Unclear and Present Danger - Nixon (feat. Nicole Hemmer)

Episode Date: November 13, 2023

For this week’s episode, Jamelle and John watched Oliver Stone’s 1995 dramatization of the life and career of President Richard M. Nixon, appropriately titled “Nixon.” Like Stone’s other mid-century political film, “JFK,” it stars a murderer’s row of A-listers and character actors: Anthony Hopkins, Joan Allen, Ed Harris, Bob Hoskins, Paul Sorvino, Mary Steenburgen, James Woods, Powers Boothe, Tony Goldwyn, J.T. Walsh and many, many others. To talk “Nixon” we were joined by the great Nicole Hemmer, an associate professor of history and director of the Rogers Center for the American Presidency at Vanderbilt University, the author of two great books on conservative politics, and one of the co-hosts of the PastPresent podcast. You can find “Nixon” to rent or stream on iTunes or Amazon Prime. The tagline for “Nixon” is “Triumphant in Victory, Bitter in Defeat. He changed the world, but lost a nation.” Connor Lynch produced this episode. Artwork by Rachel Eck.Contact us!Follow us on Twitter!John GanzJamelle BouieUnclearPodThe next episode of the podcast will be on John Woo’s first American feature, “Broken Arrow.”And join the Unclear and Present Patreon! For just $5 a month, patrons get access to a bonus show on the films of the Cold War. Our latest episode is on “The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover,” written and directed by Larry Cohen.

It is the story of two men at war with one another. One was an idealistic man. The other was cold, vindictive. One man always remembered his humble roots. The other was blinded by arrogance. and ambition. One man was twice elected president of the United States. The other left the office in disgrace.

One man changed the world. The other lost a nation. Anthony Hopkins in an Oliver Stone film, Nixon. I don't know. Welcome to Unclear and Present Danger, a podcast about the political and military thrillers of the 1990s and what they say about the politics of that decade. I'm Jamel Bowie. I'm a columnist for the New York Times opinion section. I'm John Gans. I write the substack newsletter on popular front. And I'm the author of a book, forthcoming book about American politics in the early 1990s. I also have a cold, a little bit of a cold. So if I sound strange, that's why.

As we keep saying, every time you mention the book, if you're interested in reading the book, you should go to your local bookstore, if you have a Barnes & Noble nearby, like whatever, and like, pre-order it because the pre-orders really, really are important. They really count. It's buying the book when it's out as nice, but the pre-orders are the things that are really crucial. Yeah, please, do it. Help.

For this week's episode, we watched Oliver. Loverstone's 1995 dramatization of the life and career, I suppose, of President Richard Nixon, appropriately titled Nixon. Like Stone's other period film about this time, JFK, it stars a tremendous number of A-listers and character actors, among them, Anthony Hopkins, Joan Allen, Ed Harris, Bob Hoskins, Paul Sorvino, which I think is a very funny bit of casting, Mary Steenbergin, James Woods, Powers Booth, Tony Goldwell,

when you'll recognize if you watch Scandal way back when, J.T. Walsh and many, many others. To talk about Nixon, we're joined by the great Nicole Hammer, an associate professor of history and director of the Rogers Center for the American Presidency at Vanderbilt University. She's also the author of two great books on conservative politics, one on conservative media, one on the 1990s, and one of the co-host of the past, present podcast. Hello, Nikki. Hello, thank you guys so much for having me. thank you for joining us on this crazy movie about a crazy person yeah yeah that was really driven home in the movie Nixon is insane so for those of you who have not seen Nixon it's not quite

like a biopic it doesn't go you know point A to point B it begins sort of at the height of Watergate and it's sort of your the structure of the movie is seeing bits and pieces of Nixon's political career, his rise, but then really the movie is much more invested in sort of his psychological state and his own sense of paranoia and grievance and his sense that the world is like upon his shoulders. That's very much the focus. We move through episodes in Nixon's life meant to kind of illustrate all of this. you can find Nixon to rent or stream on iTunes or Amazon Prime. Like JFK, this movie is long as hell, so that's a fair warning. It's a little over three hours.

I think you should watch it because I think it's totally worth watching. The tagline for Nixon was triumphant in victory, bitter in defeat. He changed the world but lost a nation. True. Yeah, I mean, it's not false. I feel like, okay, it's false in that. He was bitter in victory, too. Right.

Yes, that's true. He was bitter in everything he did. And the movie kind of gets at that for sure. Yeah, yeah. Nixon was released on December 22nd, 1995. So, John, can you please tell us what's going on at the New York Times on that day? Yes, there's one article, I think, pretty much of all the ones on this front page that, that, you know, is the most interesting and is the saddest to read also in this moment. The headline is, in Bethlehem, a season of joy for Palestinians.

Church bells placed in fireworks burst over, Manger Square tonight as the last Israeli soldiers left the town of Bethlehem, handing over the traditional birthplace of Jesus to Palestinian rule. After 28 years of occupation, Palestinian officers, their rifles thrust triumphantly toward the darkening sky, were mobbed by a rapturous crowd as they rode into a police station beside the Church of the Nativity, where Christmas will be celebrated for the first time this year under Palestinian control. Yasser Arafat, the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization is expected in Bethlehem on Sunday to address throngs of Palestinians and to take part in a Christmas Eve Mass at the church, which is built over the site revered as the birthplace of Jesus. Mr. Arafat had pressed Israel to withdraw from Bethlehem before Christmas so he could visit on the Holy Day, highlighting Palestinian control of the town at a time when it is the focus of attention of Christians worldwide.

Israel agreed to move up the withdrawal date. Security for thousands of expected tourists and even more Palestinian visitors is now in the hands of the Palestinian authorities, which is eager to prove it can run celebrations smoothly and safety. Yeah, I mean, this was one of the few hopeful episodes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict when it appeared that the peace process was yielding fruit, that a two-state solution was viable, PLO recognized. Israel, Israel recognized the Palestinian Authority and handed over power to Jorei and in some ways de facto to the Palestinian Authority. Of course, since then, many horrible, tragic things have happened, including the present situation. But it's good to reflect, I suppose, that it didn't always look so bad. And actually, here's another character who... you know, became prime minister for the first time, not long after this, but there's a mention

here, Benjamin Nittanyahu, the leader of the opposition of Lekud Party, warned today that the handover of Bethlehem had put Jerusalem in a stranglehold. But the mayor, Elias Frey, who is also minister of tourism in the Palestinian Authority, said the withdrawal opens a new chapter. Yeah, you know, Nitin Yahoo has always been an enemy of peace. Let's put it that way. And, you know, This is too long to get into, but many people think that Netanyahu was complicit, if not encouraging, of this kind of horrible social forces in Israel that contributed to the assassination of Rabin and basically destroyed the chances for peace. So, you know, I think Netanyahu, in my opinion, I don't want to get too tension just on the pod,

