Why Are The Kids Nixonmaxxing? | Gen Z Embrace Richard Nixon

[00:00:00]I have never obstructed justice.

[00:00:02]>> Or the biggest obstacle to a a official entrenched changing of the Nixon narrative is honestly the education system. What the vice president said was that if Watergate happened today, it would have been a 12-minute news cycle.

[00:00:14]Nixon Library, having most of its team retired or aged out, they hired a bunch of 30-year-olds and they're good at social media and Gen Zed is um so there are clips of Nixon talking about Vladimir Putin, ascendant market fundamentalist China. They are primed to distrust official narratives.

[00:00:37]Now for half century, Watergate has been the byword of political sleeves around the globe and Richard Nixon has been cast as America's ultimate political villain. But is he having something of a renaissance? Yes, that's right. Gen Zed are turning Tricky Dicky into a social media icon. From Nixon maxing hats selling out in minutes to Tik Tok edits racking up a quarter of a billion views.

[00:01:00]Here's the one-time ultimate outsider coming in from the cold once again. As the Daily Wire says, how have the kids learned to love, Richard Nixon? Well, let's ask the Daily Wire's DC bureau chief Tim Rice, a man I suspect was Nixon maxing before it was cool.

[00:01:14]>> You know what, Harry? I have to be honest. I was not. I I caught this trend the same way I think everyone else did, which is all of a sudden eight months ago. You know, if you're on if you follow enough political accounts on Twitter, you logged on and all of a sudden it's all these the only way to describe them is Gen Z style edits of Richard Nixon.

[00:01:34]>> Who's doing it? First of all, is it organic or is there, you know, I mean, every president, every political figure, every philosopher has a, you know, a secret society of weirdy beardies who, you know, protect their legacy and keep the flames alive. And Richard Nixon, despite his, you know, how it ended for him in the in the White House, is no exception to that. Is this is this organic or is this is this sort of is this a bit of uh, you know, sort of fate?

[00:01:56]>> So, this was the question that I was trying to answer. That's why I wrote the piece because I wanted to learn the answer to this. Um, and it's a little bit of both. So, the immediate answer is that it's not organic in that these videos are being produced by the Richard Nixon library, right? So, but to your point, you know, there are people who, you know, have sort of always carried the flame for Nixon and but this and I think on the left you've seen like Vanity Fair and other people have started to notice these pieces. This isn't some vast right-wing conspiracy.

[00:02:25]This is a simple matter of the Nixon library having you know most of its most of its team retired or aged out. They hired a bunch of 30-year-olds and they're good at social media and they decided to, you know, this is their job to steward and promote the legacy of Richard Dixon and they finally decided to do it with a new generation.

[00:02:43]>> Is it ironic?

[00:02:44]>> Of course it's it's the most it's the most it's the most ironic thing in the world and this gets >> No, but I mean are the kids are they are they taking place?

[00:02:51]>> No. So that was my other thought and I think to a certain extent yes but if you look at some of the numbers >> on Twitter on Instagram you look at the captions it's definitely a little taking the piss but then you go over to the Nixon Foundation's YouTube page where they told me and you can confirm you go look they have something like 3 million subscribers now half of them are under the age of 30 and this is all recent growth and the YouTube page is not the memes it's not the edits it's just speeches it's clips of Nixon's warning about the dangers of communism in the 50s, speeches from his presidency, speeches about him talking about geopolitics in the 80s and 90s, a lot of the things that we face today because he was still active and giving speeches and going to the rubber chicken dinners until he died in the early '90s. So there are clips of Nixon talking about Vladimir Putin, ascendant market fundamentalist China, things that literally are still main problems that we face today. and he's very pressing on.

[00:03:45]>> Is it that also we the political climate now is almost kind of kind of similar to how Nixon eventually got into the White House. It took him a few goes, right?

[00:03:54]But he was the ultimate outsider rising, you know, this of rallying against coastal elites. He was you there's an element of Trump to him, right?

[00:04:04]>> There's absolutely an element of Trump to him in that sense. Also in >> you could argue it's coastal elite, but yeah, you know, >> I know it's exactly right. Well, and no, Nixon too, I mean to be fair, Nixon, we talk about him like he was this outsider, but by the time he was president, he had been a senator, the vice president, one of the leading political figures in the country. He was an outsider because he was never fully accepted by the Washington establishment.

[00:04:26]>> Yeah. And I think we see that as well.

[00:04:27]We see that a lot with people with Trump.

[00:04:29]>> The difference with Trump, Trump hadn't Trump managed to remake the Washington establishment around himself, right? So now he is more accepted because a lot of people who otherwise would have kept him out have decided to rally around him.

