Donald J. Trump has been a shock to the American system so to speak. He is brazen, more so than the average Presidential candidate, and he is a unique candidate. He is currently in his third marriage, had no religious affiliation coming into this year's election, and was at an estimated worth of 4 billion dollars as of 2015. Donald Trump is very different from past GOPs, and his success has been a huge surprise to many people. While Donald Trump is an original presidential candidate, his campaign is far from unique. His campaign strategy as a whole is extremely similar to one of America's most infamous presidents, Richard Nixon.
Yes, that is right, Nixon. The President who resigned in the face of impeachment. The President who refused to release recordings concerning the Watergate scandal. Most conservative candidates strive for a comparison to Ronald Reagan, but if you study history you will see that Donald Trump ought to be compared to Richard Nixon.
Let's start by looking at Donald Trump's slogans compared to Nixon's famous campaign slogans. Nixon claimed to be resonating with the "non-shouters and non-demonstrators." This means simply that his following were those who preferred to be silent. A common phrase in Trump's campaign, "The Silent Majority Stands With Trump." Sound familiar? Even more interesting is that Nixon's "non-shouters and non-demonstrators" was in reference to the issue of the Vietnam War, the war for which Nixon claimed to have a "secret plan." This plan of Nixon's was advertised to bring about an "end to the war." What has been a big selling point for Trump? He told Greta Van Susteren on Fox News that "I do know what to do and I would know how to bring ISIS to the table, or beyond that, defeat ISIS very quickly. . . and I'm not gonna tell you what it is." Nixon claimed to have a plan to end the Vietnam War, which was a "yuge" campaign point for him. Now, almost 50 years later, Donald Trump rips a page straight out of Nixon's campaign plan and has a "secret plan" to defeat ISIS.
While those two campaign points help depict Trump's unoriginality, there is one point that really sells this idea for me personally. Donald Trump is fond of the idea of uniting the country, or in his words "We're going to bring our country together." Trump continually pounds this idea of reuniting and "Putting America first", and these have been major campaign points for him. Although successful, these campaign points are painfully recycled. In 1968, one of Richard Nixon's signature slogans was "Bring Us Together", talking about bringing the country back together.
The irony of both Nixon and Trump is that they intended to unite America through similar racial dispositions. Nixon began the "War on Drugs" on June 17th, 1971. This led to African-Americans being incarcerated for the minor drug offenses, while whites were statistically given much more leniency for similar offenses. Nixon aimed to unite the country by first driving a wedge between the majority and the minority.
What is Donald Trump's vision for uniting America? By policing predominantly Muslim American neighborhoods and through building a wall. Innocent until proven guilty is simply thrown out the window. Muslims and Latinos alike are suddenly all considered suspect. Trump aims to unite America in the same way Nixon tried to, by driving a wedge between the majority and the minority.
Trump has also blatantly taken from the George W. Bush campaign as well, but the Nixon-Trump connection is the most obvious. We are watching the Richard Nixon campaign represented through the brazen personality of Donald Trump, and it is frightening.
Character is everything, and we saw how Nixon's presidency ended. Are we truly going to support a candidate who's character and methods are so suspect? Trump may be the most brazen and politically incorrect candidate we have ever had, but he is far from original. And as the wheel of history continues to turn, I believe that we will see similar results with Donald Trump as we saw with Richard Nixon.
Trump has also blatantly taken from the George W. Bush campaign as well, but the Nixon-Trump connection is the most obvious. We are watching the Richard Nixon campaign represented through the brazen personality of Donald Trump, and it is frightening.
Character is everything, and we saw how Nixon's presidency ended. Are we truly going to support a candidate who's character and methods are so suspect? Trump may be the most brazen and politically incorrect candidate we have ever had, but he is far from original. And as the wheel of history continues to turn, I believe that we will see similar results with Donald Trump as we saw with Richard Nixon.
