I finished listening to the first season of Slate’s Slow Burn podcast over the weekend (a weekend that got quickly consumed by my wife studying and my son coming down with a fever). I really enjoyed it and I’m looking forward to the second season, about the Monica Lewinsky scandal during the Clinton administration.

A few things stuck out: first, this is not an authoritative history of the downfall of Richard Nixon. That’s actually to their credit and to your benefit. They found really interesting interview subjects and stories I had no idea existed, which kept the episodes fresh. It also means you should have some basic background in the Watergate affair before you listen. I don’t know that there is a good primer on that, and after listening I don’t think I’d recommend “All the President’s Men” anymore, other than it’s an excellent read on its own.

Next, one is struck by how many coincidences it took for this to come together - Martha Mitchell, John McCord’s letter in open court, a segregationist Senator becoming a folk hero to Yankee Liberals, Spiro Agnew being forced to resign on a completely unrelated criminal consipiracy, and finally the events surrounding the tapes and the Saturday Night Massacre. It was a brilliant criminal consipiracy; if those points of failure don’t happen in that order, Nixon might be on Mt. Rushmore.

Third, one is struck by the parallels - and more so the contrasts - between Nixon and Trump. You knew I was going there. One thing that jumped out at me is that while Nixon seemed to be aware of his pathological needs for acceptance and validation, that is absolutely not the President we have. I don’t know if that makes any of this better or worse, but it does remind me that we’re not repeating history here, despite obvious echoes (and in the case of Roy Cohn, even a very few of the cast).

Fourth - the lasting impact and shaping of today’s Republican party dates to 1968, and the Nixon Southern Strategy. But so too, does its penetration into and eventual capture of the Archie Bunker, “White Working Class”. Perhaps the most disturbing parallel is that now, as then, there are so many people who in the first place don’t think what either Nixon or Trump did as wrong, but they don’t care if it were legal or right. They don’t care because that’s what they want - Control, Order. Ironically to me, it seems that our conception of what justice ought to be - that all are equal subject to the law - is opposed to the comfort of Order that maintains stasis between cleavages of race and class. I’ve had a vague notion of this for a long time, but hadn’t ever put such a fine point on it.

Last, I’m thinking about the message that Nixon’s resignation left. In some ways, it’s as important as Washington stepping down after two terms, because, without a coup, and under threat of legal action, the most powerful man in the world gave up that power. That’s the country I want to live in. A country where it doesn’t take rifles and tanks to affect change, but our voices, our feet, and our laws. He was a racist, drunk sonofabitch, a complicated man, and also the President who began to limit nuclear arms, open up China, established HUD and the EPA, signed into law the clean air and clean water acts. His most important act was stepping down - under duress to be sure. That’s something to think about.

I hope you give it a listen and enjoy.