but has been a villain for a very long time. And, yeah, so, but it's interesting to recall that the, the strands of these things go back to the 90s, which is, you know, sort of the purpose of this podcast and definitely the purpose of what me and Nikki write about. Yeah, I mean, I was just thinking as you were talking about that, the, you kind of get why some people thought that the 1990s was a big turning point toward something like peace and prosperity in a new world order. And I think like both you and I write about, this idea that the 90s also contains the

seeds of the destruction of everything in a way. is also present in that piece. Especially at the beginning. Yes, exactly. You can kind of see there's these glimmers of hope and then there's darker clouds, as with everything in the decade. Yeah, but I think for the,

okay, let's see what else is on, quickly see what else is on the front page of the time. This is sort of something we talk about often. For Congress and Clinton, dead ends at every turn. It was a day of gridlock in Washington with vast legislative packages on the budget, welfare, telecommunications, and securities law stalled at very,

points between the White House and Capitol Hill. Budget negotiators spent another inconclusive day closet in the Capitol examining a way of competing proposals to balance the budget by 2002. A meeting between President Clinton and Republican leaders was scheduled for this morning at the White House, a sign of some life in the talk. Yes. So basically, we've talked about this many times in the past. Newt Gingrich's Congress has the roots of a lot of Republican misbehavior today, a lot of the kind of normal abnormality of the functioning of government, the shutdowns, the blockages, the absurd theatrics, has its origins in the 90s, so you're seeing that. Does anything else on this page catch your guy's eye?

Not so much. Yeah, this one is very demanding. domestic and very 90s. Yeah. Just a quick note on the congressional deadlock thing. I find myself, Nikki, you're you teach. And so I kind of wonder if you find this with students. But I find myself sort of really interested in how hard it is to get folks to like understand or internalize the idea that like the president isn't the.

only political actor, right? And it's not just that Congress as a political actor, but that individual Congress people actually have like a ton of power in the American political system. And so like, you know, you have to have long drawn out negotiations to get a budget passed because if a senator decides, oh, I don't like this very much, I'm going to like derail it. Totally can. Nothing. Nothing. nothing you can stop that person. There's no secret power the president has to be like, don't do that. The image of LBJ sort of brow bidding that poor guy, I think they sort of like created this impression that even LBJ had this sort of like preternatural power to do stuff like that, but he really didn't sort of like, if ever Dirkson was like, I don't want a civil rights bill,

it wouldn't have happened. That's just how, that's just how it went. Well, LBJ had these massive majorities, which is the other thing. Like, oh, life was so hard for LBJ. He had super majority, whatever. I mean, it didn't make it what he did easy. And his legislative experience did matter. But the notion that what is lacking in the presidency today is the force of personality or particular like art of the deal negotiations.

Right. It strikes me as. But it's a very common. belief right that all we need is a wheeler and dealer in the presidency how has that worked out yeah yeah exactly it's like those photo ever people post those photos of lbj like looming over sam rayburn or something like that or kissing sam rayburn on the head and stuff like that and everyone's like oh this is what we need you know it just has no context i don't other than that quick thing, I see nothing on the page. So let's move on to Nixon. Like I said at the top,

Nixon is this sort of biopic, more like psychological investigation of the former president who around the time this movie came out had recently passed away and was in its pre-production and production stages towards the end, the very end of his life. The movie's origins are in 1993 when a former speech writer and staff member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, rather, had the idea of doing a film about Nixon after having dinner with Oliver Stone. Apparently Stone had been working on what became the musical Evita, which I kind of want to see the Oliver Stone version of that movie. And he had been working on a movie about Manuel Noriega. I kind of want to see that movie as well. but Abida went to someone else the Noriega film never happened and Stone

after Nixon's death in 94 decided to like move forward with trying to do this movie the script is written by the summer of 94 the cast is assembled pretty quickly Anthony Hopkins was like

early on like down for doing playing the role doing nixon james woods was also um part of the early on in the production process as well um woods plays let me make sure i have this correct um who is james woods plays h r holderman yeah um uh and uh and the side of james woods now is that's that's that's the thing the knowing what we know about james wood his beliefs when he's like going on about like negroes and jews i'm like you know it's not much acting living this part yeah uh anyway uh so woods is involved early on the studio did not like the idea of hopkins playing nixon at all i think that makes a lot of sense anthony hopkins does not look like richard nixon first of all um not in the least uh

And Anthony Hopkins was big, right? This is only a couple years after Silence of the Lamb. So he is like an A-lister. But he, the studio, I don't think, believe that he could sell a picture that they believe was already going to be a difficult sell, right? A big sprawling movie about a divisive president that's really going to be just a lot of guys in suits sitting around and talking. And so the studio wanted one of Stone's other. original choices, the other people he was considering Jack Nicholson, which I could see. I could see Jack doing a pretty good Nixon.

Yeah, it would be crazier. It'd be crazier, yeah. Yeah. The other choice was Tom Hanks. I don't understand how that could have possibly worked out. I don't think Tom Hanks could play resentful if he, I don't think. If his life depended on it. No.

I mean, has he ever had a role where he didn't have the most Zen, American Zen outlook on life? He's never been tortured by demons. I don't understand. I mean, it might be interesting to see what happened, but I just don't see how he could have done that. No. Some other, some other considered actress for the role, Gene Hackman, who I think his role, wrong for the role in almost the opposite way, which is like, Hackman is a jock.

Like he's like, he's very, he's very obviously a jock. Um, that's kind of a lot of his vibe. And like Nixon is the opposite. Like that's, that's, that's Nixon's whole thing is that like, things did not come easy to me because I'm a little weird troll. Um, and, uh, right. And Hachman just doesn't have to me beats up. Right.