[00:04:41]Nixon never had that opportunity. Nixon or or it never figured out how to do that.

[00:04:45]>> Well, they got him, right?

[00:04:46]>> And they got him. And and I think the other thing though, the other part of the political climate that is is fueling this and this goes to the organic growth is I think Gen Z Gen Zed is um >> they are primed to distrust official narratives. This is the generation who they had their high school and early college experiences laid bare by COVID with the restrictions and the lockdowns.

[00:05:08]They had all these things robbed by them by people who we now know were lying and it kind of made it all up. They also came of age at peak woke, right? The end of the Trump administration, the beginning of Biden when even McDonald's was on Twitter talking about how trans indigenous lives matter and then they watched that all collapse and crumble the second it became not profitable. So I think they are more than most all young generations question what the generation before them did.

[00:05:32]>> So it's a kind of counter coach.

[00:05:34]>> I think it's a and I think it's just they say okay not only was Nixon oppressed by many of the same forces that we feel have negatively impacted our lives. But Nixon, Watergate, as you said, right? This these are a huge part of the official narrative of American history, of American politics, of the American media, right? Modern investigative political journalism was born with Woodward and Bernstein. Before the Nixon investigation, before Watergate, investigative journalism meant you went into a pork processing plant and found that they weren't using actual, you know, they were using grinding up the snouts and stuff. It was only after Woodward and Bernstein that it became we need to get politicians, we need to get trophies to hang on our walls. And of course, because the media shares liberal biases, the targets are almost always >> Republicans. The um I mean, I'm not sure was it vice was it JD Vance a couple of weeks ago on part of his book tour said, you know, if it was if it was the modern age, we had 20 Watergates a day, right?

[00:06:28]I know I don't think that's quite what he meant in terms about the administration, but there is something to that when you go back and look at when you go back and look at, you know, actually what Nixon did. Yeah. Okay, fine. Cardinal sin, he lied.

[00:06:38]>> Yeah.

[00:06:39]>> Uh, you know, the cover up is always worse than the original sin. You know, the beginning, you know, the rat the the the bugging, the bribing. This was a different age, right? Where, you know, JFK was, you know, arguably elected on false premises uh in for what was going on in Chicago, vote stuffing, vote balloting affecting both sides. And now with the benefit of 50 years of hindsight, actually, it look does look kind of small.

[00:07:04]>> Yeah. What the vice president said was that if Watergate happened today, it would have been a 12-minute news cycle.

[00:07:08]I actually think he's wrong. I think what you said is more correct, which is that if Watergate happened today, we never would have stopped talking about it in the same way that Democrats are still talking about the Russia collusion or, >> you know, any of the other >> things that they frequently rag on Trump about that have sort of lost gas or been disproven. But I think you're right that had it happened today, Nixon, like Trump does, would have been able to withstand it. Because to your point, right, Nixon, and I think there's an argument to be made that Nixon wasn't even as culpable in the cover up or in the break-in as the official narrative painted him. But Nixon was playing by the old rules. He was playing by the rules of the system that was looking for a reason to get him out and then used it against it. Trump never would have done that. Trump either would have just said, "I have no idea what was going on in the Watergate." or would have said, "Ah, I told them to go look at the DNC. I didn't tell them to go that far." You know what? What? But they were to wiretapping me. Yeah.

[00:08:00]>> We recently learned that or it came out that one of the reasons Nixon had this sort of wiretapping regime was because it came to his attention that a coalition of highranking military officials had bugged the White House. So Nixon said this in a grand jury testimony basically around the same time as Watergate. This was accepted and it just didn't it wasn't released until very recently. But that's the sort of thing, right? Nixon, Nixon was trying to be do it right. You don't say that publicly. You say that to the grand jury. Trump would have tweeted that out the second that he found out.

[00:08:31]>> And we had historian James D. Boys on the show not long ago who's a I wouldn't say Nixon revisionist, but certainly Nixon, I mean, he's got elements of the Nixon maxing, too. uh and he made that exact point that actually he you know he rather than spill the beans of actually genuine deep state collusion involving the Pentagon and the CIA he took he he he took the hit for the country and obviously that I mean since then you know and it's been there's been article after article and books and in the last what 18 months two years on that front is that linking in to this acceptance or is that a sort of separate renaissance he's having >> I I think it's I'm not really sure I think It's probably a little bit separate, but I think that the things are all going to converge. I think part of the kind of historical revisionism is just a matter of it's been long enough and it takes about 50 years before people start re-evaluating things, right? So about >> 15 to 20 years ago, we saw a lot of revisionist scholarship about Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. Did the New Deal actually make the Great Depression worse? Was Rose right? So it's so I think 50 years is sort of just the halflife in the American Academy among respectable historians to kind of be able to re-evaluate certain things. So I think that again these things are happening at the same time. I can't speak to exactly I'm sure that the Nixon Foundation guys were aware of this that probably informed their decision. Let's make a pivot for for the young folks.

