watergate that nothing like that could ever happen again in America has been taught a lesson: History does repeat itself. That is perhaps the most significant takeaway from what has played out on television in these two separate events. Watergate was about a bungled attempt by a Republican president to sabotage the political prospects of his Democratic opponents through an office burglary the attack on the Capitol was about a concerted attempt by a Republican president to undo the foundation of American democracy: the peaceful transfer of power.īut if you've listened carefully, it's hard to miss the echoes.
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Still, even with fewer Americans tuning into the January 6th committee hearings, I believe they will have just as great of an impact (or even greater) on American history as the Watergate hearings did. What's more, though: A significant segment of the population - supporters of Donald Trump, who has been the target of the investigation - has stuck their hands over eyes and ears and pretended there's nothing of interest going on.
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People have more diversions now, off and on television. Even with uncounted numbers on streaming, surpassing Watergate's audience would seem to be a reach. The first edition attracted more than 20 million viewers, and the latest edition reportedly reached almost 18 million. That likely exceeds the cumulative number for the most recent hearings by the House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection. And I wasn't the only one: An estimated 80 million watched at least some part of the coverage that dominated television for almost a year. They were certainly as compelling as anything I saw on television in that era. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own.Īlmost 50 years ago, fresh out of school, I was transfixed by the coverage of the famous hearings into the Watergate break-in. Opinion by Bill Carter for CNN Business PerspectivesĮditor's Note: Bill Carter, a media analyst for CNN, covered the television industry for The New York Times for 25 years, and has written four books on TV, including The Late Shift and The War for Late Night.