Nit: Nixon was not impeached—he resigned before that could happen, having been informed by Congressional leaders that the votes were there for both impeachment and conviction. I don't think this distinction matters much, and I personally count Nixon's resignation as the only success so far for the impeachment/removal process.
Comment on what the Nixon administration felt like: I was 11 when he was inaugurated and 17 when he resigned: he was was the first president I experienced as a politically-aware adult. It felt not so much like the end of the world as a know malevolent sleazebag being president. Congress was still in the hands of Democratic majorities, and the loss of the Senate under Reagan *did* feel like the beginning of the end.
Your account doesn't touch on the draft, which loomed very large in the social divisions. Before the institution of a draft lottery in 1969, conscription followed a procedure that reflected social status, but the supposed fairness of the lottery did not improve sentiment among the youth most affected. Conscription ended in 1973, two years before the actual end of hostilities. The draft formed part of a serious generational divide: The WWII generation experienced near-universal service among young men, and it was regarded as a patriotic duty. The much smaller numbers of combatants required for the Vietnam war meant the experience was never going to be universal, but the older generation generally didn't factor in the capriciousness of fighting a far-from-total war.
Back to Nixon: he could be taken down, and was, but you (following Perlstein, I guess) point out that in retrospect he was merely the beginning of a series of disastrous Republican presidents: Nixon, Reagan, G.W. Bush, Trump. Nixon did not attack expertise to the extent that Reagan did, but he *did* attack political opponents via dirty tricks. His used of the IRS to get at enemies (of which he had a famous list) looks like nothing compared to the current crowd, but it was seen as bottomlessly vile at the time, and there were Republicans in Congress willing to vote that way.
One nit, then a real comment.
Nit: Nixon was not impeached—he resigned before that could happen, having been informed by Congressional leaders that the votes were there for both impeachment and conviction. I don't think this distinction matters much, and I personally count Nixon's resignation as the only success so far for the impeachment/removal process.
Comment on what the Nixon administration felt like: I was 11 when he was inaugurated and 17 when he resigned: he was was the first president I experienced as a politically-aware adult. It felt not so much like the end of the world as a know malevolent sleazebag being president. Congress was still in the hands of Democratic majorities, and the loss of the Senate under Reagan *did* feel like the beginning of the end.
Your account doesn't touch on the draft, which loomed very large in the social divisions. Before the institution of a draft lottery in 1969, conscription followed a procedure that reflected social status, but the supposed fairness of the lottery did not improve sentiment among the youth most affected. Conscription ended in 1973, two years before the actual end of hostilities. The draft formed part of a serious generational divide: The WWII generation experienced near-universal service among young men, and it was regarded as a patriotic duty. The much smaller numbers of combatants required for the Vietnam war meant the experience was never going to be universal, but the older generation generally didn't factor in the capriciousness of fighting a far-from-total war.
Back to Nixon: he could be taken down, and was, but you (following Perlstein, I guess) point out that in retrospect he was merely the beginning of a series of disastrous Republican presidents: Nixon, Reagan, G.W. Bush, Trump. Nixon did not attack expertise to the extent that Reagan did, but he *did* attack political opponents via dirty tricks. His used of the IRS to get at enemies (of which he had a famous list) looks like nothing compared to the current crowd, but it was seen as bottomlessly vile at the time, and there were Republicans in Congress willing to vote that way.