Exactly. Uh, it, it reminds. me of when Mike Nichols was trying to cast the graduate, and Robert Redford came in to read for the Dustin Hoffman part. And Nichols just did not think it was working. And he asked Redford, hey, have you ever like not scored with a girl? And Redford's like, what do you, I don't know what you mean. Like, what does that mean? Yeah, Robert Redford lives like in a complete bubble of a totally frictionless, beautiful existence. Yeah. I love that story, but it's sort of like, it's like, yeah, this is, this is, this is a guy who cannot even conceptualize the kind of existence I need from this character. Yeah. It's nice to know that people lose roles for being too handsome. Yeah. That's true. I think it's actually, yeah, this is a bit of a side, but I think there are, there are actors whose careers are like actively hurt by the fact that they're too handsome. who are like perfectly fine actors but their faces are are too symmetrical uh and so they can't

really could be anybody else but a really hot person right yeah um like uh like Patrick Wilson it's like too handsome like he has like this extremely symmetrical squared face and although he I think he's a very talented actor like his his his like movie idol this is like his movie idol looks are a detriment movie star looks are a little different The movie Idol looks. You can't out act that jaw. Right, right. Right.

Okay, so that's who they wanted for Nixon. The rest of the cast came together. Joan Allen was cast because when Warren Beatty was thinking about doing the film, he did a script reading with Joan Allen. And then Stone was like, I think Joan is doing great as Pat Nixon. So she's in. principal photography i mean this was movie was put together very quickly principal photography was done began in may in 1995 and basically sort of like ended after like a month or about a month six weeks

and then post-production was during the summer score composed by john williams and the movie comes out in december um obviously we mentioned that uh there are some people upset about this film. The head of the Nixon presidential library at the time, John Taylor leaked a copy of the script to Richard Helms, which is then when Helms said, I'm going to sue this production. And that's why Stone

cut all the scenes with Helms from that theatrical print. And yeah, that's the making of Nixon in short. I joke that Paul Sorvino is funny casting. Paul Sorvino was cast as Henry Kissinger.

And I just think it's really funny to cast like, you know, archetypal Italian mob guy in movies to play Kissinger. It's such a funny, funny character in the movie, too. I think precisely because of that, right? He doesn't, he acts very well, obviously, but he's no Kissinger. No, he's not Kissinger, but he's not like doing a Kissinger impression. He's just sort of like, it's like Paul Servino is Henry Kissinger. And it's just like, yeah, it's funny.

Nikki and John, what did you think of the movie Nixon? so it is it is very much a movie that is influenced by the nixon tapes because the first time that you see nixon um first of all it's like extremely melodramatic it's a dark and stormy night at the white house there's a fire roaring in the fireplace the air conditioner is on full blast and there's nixon sitting alone brooding but he's drunk he's on pills he's absolutely wasted and i think that the first word that you hear him say is cock sucker. Yes. Suggested the source material for this in addition to all of the conspiracy books that Stone

read for JFK are those tapes in that particular image of Nixon as somebody who is out of his gourd most of the time from all the pills and booze. And somebody who, like, I feel like every chance he got to have Nixon swear or to you know, defame Jews and black people, he took advantage of that. Yeah. So I just want to say I'm a huge fan of Richard Nixon. And what I mean by that is I'm not, not of his as a politician, but I think he's like one of the most interesting American presidents because of his character.

And I've listened at great length to pass idle hours Nixon's Tate White House tapes. that is crazy I'm admitting I'm admitting to insanity on the podcast I find him I find them extremely funny they're awful he's a nutcase but I find his paranoia there's something extremely I find compelling about Nixon's woundedness

his patheticness there's something almost Shakespearean about him as a villain I I'm totally fascinated with Richard Nixon and his self-pity and his resentments. I just think he's terrific character. And I think that's why it's so difficult to portray him on screen because he's almost already acting Nixon, this tragic kind of comic, tragic, clownish but sad figure. And the same thing in a way with Kissinger, who's already kind of larger than life figure and difficult for an actor to ham it up more than he is.

So I, this movie, so I have my own ideas of who Richard Nixon is as a person. And this movie, more or less, I don't think my feeling is, is that Oliver Stone, a director whose work I have a mixed opinion of is not quite good, gets it kind of, but is not quite good of an artist to get the kind of man that Nick's, to get, I think he tries to get the pity and the sympathy you can feel for Nixon, but also the revolts. at what it monster he becomes. And I get that that that that uh, Stone is trying to do that.

But he doesn't quite do it. And and he because he can't quite do it, he has to go to the way Stone often does to an almost gothic place with, with it. There's a ghost kind of in the movie suggested. And a melodramatic place. And there has to be dark forces, uh,

lurking in the background, which are more, which are even, more sinister than the dark forces of Nixon's soul, let's say. But I do think that he understands, he tries to present the interesting thing about Nixon, which is the sad story of Nixon is he became president of the United States. Literally, there is no higher office you could ascend to in the world. And you need the assent of millions of people to arise to that.

And still this man was insecure, deeply insecure and felt never comfortable in his own skin. And nothing, nothing in the world could help him do that. And I just think that that's a fascinating sad reflection on him as a person, but it's not a reflection on humanity, on power. And Nixon's resentments towards the people he felt were always above him. And Jamel was saying, oh, he was a sad troll. It's true, but some of that was his own self-image because he was not when, if you look at photos of Nixon was popular. Nixon was enormously popular before he destroyed himself.

He was considered to be handsome, not perhaps not as handsome as JFK, but when he was young, if you look at pictures of him. The football photos? Yeah, he was not a bad looking man. Yeah, he's not a bad looking man. He was not to the man or born in any way. And that's where the resentments came from. He felt there were groups of people who had everything handed on them and were very, had a smooth and easy, wet manner in life that was made possible for them by, and he had to strive and fight. And he thought that that was the most important and valuable part of himself as a person, but was also what made him figuratively and literally sweaty.

He never could look effortless. He never could look elegant. he never could he was so aware of that about himself it's a very painfulness in his own skin it's almost physically present when you look at nixon and i think that hopkins and stone get some of that that there's this deep discomfort about richard nixon which is the most interesting part of him as a person as a character um but not quite the artist needed i don't know if i think honestly like there's one thing where his story you know like art is great. We all, it's the high, we all love art and culture. But here's one, but no, and not to say

it's not art, but here's one thing where I think biographers and historians who work with the actual material actually maybe or get, give you a better picture, picture of what's so fascinating about Nixon the man and Nixon the political figure than artistic representations of him. I've been able to accomplish so far. Right. Because he is this. such a dramatic figure in real life that when you try to dramatize him, it can feel a little false. And then you add in, as I'm sure we'll talk about, all of the sort of conspiratorial notes that Stone necessarily brings into any movie that he does about politics. And then it starts to feel a little, you know, detached from reality is one way of putting it. Although I don't think

that Stone cares too much that it's detached from reality. But it just, right, you could read a history book about Nixon or biography of Nixon, and it would have all of that drama and resentment and sort of inner turmoil already built into it that doesn't need a lot of extra dramatization. No. No, I think that's right. I think that it's like Nixon, there are a handful of political figures that are kind of recurring. topics or of interest for artists.

