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Richard Nixon would be “drummed out” of GOP today as a liberal: “He passed as much social welfare legislation as Lyndon Johnson”
Salon talks to "Being Nixon: A Man Divided" author Evan Thomas about Donald Trump, populism and bipartisan drinking
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Donald Trump, Richard Nixon (Credit: AP/Carlos Osorio/Photo montage by Salon)
In
February 1974, two months before he resigned from office amid the
Watergate scandal, Richard Nixon proposed Obamacare. He didn’t call it
that — he called it the Comprehensive Health Insurance Plan — but the
broad outlines of his proposal look awfully familiar.
The plan included a mandate that employers provide coverage to all full-time employees. It would have created a federal program called Assisted Health Insurance to provide coverage to everyone not covered by Medicare, Medicaid or an employer plan. And it would have included a panel of physicians that would control medical costs by “reducing needless hospitalization.”
The leading Republicans on the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance committees supported Nixon’s 1974 plan, which the New York Times said was “vastly more liberal than the one he introduced in 1971” that would have provided less comprehensive indigent care. Congress failed to act on the 1974 proposal — not because of Watergate but because the House Ways and Means Committee could not settle on one of three competing versions of the plan.
Nixon did, however, sign a long list of other progressive legislation, including the laws that created the Environmental Protection Agency and Occupational Safety and Health Administration. He expanded the reach of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. He put two justices on the Supreme Court who would later vote with the majority on Roe v. Wade.
Evan Thomas, a former reporter and editor at Newsweek, has written books about Bobby Kennedy, Dwight Eisenhower and Teddy Roosevelt. His latest, the biography “Being Nixon: A Man Divided,” is just out in paperback. Thomas sat down with Salon to talk about Nixon in the 1960s and whether he would recognize the Republican Party of 2016. (Short answer: No.)
How factional was the Republican primary in 1960?
The primaries barely existed in 1960, and Nixon was essentially the designated heir that year.
Back then a candidate only entered the primary in a handful of states, right?
That’s right. Kennedy only entered the primaries in five or six states. Until 1968, the bosses ran the show. After 1968 blew up in Chicago, the parties gave up some of that control.
What was the demographic profile of Republican voters in 1960?
In 1960, there were Main Street Republicans like Bob Dole. There were Northeast moderate to liberal Republicans who were conservative on fiscal issues but liberal on social issues like John Lindsay and Bill Scranton. And that was basically it.
The John Birch Society types were still Democrats at that time.
The far right was such a small group. It mushroomed by 1964 with Barry Goldwater, but it was much smaller in 1960. Nixon hated the Birchers; they were way too far to the right for him.
The election in 1960 was very close, so Richard Nixon winning that year would not necessarily have represented a conservative mandate.
No. Nixon was a populist and played to people’s fears, and he could sound conservative when he tried to appeal to southern Democrats. But he was more often moderate in the tradition of Northeast moderates and believed the government had some responsibilities. If you look at his first term as president after the 1968 election, he signed a lot of legislation. Part of that was Democrats on Capitol Hill, but he believed that government had to govern. He passed as much social welfare legislation as Lyndon Johnson. He would get drummed out of the party today as a liberal.
So would Ronald Reagan.
And so would Reagan. The Republican Party have gone far to the right.
Between the 1960 election and the 1964 election, you have the Kennedy assassination, the March on Washington, and the police actions in Birmingham. Did those things provoke conservatives toward Barry Goldwater?
The anger on the right was always puzzling to East Coast establishment people like my parents. Where is the anger coming from? I think it came from where populism always comes from. When parts of the country feel disaffected and left behind and feel like the liberal elites are in charge, it makes many people angry. There was a feeling of gradual government creep from the New Deal through World War II, through the Eisenhower years, and through Kennedy. When the cities and the campuses started blowing up, conservatives really got angry.
Scott Porch is an attorney and contributor to The Daily
Beast, Kirkus Reviews, and Salon. He writes about American history,
politics, and culture and is writing a book about social upheaval in the
1960s and '70s. Twitter: @scottporch
The plan included a mandate that employers provide coverage to all full-time employees. It would have created a federal program called Assisted Health Insurance to provide coverage to everyone not covered by Medicare, Medicaid or an employer plan. And it would have included a panel of physicians that would control medical costs by “reducing needless hospitalization.”
The leading Republicans on the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance committees supported Nixon’s 1974 plan, which the New York Times said was “vastly more liberal than the one he introduced in 1971” that would have provided less comprehensive indigent care. Congress failed to act on the 1974 proposal — not because of Watergate but because the House Ways and Means Committee could not settle on one of three competing versions of the plan.
Nixon did, however, sign a long list of other progressive legislation, including the laws that created the Environmental Protection Agency and Occupational Safety and Health Administration. He expanded the reach of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. He put two justices on the Supreme Court who would later vote with the majority on Roe v. Wade.
Evan Thomas, a former reporter and editor at Newsweek, has written books about Bobby Kennedy, Dwight Eisenhower and Teddy Roosevelt. His latest, the biography “Being Nixon: A Man Divided,” is just out in paperback. Thomas sat down with Salon to talk about Nixon in the 1960s and whether he would recognize the Republican Party of 2016. (Short answer: No.)
How factional was the Republican primary in 1960?
The primaries barely existed in 1960, and Nixon was essentially the designated heir that year.
Back then a candidate only entered the primary in a handful of states, right?
That’s right. Kennedy only entered the primaries in five or six states. Until 1968, the bosses ran the show. After 1968 blew up in Chicago, the parties gave up some of that control.
What was the demographic profile of Republican voters in 1960?
In 1960, there were Main Street Republicans like Bob Dole. There were Northeast moderate to liberal Republicans who were conservative on fiscal issues but liberal on social issues like John Lindsay and Bill Scranton. And that was basically it.
The John Birch Society types were still Democrats at that time.
The far right was such a small group. It mushroomed by 1964 with Barry Goldwater, but it was much smaller in 1960. Nixon hated the Birchers; they were way too far to the right for him.
The election in 1960 was very close, so Richard Nixon winning that year would not necessarily have represented a conservative mandate.
No. Nixon was a populist and played to people’s fears, and he could sound conservative when he tried to appeal to southern Democrats. But he was more often moderate in the tradition of Northeast moderates and believed the government had some responsibilities. If you look at his first term as president after the 1968 election, he signed a lot of legislation. Part of that was Democrats on Capitol Hill, but he believed that government had to govern. He passed as much social welfare legislation as Lyndon Johnson. He would get drummed out of the party today as a liberal.
So would Ronald Reagan.
And so would Reagan. The Republican Party have gone far to the right.
Between the 1960 election and the 1964 election, you have the Kennedy assassination, the March on Washington, and the police actions in Birmingham. Did those things provoke conservatives toward Barry Goldwater?
The anger on the right was always puzzling to East Coast establishment people like my parents. Where is the anger coming from? I think it came from where populism always comes from. When parts of the country feel disaffected and left behind and feel like the liberal elites are in charge, it makes many people angry. There was a feeling of gradual government creep from the New Deal through World War II, through the Eisenhower years, and through Kennedy. When the cities and the campuses started blowing up, conservatives really got angry.
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