Ronald Reagan to JD Vance: minimizing Watergate is a Republican tradition | Rick Perlstein

On the American right, there is an unbroken lineage of Watergate propaganda going back to the 70s from todayWhen JD Vance spoke at the Richard M Nixon presidential library last week about his new book on his journey from atheism to an allegedly devout Catholicism, he raised eyebrows by minimizing Watergate. “The idea that it [took] down a presidency is crazy,” he said. He said it was the “deep state that took down Richard Nixon”– not the 37th president’s implication in serious crimes.Commentators were shocked. Did the vice-president not know that the investigation proved Nixon directed a conspiracy to bribe the men who broke into the Democratic party headquarters to lie in court from a secret, illegal slush fund? Continue reading...