Never forget (Nixon)

I watched Frost/Nixon last night. It was pretty good drama, but it is more important as a reminder of who Nixon was and what he did. Any time that one of your associates asserts that the abuses of the Bush administration were aberrations, just remind them of Nixon.

Aside from that there is the long sordid history of imperialism, racism, political machines, and corruption (ranging from the local to the Federal governments)...but they will also try to dismiss those acts as ancient history or aberrations in themselves.

There is a certain degree of imperialism, racism, and the like in even the standard version of American history, ranging from slavery to the treatment of Native Americans. But I'm wondering what are the "great" Presidential scandals or misdeeds at the level of a Nixon or Bush from past periods of history. I feel like earlier scandals, say your Teapot Dome or generic corruption of the Grant administration, is presented as a nostalgic period in which graft was the only problem. The type of controlling megalomania of a Nixon or Bush seems missing. Is this just because we don't have the records of it? Or maybe I'm missing a scandal?

Presidents from Washington to FDR have been accused of harboring dictatorial tendencies, but have been vindicated by history and I'm not aware of good arguments that they actually sought dictatorial control (though I can understand how contemporary critics thought so).

The further back that you go, the weaker the Federal government is, so the harder it is to find a President who might have grabbed absolute power. You have to look to the local governments, which is why I mentioned the political machines. You could also look to the Jim Crow system in the south. However, both of those are viewed as "solved problems" and are not considered relevant to modern politics.

One problem is to distinguish between the "primitive morality" of our racist forebears and the nature of the institutions that they lived with. I'm sure that a statist would argue that the society was oppressive, and the state simply reflected the society. Conversely, I suspect that the state is inherently oppressive (structured to allow one portion of society to dominate the rest) and that its existence invites oppression and it is actually an artifact of the oppressive history of our society (i.e. it has no value in a non-oppressive society).

Likewise, political machines and corruption are linked to identity politics and the absence of a professional class of state employees. Now that we've largely solved those problems, we don't have to worry about it, right?

That's the problem with going back too far (or looking to the experience of other counties)--there are just too many differences between them and us to make a strong comparison.

The other "crime" of Bush was his warmongering...so we'd need to find other military adventures where a generally unwilling or ambivalent population was drawn into an unjust or unwise war by the President. We generally win our wars and decide that they were justified, so this is a bit hard.

There's the escalation of Vietnam, which I could make an argument --at least to liberals--that it was only made necessary by the nature of our political system (being based on intimidation and suspicion). To attack the actions of the Cold War (proxy wars and coups) as being symptoms of the state, we'd basically have to present the entire Cold War (starting with our involvement in the Russian Civil War) as a symptom of the state. That's a hard sell.

Korea and the World Wars are generally considered "good wars", and at most I could argue that the unconditional surrender of Japan (requiring invasion or atomic terrorism) was not really necessary, and only seemed necessary because of the nature of the political system--but I think that most Americans were on board.

The Spanish war has its questionable rationale, and was followed by the colonization of Philippines and the neo-colonization of Cuba (and the rest of Latin America). Similarly, there was the colonization of Hawaii.

There was the invasion of Mexico, which prompted Thoroeau's Civil Disobedience and may have been opposed at least by the abolitionists.

I guess one of the big issues is whether we needed to engage in global power politics, or whether we would have been secure if we had just minded our own business.

Although there is a trend to redeem John Adams as President, I think it's possible he could be seen as a President who made a clear bid for what was rightly called out as dictatorial powers.

Yeah, let's get back to the issue of specific Presidents rather than general institutional tendencies...

So, to put a President on this list of would-be dictators, it's necessary that he was stopped by some resistance to his power grabs (since the USA has never been a proper dictatorship). I don't think it matters whether this pushback came from the centers of elite power (e.g. Congress, courts, and state governments) or whether it came more directly from the people (such as an overwhelming electoral defeat for him and his allies or direct action and organizing).

For this reason, neither FDR or Lincoln could get on the would-be dictator list. Even though they both pushed for massive changes to our political and economic systems and faced strong opposition from those whose power they threatened, they never established a unified power structure* despite the long periods of time that they and their allies held power...so we can infer that they never really were heading down that path (though occasional political/legal setbacks probably helped keep them honest).

Conversely, both Nixon and Bush had their power (and that of their allies) cut short by popular opposition.Even with those two, there is good reason to believe that they weren't consciously seeking perpetual power, they just believed that a strong presidency (held by a right-minded person such as themselves) was necessary for national security (i.e. maintaining their ideal social structures).

A Google search for "presidential abuse of power -clinton -lincoln -bush -nixon" doesn't provide much more info. However, it does indicated that "abuse of power" is not necesarrily leading towards dictatorship; accusations against Clinton, Lincoln, FDR, and Jackson all indicate that they were trying to change society (perhaps outside the law) but not trying to interfere with the free functioning of the political opposition.

At some level, Nixon's actions can be seen as a continuation of the Red Scare policies -- though I think that most of the oppression related to the Red Scare occurred on the state and local level. J. Edgar Hoover (head of Federal investigations from 1924-1972) is an interesting character in this light--he definitely wanted to exclude certain groups from power, but he seemed to be fine with the flexibility of the ruling class.

*By "unified power structure" I mean a system by which individuals cannot gain power without the approval of the existing power holders. In other words, there is no challenging the leadership, and certain groups are totally excluded from power.

To pick just one example, would Andrew Jackson's decision to ignore the Supreme Court and move ahead with Indian removal be one reason to put him on this list? He was not stopped by this, but it was a clear power grab that arguably exceeded the Constitutional limits placed on the Presidency.

Alternatively, could we view the Republican Congress that impeached Johnson as a power grab that could put them on the list? It would be interesting to consider not just Presidential threats but Congressional ones.

The electoral pushback that resulted in President Jefferson arguably could put Adams on this list, if you viewed him as pushing for a unified power structure. Given how Adams focused on Republican outlets in the press and the suppression of critics of his policy, particularly foreign, he seems to have been pushing for a system in which outside groups were totally excluded from power. His actions, perhaps more so than any other, were directed against his political opponents.

Discussion of "dictatorial tendencies" is based on a model of how the American system of government works, and therefore what fundamentally undermines it. I view the American government as a class system, where the ruling class is pretty flexible in incorporating outsiders who "buy in" to the system (both economically and morally), and factions of the ruling class vie for electoral support from the general public or middle class. However, there have traditionally been groups that are excluded from power -- blacks and the working poor being two of these groups. While individuals from these groups can join the ruling class, the ruling class reacts violently to any power grab by an excluded group.

Under normal conditions, the factions of the ruling class argue over policies and struggle for power, but each is fine conceding power to the other. However, at times one faction (liberals) tries to incorporate an outsider group, and the other faction (conservatives) feel threatened and a serious fight develops within the ruling class. The weapons traditionally used against the outsider groups are then turned against one faction of the ruling class, leading to the risk of dictatorship.