Lincoln's the other guy, I think kind of for somewhat similar reasons. Like he is like this melancholic, depressive guy who is also possessed of like a tremendous amount of will and also struck by just tons of personal tragedy. And that's all very dramatically interesting. Hoover is a figure of Herbert, uh, Jerry Hoover rather, is a figure of, uh, fascination. for being, you know, this long-serving figure, also kind of a freak in a variety of different ways. In Nixon, yeah, Nixon likewise, is a striking figure because you're right, John,

he, up until the very end, he was a popular political figure, right? Like from his entrance into national politics until Watergate, Nixon was one of the most popular political figures in the country. He lost that California race, but that's sort of like the one, and he lost 1960, but barely lost 1960. And the California race is sort of like, okay, you have your bumps. But like, it's not of his he was a lifelong divisive figure in any way until the end. And so it's this it's this sort of contrast between like what is objectively the case about Nixon as a political figure, but then his own self-image that I think makes it makes him so compelling.

The other movie that I think has sort of gotten like kind of at least keyed into elements of Nixon is Robert Altman's Secret Honor from 84, which is like this 90-minute movie starring Philip Baker Hall as Nixon. and Nixon sort of like raging in like his in a mansion kind of like sort of going through his life with like pure self-pity it's like very interesting it's like a it's like a one-man show basically and it's very interesting performance but it also kind of keys in to Nixon's self-perception um and in some ways it does it better than this movie and otherwise I think I think stone actually does something that interesting um we let's let's dive in dive into that The thing that Stone, I think, really harps on, and I think his read of Nixon is like rooting Nixon's anxieties sort of in a sense that he, like, he's the brother who survives. Like the movie does emphasize like two of Nixon's brothers died, one as a very young boy, the other as an older man.

And that Nixon never saw himself as sort of like the head of the family and always sort of like compared himself. in one way or another to his older brother and was in and is sort of like possessed of this this sense that he can't really live up to the responsibilities placed on to him by the death of his older brother can't really live up or like fully earn the love of his mother who was presented as this very stern figure and is always sort of seeking approval in this way to kind of like soothe whatever psychological need that presents. And this is sort of like what this is like the one of the dramatic through lines of the entire film from his relationship with his wife,

Matt Nixon, to his relationship with the country. It's all sort of like trying to fill in whatever approval he feels he cannot earn just by being himself. Yeah, this is kind of the psychodrama part of it because he's torn between an abusive of father, right? And a mother who is deeply steeped in Quaker religious tradition, so a pacifist mother, who's so religious that she still uses the these and thous and thys that Nixon used growing up. And sometimes even pops out later on in his life. But that's where you get the sense that

like the biography really matters. And because his biography is both so tragic in a lot of ways because of the deaths of his brothers and because of the abuse in his home. But also because, you know, he grows up in poverty, and that's something that he leverages as sort of like a Horatio Alger story. But it also feeds so many of his resentments, right? That experience of seeing other people who have had it all and just never being able to get over that. And of course, the Kennedys are the purest distillation of that kind of person

and that they become personal political opponents and enemies, I think sharpens his set of personal and political resentments in a way that you can begin to see how he goes so off the rails because once that sort of like psychodrama of his personality meets with his actual political opponents and political defeats, it gets supercharged by the early 1960s. And it feels to me, I don't know if this is the case. in real life, I think it is, that there's also a dynamic of like, you know, Nixon brooding over the Kennedys, but the Kennedy is never really thinking much about Richard Nixon. Sort of like that's, that's seen in Madman, right?

Like, I don't think about you at all. Yep. Well, there is one funny moment in the Kennedy tapes where JFK, they're talking about, they want Nixon, they want Nick, they're trying to get someone to deliver a message to Charles DeGall through a big diplomatic back channel. And Richard Nixon is going to France. So they moot the idea of Richard Nixon, you know, going to do that. And Kennedy immediately says no.

And he goes, no, he's not reliable. And he goes, he's an able man, but he's a psychotic. I can usually do my JFK accent, much more, my Boston accent, much better. but but basically um that's that's the opinion that he have of him was was piteous and and and and so so but yeah i don't think he they definitely did not fixate on him in fact they were friendly when they first both got to dc around the same time but yeah i think basically you know there's a kind of human warning in the story of nixon as as like look man like you these you will never get over these resentments if you hold on to them you have to learn to live you know

The comparisons will always lend these things to them. It's just very interesting what the Kennies are presented because Nixon isn't from a very old American stock in a certain sense. You know, he's old Yankee material. I mean, obviously on the West Coast. And the, and, you know, from, he's a Quaker. It's very, you know, it's not exactly Protestant, but it's really from that tradition.

And the Kennedys are these Arabians. Catholics, who in the space of one generation, essentially, not only scale the heights of the American aristocracy, but are considered to be some of the most elegant and culture people in the country. And that did not sit well, obviously, with Mr. Nixon, who felt like, you know, he was a real American, and these people were more recent arrivals. I don't think he articulated it exactly this way. But, you know, he often said nasty things about immigrants, Catholics, Jews, and so on and so forth.

And he definitely felt himself to be of an earlier American stock and therefore having some kind of ownership over the country, rightful ownership over the country and resented the – and I think that that goes to explain not only his psychology, but a good deal of right-wing psychology, too. And why people maybe identified with him a little bit, you know, in certain ways. And also the resentment of liberal snobs. It's not just recent arrivals and, but liberal snobs. People who had pretensions to culture and intellect. And Nixon was not a stupid guy in any way. He was his own pretensions to be a statesman, a kind of a person possessed of great mind. But he really resented the love of Hollywood and cultural elites for the Kennedys.

This ate at him deeply. And I think basically every Oliver Stone movie is about Oliver Stone because he's such an incredible narcissist that basically And every, he sympathizes with Nixon to a degree that a person on the left, you know, Stone's politics are ostensibly left wing, might not have because the idea of a put upon great man who, you know, forces beyond his control are actually controlling is very appealing to him. And I think basically what, what every time Oliver Stone has these paranoid fantasies where it's a great man who's, who stopped by these shadowy forces, it's him in the studio heads. The president in the movie is the director, or the DA and JFK is the director.

