Episode 21: Richard Nixon

The Past, the Promise, the Presidency

Today’s episode is all about Richard Milhouse Nixon, the 37th President of the United States. But the real question is…which Nixon?? Among the most mercurial of our presidents, some might say Machiavellian while others would reach for malevolent, Richard Nixon was a man who changed over the course of the more than quarter century he spent at the beating heart of American politics. Or, did he? He came of political age fighting communists, and left the White House with legal fights that would dog him the rest of his days. In one of our first episodes, Eric Foner told us that every president, and perhaps more importantly every historian, needs to ‘get right with Lincoln,’ in order to understand his era and our own. I’d argue that if you want to understand the America of 2021, you don’t have to get right with Nixon, but you do have to get your mind around him.
We first talked to Professor Kevin Kruse of Princeton University. We the spoke to Martha Jones, Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University. Finally, we spoke to journalist Clare Malone, a voice you’ll probably recognize if you’ve followed American politics in the age of Trump, who also knows a thing or two about where Trump came from, and it’s a story with Nixon written all over it.

Together our conversations brought out two themes:

• First, that Nixon’s positions on race always reflect the political realities of the moment and what was most likely to help him get ahead.
• Second, how Nixon helped reshape political parties, including catalyzing a new generation of African-American women political leaders.

To learn more, visit pastpromisepresidency.com.