Nixon wasn't in office yet, but he did have his campaign manager got to Vietnam and promise the VietCong a better deal if they walked away from negotiations, which lead to FIVE more years of war and countless lives lost for nothing other than a point to talk about on his soap box
The difference seems to be that Nixon may have been crooked, but he was largely competent. He operated on experience, expertise, and causal reality. Our current political situation is largely free of facts, knowledge, or causality. Much of the corruption that happens today is in plain sight and basically ignored. The goal is governance through depoliticization and post-truth infotainment.
Note that Nixon was actually impeached by his own party and would have been removed for what would now be a single day of news cycle, only on a few networks/papers, and completely ignored by a major political party.
Nixon was on track to be impeached, convicted, and thrown in jail. The people were demanding it. His resignation was basically a "you can't fire me, I quit!" moment. Ford's pardon of Nixon was and remains controversial.
I think the tech world is fundamentally difference, though I'm not old enough to experience it in '69. I don't believe we had tech moguls who built enormous wealth and realized they could by the influence they couldn't muster with social influence, and that has made the world net-worse.
What’s the point of focusing on one aspect of the world?
Taken as a whole, the 60’s were far more intense and violent. The Vietnam War. The draft. The Cuban Missile Crisis. Racial inequality and protests. Several major assassinations. Nixon in the White House. And that’s just the US.
The world is net-better even if certain areas still need improvement. But there’s really no point to hyperfocusing on just the things that are worse.
> I don't believe we had tech moguls who built enormous wealth and realized they could by the influence
Didn't this just describe the robber barons of the Gilded Age? Moguls and oligarchs of the day, yes. Amassed their fortunes on the emerging frontier technology of the time, I'd say so. Wielded enormous power over political discourse and essentially owned the law makers of the day. Rhymes, for sure.
It doesn't really matter whether you live in a democracy if the the very issues that are even allowed to be voted on are decided by an elite, wealthy and politically connected group.
I don't think is a fair question because the expectations are wildly different. The 80s and 90s transition gave us expectations of policy, peace and progress that were very different than the 60s.
69 had two things going on for it, the war was not news and on its first signs of being scalled back, Nixon had announced a retraction of force for September (but ended up extending the whole thing to 75) and this would be the first moon landing, there was nothing like it.
From 1969 to today, we're waaaaay better. But from 6 months ago there is clearly an elephant in the room taking a lot of attention.