And the evil guys in the background are the producers who only care about money and are going to ruin things and are the so-called powerful people are not really in control. So he identifies with these people who should have absolute power, but are frustrated and it seems like there's a certain kind of sympathy this can appear left

wing that this is a kind of sympathy for the underdog but he feels bad for dictators and we've seen this in a way in the in the in the way that his politics have evolved is that he's sympathetic to a person who's doing their best to exercise power absolutely but is frustrated by some kind of powers beyond his control. And I think that that's sort of what drew him to Nixon and where the sympathy to Nixon appears. I mean, he obviously goes through the motions of we all as liberals. What a monster Nixon was, ridiculous, clownish.

But there is, the sympathy does not come from the mere human sympathy of looking at Nixon self-torture. but I think a real identification with him as a put-upon authority figure. I feel like that really comes through. And what I thought was the scene that sort of hit the falsest note in the movie, which, of course, there's just very famous moment in Nixon's presidency where he goes down to the reflecting pool where all of these protesters have gathered kind of in the middle of the night.

And he goes down to talk to them. And there's a kind of imagined scene that takes place between Nixon and one of the protesters, where the protester, after talking to Nixon for a few minutes, sort of stops and looks at him and is like, wait, you're not really in control either, right? Yeah. The beast, the system is in control. You don't have control over the system. And that's the moment where you're just like, what?

Nixon never had this moment where he's like, the system man. And that's such an Oliver Stone kind of read on this. that felt very imported into the movie from Stone's own politics. In fact, I don't know if you, too, are familiar with the book, Nixon's Shadow by David Greenberg. He goes through these different images or depictions or uses of Nixon by different groups. And so he has this chapter on the new left conspiracists and Nixon. And he talks about Oliver Stone and Nixon in there, but also just talks about the idea that, you know,

Nixon was part of a much grander conspiracy, that the bigger system is in charge here. And I think that, you know, Stone fits in very neatly with that idea. I mean, the film very almost explicitly presents Nixon as basically being like set along his path to the White House by this like shadowy group of industrialists and such. So this is where the movie kind of veered. into like JFK conspiracy uh conspiracy there's actually very funny scene i was watching this on the

train and like laughed out loud um when uh nixon's with this group of like texas industrialists the day before jfk comes to dallas and he's he's talking they're like you got to run in 64 and nixon's like uh kennedy will never be beaten 64 it's not going to happen and then this i guess he's especially a cuban um i think so some kind of foreigner some kind of foreign or some kind of foreign coroner says, well, what if Kennedy is not on the ballot in 64? Yeah, and like kind of Nixon smiles. The movie highly suggests if it does not state explicitly that one of the demons haunting Nixon is his knowledge that J.F.K. was assassinated and that he benefited from it. And he's kind of, yeah, he looks at the portrait and he's kind of like, and that's the, and that's the

the crucifixion according to Oliver Stone is JFK's assassination. So the sin of that would definitely fall upon Nixon, who, oh, the only reason he became president. And then Pat Nixon, who I think that, you know, actress is very fine actress, but maybe some of the script that she, and I think gets some of Pat very well. But some of the script was not so great. She was just this super ego constantly attacking Nixon and being like, you'll never be good enough. He'll never love you. They'll never love you as much as they love JFK. You know, and I think that that's a little bit, it was a little bit overdone.

I think that actually, I don't think that's the way Pat would have talked to Dick in their private life. But he was very, yeah, very much needed to have those people play those. this melodramatic aspect of stone where he really needs to beat you over the head with things to make sure you get the point. And I just don't think that, but you know, this movie is not, it's an entertaining movie. I have to admit, I like watching it. I think it's part of it make me crack up.

But it's so, man, it's campy because it's a little campy. And I don't know if that was in melodramatic. And I think a lot of people who love American politics, this is kind of a cult movie for them because of lines like that and because of scenes like that. We're like, oh, have you seen Nixon and you kind of say it with a little bit of a wink? Like, yeah, we all love the ridiculous Nixon movie. I don't know if that was Stone's intention. I think he meant to set out to make a very serious movie here. And I don't think it's remembered as such.

I mean, we're all sort of enjoying it with our with our, tongues in our cheeks. I think you're right to say that he meant to make a serious movie. It begins. I mean, the opening card is sort of like, this is based on, this is based off of historical events. This is you know, scenes

that didn't happen. We tried to reconstruct. But I think the movie is very self-consciously as presenting itself was like, this is actually something close to or adjacent to actual history. And not simply, you know, not simply pure

entertainment. One thing I wanted to ask is what, you know, kind of the mission of this podcast is thinking about these things in the context of the 90s. What was like, at the end of his life, like, what did Americans think of Richard Nixon? Like what was the, he had a state funeral. I know that. But like, what was the verdict on Nixon after he died? This is a really interesting question because, you know, that you have. You have. all the presidents come out for his funeral. He has, like you said, a state funeral, a military funeral. Bill Clinton gives his eulogy. And Bill Clinton, who's president at the time, says, like, let there no longer be a memory of Nixon that is only about Watergate, that he has to be

remembered in terms of his whole life and his whole career and his whole achievements. And so in some ways in that moment, you see this kind of, not to sound too, whatever, but like, that's kind of like bipartisan elite coming together for one of their own and saying, like, he needs to be remembered in the fullness of his legacy. And probably they would like to be remembered in the fullness of theirs as well, rather than by the worst thing he did. Of course, the worst thing that he did was a crime against the country and a crime in general. But also, you know, at the same time, you have these eulogies like Hunter S. Thompson's eulogy, which was spitting mad and hilariously mean. And I think that the Hunter S. Thompson piece is also one of those

well-remembered, oft-quoted pieces that also helps to fix in the minds of at least a lot of people on the left, an image of Nixon as not just deeply crooked, but like dangerous and evil. And Thompson in that eulogy sort of says, we have to remember how dangerous and bad that this person was. And we can't let it be whitewashed away by these sort of celebrations of his life that don't recognize how evil he was. And so I think that it was, I think that it was kind of a mixed bag when it came to Nixon's memory at that point. He was still, people still thought he did more people, more Americans thought that he did wrong than did right at that moment in any case. Yeah, he was sort of rehabilitated in a certain way, but not totally. I mean, he had, he set himself up as this kind of elder statesman figure who could be, have, you know, impart his wisdom, especially in matters of foreign policy.

Still, you know, he was called the Sage of Saddle River, because he settled down in Saddle River, New Jersey. And he kind of presented himself, you know, again, a man of great pretensions and dramatic flair. He presented himself on television, you know, as having this kind of sagacious take on world events and so on and so forth. And it's not entirely unearned. He certainly, you know, had a successful and interesting foreign policy presidency. and the things he said about American foreign policy were interesting, and one has to admit even prescient because he said that U.S. policy towards Russia was not good, and that Russian nationalism and imperialism would rear its ugly head, that likely a war over Ukraine would happen.