[00:09:50]Although I do think that hearing them talk and I I have spoken to them. I I I think they also were just doing this because they're trying to do their jobs well. Have they been surprised by how the reaction?

[00:10:00]>> Stunned. Stunned. I mean, stunned in that they didn't think I don't think I don't think they thought it would be this explosive, but now that it's happening, they are the they are the least shocked people because these are people who always realized what a gem Nixon was as a wealth of histo as a historical subject, as a wealth of political knowledge. But I do think I think I mean, wouldn't you who wouldn't be shocked and all of a sudden, you know, >> also does I think put it in context of of where we are now. love him or hate him, Donald Trump, as you, as you say, does not play by the rules. He's blown up the establishment. He's blown up the the normal, you know, sort of guard rails of politics and actually within that framework, you can look back and and and actually start to have that conversation because you suddenly start comparing him to to now. So what would be what would be your big moments on it?

[00:10:43]other than, you know, putting Watergate aside, I mean, his, you know, he was ahead of his time on environment environmentalism, a lot of people say his reaction in the cold, um, you know, his cold war, you know, he he took the temperature down significantly. He has a pretty good record on civil rights, you know. Will we will we do you think this do I suppose what I'm going to say is do you think this is going to be enough to tip over the conversation to actually have a proper look at his legacy or is it going to get to a point where the usual suspects are going to start screaming soon?

[00:11:15]>> Well, the I I I think the the usual suspects are already screaming. Vanity Fair had a piece that came out right around mine as as I already mentioned sort of that didn't actually answer any of the questions of where these memes came from or didn't even attempt to explore why people might be interested in them. They trotted out John Dean, the Watergate turncoat to say, you know, Richard Nixon was the worst man of all time, just almost as bad as Donald Trump. And it's terrible. It's terrible that we should be that we anyone could like any of these people. So, I I I think you'll further see, right, Bob Woodward is circling the wagons. These people I I think that as the Watergate generation, the people who are actual players at the time begin to die out, that is certainly going to open things up. But I think the media more than anyone else are going to gatekeep, to use another Gen Z phrase, gatekeep the the Nixon narrative because the the narrative of Nixon as a criminal who got his just desserts is inextricably linked with the origin story, as I was saying, of the modern American media, right? No one no one who Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman do not have the careers that they have now if Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein didn't blow the gates off of Watergate as they did. So there is a very entrenched interest in the American media cultural literati elite, whatever you want to call it, in keeping things exactly the way that they are. So whether or not this organic reappropriation or, you know, reconceptualization of Nixon is enough to topple that, I'm not sure.

[00:12:39]>> It has a it has a natural ceiling.

[00:12:41]>> I I I it might or I think they're going to give it the collar. They're going to do their best to keep this from breaking containment and they certainly have the resources. Isn't that the problem though? Is that how we got to the stage is that the traditional media have lost all rights um have lost all rights to gatekeep and gatekeeping in the classic sense and actually this you know they can't this is a classic example of where the mainstream media the classic the print media the legacy media whatever you want to call it um are you know have their knees cut off.

[00:13:10]>> Yeah. Exactly right. I I think honestly the broader problem or the biggest obstacle to a a official entrenched changing of the Nixon narrative is honestly the education system. And I don't even say that in a the education public education is has a leftist bias or whatever. It's just a simple fact that at this point in time most people were not alive for Watergate. Most people who teach high school history were not alive for Watergate. Right. So my kids, your kids are going to learn about Richard Nixon, from people who learned about Nixon, from people who learned about Nixon, from people who maybe were there. So it's just and it's the same narrative. In American schools, it's the same. I don't know what it's like in the UK, but you learn Watergate, I'm not a crook, resignation, and the only good thing you're allowed to say about Nixon is that he opened China and he ended the Vietnam War. He was good on foreign policy. There's obviously so much more of it than that. Even setting aside Watergate, let's even accept for a second that sure everything that Woodward Bin said about Water Watergate is true. That doesn't change the fact that he was incredibly preient about the threat of socialism, something that is a verymer reemerging issue now. It doesn't change the fact that again, he was very not just kind of good on foreign policy.

