#Nixonland

[deadpresidents]

Have you ever read Nixonland by Rick Perlstein?

YES, I have, and it's fantastic. Nixonland is just one part of Rick Perlstein's excellent history of the rise of the modern Conservative movement and the Republican Party as it was basically transformed in opposition to LBJ's Great Society. All of the books are incredible, deeply-researched, and -- best of all -- extremely readable. I wholeheartedly recommend each of these books by Rick Perlstein: •Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •Reaganland: America's Right Turn, 1976-1980 (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

Incidentally, Reaganland is worth buying just for the cover photograph featuring Jimmy Carter giving Ronald Reagan the most amazing side-eye ever while they were in the limousine on Reagan's Inauguration Day:

[thosearentcrimes]

Read Nixonland by Rick Perlstein. It's a very interesting book, worth reading, though unfortunately a lot of the bigger picture social theorizing is not very plausible. Still, he presents a vivid picture of 1950s and 60s US politics via the career of Richard Nixon, with engaging writing and well-chosen anecdotes.

In terms of the theorizing, while it's undeniable that Nixon benefited enormously from developments in the culture war, even Perlstein doesn't seem to attribute any particular innovations or vehemence to his use of the phenomenon, attributing that innovation more to Goldwater and Reagan. The idea that Nixon was the one to split a previously (nominally) united country into irreconcilable Nixonian and anti-Nixonian factions is thus somewhat difficult to take seriously. Nixon won the 1972 election in an overwhelming landslide, and not too long thereafter was widely reviled. That's not to say that Nixon's America was not all that polarized, just that the only use of Nixon in tracking it might be that his utter lack of principles and decent political instincts might make him temporarily an effective weathervane for public opinion.

The throughline of Orthogonians versus Franklins that runs through the book is an interesting and reasonably appropriate choice. However, I disagree with the choice to frame events and persons outside Nixon himself and his worldview in that nomenclature. Yes, one of Nixon's political successes may well have been his ability to reflect and project his own class resentments on the rest of the populace, but once we're getting outside Nixon's own mentality there is really no reason to stick with his purported high school resentments.

In fact, as defined by the author, the Orthogonians and Franklins are quite simply the petite and the grande bourgeoisie, respectively. I understand that using terminology notoriously popular among Marxists would not have been a great way to sell books in 2008 (or for that matter now), and I respect the choice to avoid those terms. That said, to those of us familiar with the terms it is not in fact going to come as a revelation that Nixon and other right-wing demagogues positioned themselves as representatives and protectors of a radically conservative petite bourgeoisie resentful of the grands and hateful towards the underclasses, all the while cultivating very close relations with and predominantly doing the bidding of large industrialists. It's just the done thing, and was long before Nixon, you know?

Anyway, I recommend people read it for themselves. It's a good book.

[freddieandflorence]

i need to get back onto the sleeping grindset. so i don’t fall ill

[goshdangronpa]

Mortality, dread, identity and love? I don't remember many quotes so I won't be able to make a regular exchange

Hi, anon! Tell ya what, I'll share these quotes free of charge, just for you, cuz I like you.

MORTALITY

Why? Because we love our fellow men enough to sacrifice our lives so that they will try to find the ecstasy in just being alive.

- Craig Badiali and Joan Fox, suicide note in protest of the Vietnam War

DREAD

its time to forget the mistakes of the past and start making the mistakes of the future

- @wolfpupy, post on Twitter

IDENTITY

What wouldn't you do?

- Brian Eno

LOVE

i've loved you from the moment i met you and we've wasted so much time on stupid bullshit but what is life if not passing time together ////what is love if not to say that my life has always been yours to squander

- Cecil Selwyn, review of Old on Letterboxd

[azspot]

On social media, the writer Rick Perlstein has been discussing, with reference to his book Nixonland, the policing of unrest back then versus the policing of unrest now and pointing out that since 9/11, a riot-gear posture of emergency has become so ordinary that armed-up, militarized, SWAT-like equipment and attitude are common even in small towns where nothing much goes on in the way of crowd action: a militarized crowd-control vibe is simply what much of policing looks and feels like now. People taking issue with Perlstein’s history point to the many times in the ‘60’s when police and the military ran amok and/or harmed or even killed protestors, but I think that just underscores his point. Columbia (‘68), Chicago (‘68), and Kent State (‘70) are examples of uprisings where—the behavior of those cracking down aside—varying degrees of genuinely insurrectionary violence were really going on.

Students Protesting?

[frankenshane]

so, i went through and updated my goodreads to reflect what i read this year and it came to a whopping 57 books spread across physical, audiobook, and digital formatting so here are my personal favorites of these published books by the categories they come in:

nonfiction:

1. Nixonland by Rick Perlstein

2. People Love Dead Jews by Dara Horn

3. Field of Blood by Joanne B Freeman

4. The Romanovs: 1613 - 1918 by Simon Sebag Montifiore

5. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann

fiction:

1. Fledgling by Octavia E Butler

2. Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu

[true #3 goes to the second draft of one of my partner's novels]

3. The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

4. Kassandra by Christa Wolf

5. 11/22/63 by Stephen King

classical:

1. Antigone by Sophocles (trans. Robert Fagles)

2. Agamemnon by Aeschylus (trans. Ian Johnston)

3. The Iliad by Homer (trans. Emily Wilson [realest translation and provider of excellent context])

4. Women of Trachis by Sophocles (trans. Bagg & Scully)

5. The Eumenides by Aeschylus (trans. Ian Johnston)

*not that the rest are bad but i enjoy these the most

[racefortheironthrone]

I am not an American and I didn't know about Kissinger until today. Do you have any texts you would recommend for someone who wants to find out the shit he did?