And this was, you know, back in 1992, and he looks quite prescient and intelligent. But he wasn't, yeah, I think for a lot of people, you know, this effort to rehabilitate him. I just remember my parents' attitude towards him when I was young, which was basically that although we know he was awful and a crook and a criminal, well, a criminal at the very least, and, and, you know, had some terrible things. You know, opening China was a, was a diplomatic coup almost no one else could have done, as they famously say. So there was always kind of a mixed, a mixed memory of Nixon. And I think that the attempts to villainize him or, you know, with good reason in some cases, we're never entirely successful. And he,

some of the hatred of Nixon that we feel, which is, you know, it's just so funny in his very self-pitying, but kind of wise, but so not the advice he ever followed himself, farewell speech. She says, well, if you hate them, you know, if you hate people, they will destroy you. His own hatred, his own magnification of people's hatred of him, his own obsession with that is so much of his legacy. Like, you know, he magnified this. We almost feel, this is why he's such a wonderful and dramatic figure and why his tapes and those, his writing and resonates still is like his sensitivity to. to these slights and these hatreds makes them resonate more

because they really landed home like they really there's this that's what the movie kind of gets right is like him brooding in the White House and they're building this like shadow over him he carried that around with him in such an intense way and like

there are some historical there's some historical figures who are monsters and you're like how does this such a person even exist Nixon is a very, I won't say relatable, but this is a human person. It's just a very kind of sad type of person. I do not think many artists could pull it off. I think one artist, as I said earlier, is like Shakespeare. He's almost like Richard III.

He had this hunch, but the hunch was not a physical deformity. It was the weight of people's dislike of him pressing down on him. And it twisted his soul. So, I think, like, sometimes, I mean, Nixon kind of wrecked himself because he didn't need to do Watergate. You know, that's another thing. That was based on, like, his obsessing over tiny things. He was a micromanager because he let things like, he just had won the, he had won this, an election, he was probably going to win anyway. But he needed to futz around at the corners.

And he was obsessed with small slights and with losing tiny things. and he was he was mean he was he was jealous he was greedy a miser you know like he was he was obsessed with small things he was petty and had he been able to drop those things and i think what a what a different person he would have made but i i don't know i don't know if he would have been driven to the heights of you know of uh you know of what he did and his even opening china was like a dramatic move he was like well no one will expect me to do this you know it's everything he does is kind of done with like well richard nixon you know like oh remember me richard nixon you love to hate me like it's always like there's always like a very self-conscious idea of what being

richard nixon is unfortunately a hated man and a and a hurt man yeah i think you're yeah i think you're to point to sort of like the tragic element that like you know in the classical sense that it is very much this sense of feeling hated and put upon that drove him to accomplish the things he attempted to accomplish and that if he were more well adjusted maybe richard nixon is just sort of like a two-term congressman from from south of california and that's about it right And no one would, no one envy, you know, Nixon, I think people, no one envies Richard Nixon. No one says, it's just, you're truly twisted. No one says, I wish I, even I had his life.

Right. Despite his success. No one says, I wish I was Richard Nixon. Because you can see what a tortured man he was. Yeah. I also think when we're thinking about like kind of the reimagining of Nixon that's taking place in the 90s and a little after, there is also this thing that happens among historians. who as we get sort of like deeper and deeper into a more conservative era of U.S. politics, they

start to look back at Richard Nixon with a little bit of longing. There is this idea that emerges that Richard Nixon was the last liberal president. And we've been so like hyper-focused on Watergate that we miss that he like created the Environmental Protection Agency and that he pursued what we would think of as almost like either classically, economically liberal pursuits. He thought he looked at the idea of instituting a guaranteed annual income. And of course, some of that was to dismantle the welfare state and some things like that, but that he was distinctly different from the more conservative presidents that came after him. Well, what the, um, Jefferson Coe and staying alive, his interpretation of Nixon is as sort

of this attempt to build like almost like a reverse new deal coalition yeah sort of like to build kind of a broad i mean the silent majority but kind of like build sits together not just whites and white ethnic but sort of like um uh middle class americans of all stripes and to kind of a a coalition that will still it won't dismay it's not dismantling the new deal order I don't think he ever had that ambition, but sort of kind of creating a conservative counterpart to the New Deal order or more conservative counterpart that retains some elements, but is jettisons, jettisons others. This is, you know, that's really fascinating. Nixon's, Nixon's Black capitalism initiative is like you can understand very much as being in this vein, kind of trying to co-opt some political opponents, but also this notion. that there is at least a category of black Americans who would be receptive to being a part of

this. It's as I say it out loud, it's like very reminiscent of the George W. Bush kind of like ownership society, a political vision of a political majority. Yeah. That's super interesting. And I think, you know, to draw on what both of you are saying, it's very interesting to think about Nixon as a figure on the right. because he was not close to the conservative movement and was sort of had a hostile relationship

with the conservative movement insofar as a conservative movement is associated with Buckley and so on and so forth. But he attracted conservatives because I think he represented a certain type of populism, a certain type of right-wing populism, and right-wing populists are very interested in him for a number of reasons. And a lot of people who are, you know, for his liberalism, too, in a way, because a lot of people who are kind of framing themselves now as right-wing Keynesians and are trying to recapture Nixon as a kind of right-wing social Democrat who combines, you know, obvious need to temper market society with conservative social, you know, conservative social values.

So I think Nixon to a lot of young conservatives is a much more interesting president than Reagan because they're not so interested anymore in, you know, free market ideology, which was very sexy for a very long time. It seemed to be the answer to all problems. But now Nixon, the right-wing Keynesian, they make Nixon out to be much more ideological or have a much bigger vision than he did at the time. He was kind of just going with what the conventions were. He was a conventional man in a lot of ways.