[00:14:19]He was very good on foreign policy and he understood. I mean, right, we give a lot of credit to Henry Kissinger. Who did Kissinger work for? Who did he work with? Nixon was very preient about the shifting world order and America's place in this increasingly global shifting international order. So these are not problems that are going away and you know Ronald Reagan has lost cache with the Republican party. Uh no one wants the George Bush doctrine right who are you going to look to that's that's my next question though is you know who next you know so in in 20 years time are we going to be looking at how great George W Bush was? I mean already the American left of have started you know they're having screamed Nazi in his face for eight years you know they now hold him up as some sort of great great pinnacle John McCain they called a Nazi great pinnacle you know Mitt Romney Mitt Romney was right on Russia I mean I want that on a t-shirt he he was he he was lambasted and castigated for calling for saying that Putin was going to be a threat when you know Hillary Clinton was out there holding a big red button with him >> Romney's done by the way Romney I don't know if you saw this but the other day Romney was um talking about he was he was I I forget I saw some video on Twitter. I don't remember where it came from. Romney maxing.

[00:15:23]>> He was We're not Romney maxing. No Romney was talking all about how he was talking about how it's so bad that Elon Musk has so much money. Romney has gone Romney's gone native. Romney has joined the other side.

[00:15:33]>> Binders full of hypocrisy.

[00:15:35]>> But I do think I do think Bush is No, I think Bush is a good candidate for it. I think not just because, as you said, the sort of center left.

[00:15:41]>> I think we're doing I think if we're doing this, we go way back. We we can start George the third maxim. [laughter] >> America America was you know, America was stronger. It was safer. It was it was it in empire.

[00:15:53]>> Wouldn't it be better if we all had just stayed colonies? We would we'd still be in the world.

[00:15:56]>> We'd be the greatest country in the world. [laughter] Can you imagine? I think it's time for some revisionism. These these rebels need to be castigated for what they did.

[00:16:05]>> I think there's who paid for how many people died when you know when the French and the Indians basically got involved. Come [laughter] on. We we defended you.

[00:16:13]>> You wouldn't be speaking our language.

[00:16:14]>> Have you seen Young Washington?

[00:16:15]>> I haven't yet. It's on my list.

[00:16:17]>> It's very good. gets into that. I mean, the British come off pretty good in that because they're all of course at that point they're all >> and I'd love to I'd love to see Tim Rice in a red coat one day. But seriously, so so I I going back to this I think do you think Yeah. Is is it just a natural cycle or do you think there's a unique was was Nixon uniquely wrong in a way? I discounted the stories in the press that appeared to implicate members of my administration or other officials of the campaign committee.

[00:16:49]I think it's both. I think there is a natural cycle, but Nixon was uniquely wronged. And I think that the staying power of this renaissance will be linked to the latter and not the former, right?

[00:16:57]Especially on the right, there's always kind of but five years ago there was a brief moment where everyone was talking about Robert Taft or Pat Buchanan gets brought up every once in a while and there's plenty, you know, plenty to learn from both of those guys, but no one's Buchanan maxing. No one's Robert Taft maxing, right? I I think there is something about Nixon.

[00:17:13]>> I'd say Tucker Carlson is kind of Buchanan max.

[00:17:16]>> Sure. Yeah. Yeah. [laughter] There's other than some people are, but there's something about Nixon. I think the fact that he was wronged and I also think just the fact that he was kept off the table for so long. I think people are now realizing, wo, there is this wealth of information, not just about him, but seeing mid-century America, seeing again the roots of the country that we live in right now that were formed in the late the 60s and 70s. There we've there's only really been two narratives. It's the official narrative and then the kind of reactionary narrative of the hippies were bad and eventually Ronald Reagan saved us. Turns out it's much more nuanced than that. So I think simply just having something that was not accessible for so long and then bringing it back. It's like if you have a kid who you right kids whose parents don't let them eat sugar and they go over to their friend's house and they they they have access to cookies and they eat all the cookies, right? It's like that but with American political history. So I think if anything that will be the thing more so than just the kind of every half century we re we re-evaluate the figures of the last half century. That I think is what has made this different and will give it more of a staying power.

[00:18:17]>> Well Jer, let's see. Yeah, let's see your best Let's see your best Nixon.

[00:18:23][laughter] I think I think we'll leave I think we'll leave I think we'll leave that there. Nixon maxing. Uh Nixon maxing Tim Rice of the Daily Wire. Thank you for joining us as ever in the studio. I've just noticed you're not wearing socks. That is a disgrace.

[00:18:35]>> It's summer, Harry.

[00:18:36]>> You're meant to be an American, not [laughter] some sort of Euro Euro type.

[00:18:40]But uh >> I'm Euromaxing.

[00:18:42]>> You're Euromaxing it with your loafers, right? Don't go anywhere. Lots more to come. Nixon maxing, Euromaxing, you name it. But my campaign to reform George III will continue on Harry C the West if you hit subscribe.