I would start with Spencer Ackerman's obituary and maybe read Sy Hersh's book on Kissinger and Nixon, The Price of Power, or perhaps Rick Perlstein's Nixonland if you need a long read.

[shunnedmorlock]

Hi! Im so interested in your alicent = richard nixon, rhaenyra = john f. kennedy parallels thing .Do you mind explaining?

Have a good day/night!

yeah so a lot of this is inspired by Nixonland by Rick Perlstein which is one of the best books you'll find on the 1960s and early 70s and Nixon in particular. really if you're interested at all in American conservatism check all his books out, they're amazing. also want to preface this with the fact that this isn't based on their political ideologies because neither Rhaenyra nor Alicent really have one beyond "Targaryen absolutism" and "Faith-backed feudalism" respectively. there is no left and no right because there is no French revolution

but basically, Perlstein's thesis is that a lot of how Nixon viewed politics and how he gained power went back to his time at Whittier College. now Whittier had a couple of prominent social clubs, most notably, the Franklins, which were old-money, sophisticated elites. Nixon was not born into wealth - he was born to a family that did own a bit of land/business, but constantly struggled to make ends meet and were always precarious. for lack of a better term, he was white trash - the "used car salesman" thing is actually a jab at this since it's a middle-class but low-prestige occupation. naturally, he did not gel well with the Franklins at Whittier, and so he was one of the founding members of a new social club for the ladder-climbing social strivers who also felt looked-down upon by sophisticated elites: the Orthogonians. John F. Kennedy, on the other hand, was probably the living embodiment of the "Franklin" - even his liberalism came from the type of noblesse oblige that infuriated the petit-bourgeoisie Nixon. so losing to Nixon kind of drove him crazy.

you can do even more psychoanalysis on Nixon and his class resentments of liberal elites (READ NIXONLAND) but i'll stop it there. Rhaenyra is a Franklin: she has never once been in doubt that she will live an extraordinarily privileged life. For her, being an elite comes so naturally that she often doesn't even register that she is an elite. encounters with the lower classes engender a mix of disgust and patrician obligation. Though this self-assuredness can make her arrogant and reckless at times, it also gives her a sort of magnetism that draws people to follow her (Alicent, Criston, in the books all those random petty lords and hedge knights and smallfolk in the Riverlands who remember the Realm's Delight). She has vaguely liberal/cosmopolitan sensibilities (caring too much about homosexuality or adultery is just so gauche, darling), but isn't a revolutionary.

Alicent, on the other hand, is an Orthogonian. she doesn't come from nothing - far from it! but the privileges she does possess don't come from dynastic wealth, but her father having a good job that he got through (relatively) meritocratic means. Alicent and Otto are painfully aware that whatever privileges they possess come from Otto being useful to the Targaryens, and should either make a misstep, they would have to go to their brother/uncle on bended knee to beg for a handout. This makes both Otto and Alicent both deeply neurotic and even paranoid, but also extremely hard-working and driven.

important to keep in mind that neither of these are strictly speaking "good" things to be and the vast majority of Westerosi people (peasants, laborers, pretty much all commoners except maybe wealthy merchants or artisans) do not fall into either of these categories

[politicalrpf]

oomf this isn't a question but a submission! I was rereading Nixonland recently, and remembered this passage:

"Republican Congressional Campaign Committee printed “Great Society Play Money” (a pair of Texas longhorns over a worried-looking LBJ: “Progress Is a Shrinking Dollar”)."

Now, with that in mind, I really wanted to see this thing - so I found it! Thought you might like it.

https://www.legacyamericana.com/Great-Society-Funny-Money_p_10722.html

I do like it!! This is wonderful, thank you!!! It goes nicely with those Nixon dollars I posted some time ago. For everyone else to see in all its glory:

[deadpresidents]

Do you really read the books that you recommend? Someone asked about Nixonland and you not only said you read it but conveniently read all of the other books by the same author and it just seems unlikely to even have every one of the books from the author that the person who asked the question just brought up. I'm not saying you aren't being honest but I'm just curious!!!!!!!

Here's a Proof of Life photo for the Rick Perlstein (author of Nixonland) books you were curious about.

I don't recommend a book unless I've personally read it. I have a lot of books. I don't sleep very much. And I don't have a very exciting social life. So I read a lot of books. I certainly wouldn't want someone to suggest a book to me if they've never read it, and that's not something I'm ever going to do.

[woodsteingirl]

the forty hour nixon book is called nixonland and i feel like it’s thee authoritative text about him in the same way that robert dallek’s an unfinished life is the authoritative kennedy text

[freddiegoesmetal]

3 + 22

3. What were your top five books of the year?

rebecca by daphne du maurier, poisoner in chief by stephen kinzer, secret city by james kirchick, nixonland by rick perlstein, and all the president’s men by bob woodward and carl bernstein ‼️

22. What’s the longest book you read?

either nixonland or the brothers karamazov.. i’m unsure because i don’t remember the exact page counts of my books so i’m going off of the goodreads ones.

[freddieandflorence]

my hips are killing me

[goshdangronpa]

Today's musical mood:

Different strokes for different folks

So on and so forth and scooby-dooby-doo

[frankenshane]

so i'm listening to the audio book of perlstein's nixonland and i cannot overstate how punchable dick nixon is as a person before politics even enters the equation. this is also a very well-written book and i appreciate that it's very california-forward.

[evilrichardnixon]

sorry to bother but is there a definitive nixon biography or a few good ones about him that you’d recommend? I’m trying learn more about him, preferably with a focus on his politics

While I personally don’t think there is one definitive Nixonian text, a rather comprehensive start would be Rick Perlstein’s “Nixonland.” It’s a good mix of biographical and political analysis. With Nixon I’ve found the two are pretty intertwined. There are also different books that focus on key moments in his political career.