Opinion of Richard Nixon's domestic policy

[President Johnson]

How about Richard Nixon's domestic policy as president?

I'd give him a FF vote. Was generally pro-civil-rights for blacks, implemented measures to protect the environment including creation of the EPA, endorsed lowering the voting age to 18 and did not gut social programs. Even created some new ones like the war on cancer.

[RINO Tom]

How about Richard Nixon's domestic policy as president?

I'd give him a FF vote. Was generally pro-civil-rights for blacks, implemented measures to protect the environment including creation of the EPA, endorsed lowering the voting age to 18 and did not gut social programs. Even created some new ones like the war on cancer.

Careful, friend.  This is a huge part of the modern Democratic identity you're about to shatter...

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

I would be uneasy stating either way how Nixon's administration acted on civil rights because it, like on most things, was incoherent in the issue.

[President Johnson]

How about Richard Nixon's domestic policy as president?

I'd give him a FF vote. Was generally pro-civil-rights for blacks, implemented measures to protect the environment including creation of the EPA, endorsed lowering the voting age to 18 and did not gut social programs. Even created some new ones like the war on cancer.

Careful, friend.  This is a huge part of the modern Democratic identity you're about to shatter...

Well, I'm ready to acknowledge it and give a Republican credit if does something right. Tricky Dick was a paranoid guy who did some very bad stuff, but he was not a racist. The matter of fact is also that he appeared more pro-civil rights than JFK in the 1960 campaign and got a large junk of the black vote that year (unlike in 1968).

[Orthogonian Society Treasurer]

He didn't have one.

[Mr. Smith]

Awful.

Most of it was cut up holdovers from LBJ, which were only there because of the Congressional layout. The original stuff was mostly ratf&*)ing to get re-elected.

[Sirius_]

There was this quote from one of his aides, which I find disgusting:
"We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities," -John Ehrlichman

[GGover]

FP

I'm a Nixon sympathizer. I think his domestic policy was a net positive for the country for just about all of the reasons you listed. Even though he abused dog whistle politics during the campaign, he had a good record on civil rights during his presidency. He supported the equal rights amendment, desegregation of schools, and affirmative action.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

FP

[Fight for Trump]

How about Richard Nixon's domestic policy as president?

I'd give him a FF vote. Was generally pro-civil-rights for blacks, implemented measures to protect the environment including creation of the EPA, endorsed lowering the voting age to 18 and did not gut social programs. Even created some new ones like the war on cancer.

Careful, friend.  This is a huge part of the modern Democratic identity you're about to shatter...

Well, I'm ready to acknowledge it and give a Republican credit if does something right. Tricky Dick was a paranoid guy who did some very bad stuff, but he was not a racist. The matter of fact is also that he appeared more pro-civil rights than JFK in the 1960 campaign and got a large junk of the black vote that year (unlike in 1968).

One of the hallmarks of his 1968 campaign was literally opposition to desegregation busing to appeal to soft segregationists. Of post-war major party nominees, only Goldwater openly courted the segregationist vote as much as Nixon, and it's almost certain that Nixon sympathized with them more than Goldwater. I am a Nixon admirer despite some of his flaws, but describing him as some sort of champion of black civil rights is blatant revisionism.

[President Johnson]

How about Richard Nixon's domestic policy as president?

I'd give him a FF vote. Was generally pro-civil-rights for blacks, implemented measures to protect the environment including creation of the EPA, endorsed lowering the voting age to 18 and did not gut social programs. Even created some new ones like the war on cancer.

Careful, friend.  This is a huge part of the modern Democratic identity you're about to shatter...

Well, I'm ready to acknowledge it and give a Republican credit if does something right. Tricky Dick was a paranoid guy who did some very bad stuff, but he was not a racist. The matter of fact is also that he appeared more pro-civil rights than JFK in the 1960 campaign and got a large junk of the black vote that year (unlike in 1968).

One of the hallmarks of his 1968 campaign was literally opposition to desegregation busing to appeal to soft segregationists. Of post-war major party nominees, only Goldwater openly courted the segregationist vote as much as Nixon, and it's almost certain that Nixon sympathized with them more than Goldwater. I am a Nixon admirer despite some of his flaws, but describing him as some sort of champion of black civil rights is blatant revisionism.

True, but he oversaw desegregation (his administration even sued the Trump Organization for discrimination of blacks). I think it's fair to say that Nixon was generally pro-civil rights. He even met MLK before 1960.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

How about Richard Nixon's domestic policy as president?

I'd give him a FF vote. Was generally pro-civil-rights for blacks, implemented measures to protect the environment including creation of the EPA, endorsed lowering the voting age to 18 and did not gut social programs. Even created some new ones like the war on cancer.

Careful, friend.  This is a huge part of the modern Democratic identity you're about to shatter...

Well, I'm ready to acknowledge it and give a Republican credit if does something right. Tricky Dick was a paranoid guy who did some very bad stuff, but he was not a racist. The matter of fact is also that he appeared more pro-civil rights than JFK in the 1960 campaign and got a large junk of the black vote that year (unlike in 1968).

One of the hallmarks of his 1968 campaign was literally opposition to desegregation busing to appeal to soft segregationists. Of post-war major party nominees, only Goldwater openly courted the segregationist vote as much as Nixon, and it's almost certain that Nixon sympathized with them more than Goldwater. I am a Nixon admirer despite some of his flaws, but describing him as some sort of champion of black civil rights is blatant revisionism.

True, but he oversaw desegregation (his administration even sued the Trump Organization for discrimination of blacks). I think it's fair to say that Nixon was generally pro-civil rights. He even met MLK before 1960.

I'm not an expert in the specifics, but I believe the Nixon administration was, y'know, mandated to do so by the Supreme Court. Leon Panetta, prior to his electoral career, was an HEW employee in Washington who left his job over resistance to integration. One of Nixon's bigger first-term embarrassments was, as I recall, the rejection of two Supreme Court nominees for the same seat over their stances on segregation. At the same time, his administration began the practice we call affirmative action and (rather impotently) sought to use loans to minority small businesses to enlarge the class of Black business owners. This same duality can be seen in Nixon's policing policy, which, while expanding powers for law enforcement, also involved some "community policing" innovations. There is a reason I called his civil rights policy "incoherent". I believe it was (a) intended to quite literally be all things to all people, and (b) the product of Nixon's (i) heterodox appointments records, and (ii) lack of care for domestic politics outside of their obvious application in his re-election bid. The man made cabinet members of John Connally and Elliot Richardson alike, for God's sake.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Richard Nixon's administration was one of the most criminal in American history, and that overshadows anything else.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The thing with Nixon and the reason he will never get a positive "reassessment" without it being immediately shot down, is because for every positive thing he did, there is a tape of him, in his own words, that ruins it for him.