But I think that that's a big thing. And Nixon, for his part, very interestingly, had close. relationships with paleo-conservatives, which was a little bit strange because you wouldn't expect him to be that ideological, but he was friendly with Paul Gottfried and liked his book on the American conservative movement very much. And he sort of, that kind of makes sense that the conservatives who were, well, a little anti-Semitic, but also had a vision of, had a vision of Americana that was sort of, you know, pre-war? You know, like Hoover, Nixon is kind of an old American and has a consciousness of

himself as an old American. I was just about to make that observation that Nixon, we briefly mentioned Nixon's sort of like family background, but his ancestors were like among some of the first like Anglo settlers to what is now the United States. A fun, bit of a fun fact, I don't talk about my family too much on here, but my wife's family is sort of like part of like a branch of the Nixon family. Oh, wow. If you, if you see pictures, I've seen, you see pictures of young Nixon, I look at pictures

of my wife's grandfather at the same age, and they look identical. Whoa. It's really strange. So yeah, my kind of weird connection to that. But Hoover also kind of an old stock American self-consciously so. And, you know, Bev Gage's book on Hoover kind of frames him as a conservative state builder. And notes it's sort of like, this is not really a thing that exists so much in American politics. That's why it's a little difficult to kind of like classify, it's difficult for Americans today to classify a guy like Hoover because it seems contradictory that this guy who believes in sort of like modern.

administration and bureaucracy is also like very much a social conservative, very much believes in traditional hierarchies. But this was this was a political category that existed. And you might be able to slot Nixon into that as well, a conservative state builder. Yeah. I think that's right. Yeah. And this is something that, I mean, this is part of the reason that young conservatives today are young right-wing reactionaries today like someone like Nixon more than Reagan, because they see the potential of using state power. They are pro-government. They just want government to function in a different way than it does under the New Deal Great Society. They want to use that government power to somewhat different ends. And that was part of the tension between the conservative

movement in Richard Nixon and the conservative movement in George Wallace, was that these kind of like Cold War conservatives like William F. Buckley Jr. thought that populism was the opposite of conservatism. And they saw a real tension between their ideological beliefs and the beliefs of somebody like Wallace who saw real value in state power. I mean, the state was what was able to enforce segregation. The state was able to give white Southerners goodies and things that they wanted. And that vision of state power, Nixon has some of it. I think Hoover absolutely has it. He wants to wield enormous power as head of the FBI. He doesn't see that as in conflict with his conservatism.

And I think that that idea that conservatism is simply anti-government leads us down the wrong path. There have been periods where it has been more anti-government. And I think Reagan conservatism fits that bill. And I think Buckley's conservatism fits that bill. But otherwise, it causes us to miss some of the trends that have borne fruit in recent years. Yeah. It's interesting Nixon's favorite statesman and who he was sort of obsessed with was Charles de Gaulle, who was, you know, a figure of immense personal authority who reigned over a centralized state. It was almost, at certain points, a dictator. He was a presidential figure. Not quite, it's not fair to say, but he was, this was how I think Nixon envisioned the presidency for himself. which was presidency plus, right, a certain kind of energetic addition to executive power that

verges on dictatorship and why I think, you know, he was willing to contemplate the moves against the Constitution he made, which was basically he had this kind of unitary executive theory and he believed, you know, he said when the president does it, it's not illegal. So he had a very expansive vision of his executive. power. Again, until today, not something you usually associate with the conservative movement who likes to focus more on the countermajoritarian branches like the courts and the Senate. But Nixon's idea of, I think what attracted Pat Buchanan to Nixon was his right-wing populism in the sense that he was a plebiscite against the establishment.

The silent majority comes out, votes against the liberals, against the liberal elites, votes, and then this president has the power of the people behind them to crush them. And Buchanan's big regret with Watergate is basically more or less that he was like, well, well, at this point, Nixon was not popular. But his reasoning about that was like, while Nixon was elected, he was a popular president, he should have basically done it. And Watergate was a liberal coup against him. He should have done a counter coup against those liberal bastards, those, you know what's. And that's what, you know, he envisioned and what he looked up to was the plebiscite, Nixon as the plebiscite of the forgotten American.

and the potential to have a dictator of the forgotten American, which the vision returned in Trump in certain ways. Yeah. And Nixon didn't quite go for it, thankfully. But, yeah. And Pap Buchanan liked a good dictator. Or likes a good dictator. Oh, yes.

It's still alive. Still alive. Still alive. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think it's, you know, we've, we, earlier on in the podcast, we touched on this a bit because we were kind of touching, covering movies that were closer to this or closer to the subject matter, but

you know, the generation of Republican executive branch staffers that come out of the Nixon administration are people who you can think of as basically trying to create a world in which like you can do a water gate again and not get in trouble

for it, right? And so Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bill Barr, right? All of these guys. Roger Stone, the sense that the president does have this inherent power as a result of the vote of the people and the fact that, you know, they are the executive goes on to very much shape the next generation of Republican politics. And as you said, John, up to up to Trump, right? Like that the Trump's claim is like a literal claim that he represents the people and as such institutional constraints.

do not apply to him. The problem for Trump is that the people collectively never really voted for, didn't really make him president, the Constitution did, which is why there's like the Trump, the Trump movement has been, one of the reasons it's been characterized by this like aggressive effort to police who constitutes the people, right? Sort of you have to do that ideological work for the claim to work. Yeah, yeah, exactly. they have to do exactly what it says in the famous Brecht poem, which is dissolve the people and elect another.

Right. Which is they have to shape. But it's its own self-consciousness is, I mean, as it began as an America First movement, I think it's Trumpism has evolved a little bit. But it really in its first turn, in its first appearance was, you know, white Americans, legacy Americans, as they like to call themselves, or like the euphemism now, who feel. dispossessed and were looking for a final champion and he spiked the white vote, which was not the strategy of Republicans to try to do before. The attempt was to, you know, win over, you know, as you were saying, a middle class that included minorities. And then Trump's sort of because politics is so interesting and can create, he managed to straddle both types of republicanism,

which is like, we're going to bring in a multi-ethnic, you know, middle class. that's not keen, that's a little socially conservative, and I'm still going to be like appealing to a kind of white nationalism. He somehow, and still, even with those two things, it wasn't quite enough to win him a second term. But, you know, he was, won a lot of votes, and he won a lot of votes and an increasing number of votes for a minority. So it's not that Trump is mere, and that's why I think the Trump and Nixon comparisons are sort of apt, because Nixon represented a more complicated appeal. I mean, he definitely appealed to white dispossession. There's no doubt about that or white paranoia, so there's no doubt about that. But his appeal was a little bit more

complex than that in the sense that he spoke to many people who felt shunted to the side by cultural demographic and economic changes in the country. And economic change is a little different in Nixon, but cultural changes certainly. You know, Nixon is a man, like this is the brilliant thing of Nixon agonistas, the book by Gary Wills, is how he said, Nixon is like the hopes of an earlier era, you know? That's why he looks so square to people in the, who are part of the counterculture. He was Lawrence Welk, you know, he was, he was, you know, drinking, these are hip again, so it doesn't really work, but, you know, like a martini and a cigarette is being the most, you know, you let loose, you know, like it was, it was a really square, older, whether,

of being that a lot of people in the country missed and like wanted to he was a you know he was a guy from another era and i think if we want to talk about his appeal for people now although he as a reactionary figure he's a bigger he is not a bigger conservative than Reagan because he's not as an ideological but in a way he's a bigger reactionary because of what he represents and because of the way he formed his politics, the way the hatreds, the irritations of the changing world, the way he formed his politics was so reactionary. So I think that that's why another part of his, in the way that the right has gone from being conservative to reactionary, of course, Nixon, not really conservative, but in very many ways kind of a reactionary,

it becomes interesting to them. Yeah. We should start to wrap up. Any last thoughts on the movie on your Nixon and Oliver Stone, Nikki. I mean, the movie is certainly worth watching. It's three hours long, but it doesn't feel three hours long. And I think that's because it is a little crazy. It's a little nuts. And it like, I mean, it's kind of, it's interestingly put together in that it's a kind of pastiche, which makes it go by fairly quickly as you're knitting together all of

different pieces, both of Nixon's political and personal biography and then these strange conspiracy theories that are kind of wound through it. And it also includes like tons of sort of newsreel footage from the era, which is interwoven throughout. So I think that it is a movie worth watching, if not necessarily to understand the real Richard Nixon, to really get a sense of how some people saw and understood Nixon. And really, like, again, like the Nixon on the tapes is the Nixon who is in this movie. And I find that, I find that really interesting. As somebody, you know, John mentioned that he listened to the tapes as a pastime. I listened to the tapes as a job for four years at the University of Virginia. And it really, you do get,

you get some real insights into Nixon they're not the complete story of Nixon and I think that people sometimes overrate them because it's like oh well if this is secret then it must be the truest thing about Nixon but I found it to be a fascinating movie and I actually probably will watch it again

even though it's again like a little nuts but there's something very compelling about it that's that's oliver stone um yeah the thing the thing not to not to interrupt you john but i just wanted to say that the i've been thinking a lot about just the form of these movies and how they're so reliant on montage as a as a dramatic and narrative device and there's a lot of there's a way in which mon like conspiracy thinking is a kind of montage thinking right piecing together disparate things

in tying together time together into a unified narrative what montage is I have an I have like an Eisenstein book on my shelf because I'm a fucking nerd Eisenstadt rather whatever the film theorist

but the purpose of montage is precisely to take a set of images which may have no actual logical connection to them and create a logical connection that then helps advance this story. And there's just funny way to me in how like the form, like Oliver Stone's like ideology and his worldview is like perfectly

matched up with the form that he is actually quite good at. He's an excellent maker of montage and excellent editor. And the two things in JFK and Nixon are sort of like brought together as sort of like these are montage movies that are highly conspirator. and I think those two things are very much connected. Yeah, that's an amazing observation. Yeah, that's absolutely true. I mean, never before has forming content quite so close.

But yeah, okay, so if there was an election between Oliver Stone and Richard Nixon, I would vote for Richard Nixon and a heartbeat. I just want to say that because I think he's a much more mentally sound person. I think basically, yeah, you know, I enjoy this movie. My issues with Oliver Stone aside, I do think he makes passively entertaining movies. I love the topic.

I'm going to probably watch this movie again sometime in the future. Richard Nixon is just so interesting. I could talk about him all day. Yeah, I guess that's it. I think that, you know, I think it's extremely, to get the impression of Nixon, I think Nikki's comment about the tapes not being the whole story, is really important because think about you just sitting I mean he was being a little stupid but he's basically sitting around with his friends or people who are kind of toadies but kind of his

friends and he likes and he's talking shit and he's kind of ranting and raving I mean you can imagine if your group chats and if you're if you're just gossiping aloud with your friends and everything you said is reflective of your final opinion on every issue you might say oh no that's not really what I meant, that's not really me, you're just kind of being petty and bitchy, and this is like him at his worst. So it's not, I think it is a good point. Yeah, and it's to say, oh, this is a look at his internal life is a little bit and what must be the true Nixon is not true. And also the poor guy, his little toad his egg him on because they're obviously having fun. Like, that's the other thing about it. They're like, they're like, oh, you're sitting with the most powerful

man in the world and you're getting him to be terribly indiscreet and talk shit about people you know and stuff like that. So they're of course like, do you realize how thrilling that must be like to gossip with the most powerful man in the world? And of course they're going and like when he gets going, he's actually pretty funny. He says horrible things, but like he's kind of clever and funny. So it's like you're sitting around gossiping your friend. You have some person who's like extremely funny when they do it because they have a lot of insights. dope and lots of crazy ideas about people. And they're egging him on. And it's not doing him a service as a present because they're egging on his absolute worst parts of his personality.

They're like, oh, don't you, the things, your prejudices, your paranoias, gee boss, let's hear about that. And he's like, wow, you want to hear about it? Like, I can go on for hours. He was badly served by his advisors who really egged on some of the worst parts of his persona. I think out of their own desire to hang out with him, you know, like, and to be like, oh, yeah, I love when the boss talks shit. So I, I, that's my feeling. But there are a lot of fun to listen to, in my opinion. You guys think I'm crazy, but.

No, no, I'm sure, I'm sure they are. It was a very funny thing for you to say, yeah, when I'm just like trying to pass the time. I listen to Nixon tapes. Sometimes when I'm sad, I listen to Nixon tapes. Okay. That is our show. If you're not a subscriber, please subscribe. We're available on iTunes, Spotify, Sitcher Radio, and Google Podcasts, and wherever else podcasts are found. If you subscribe, please leave a rating and review so people can find the show. You can reach out to us over email if you'd like to. The feedback email is unclear and present feedback at fastmail.com. For this weekend feedback, we have an email from Michael titled Louie Napoleon and Coos. I know what this, but I got the e-mail. I was like, I know exactly what this is going to be about, but I thought it'd be fun

to read it anyway. Hello, Jamel and John. I'm a big fan of the pod. I loved your recent episode on The Enemy Within, the previous episode, the 1924 remake of 7 days in May, and the entire discussion on coups, for example, the question between January and 7th and January 20th, 2021, did Donald Trump wield the powers of the presidency? and if not, was that a coup, is a fascinating one. John briefly mentioned Louis Napoleon's auto coup,

creating the second French empire in 1851, and an echo of his uncle Napoleon. The original Napoleon seized power in a bloodless coup which began on 18 Bremere of Year 8, using the new calendar system. Today is 18 Premier. Today is 18 Bruneer. It is. Sorry.

Using the new calendar system of the French Revolution. It was therefore known, thereafter known as the coup of 18 Bruneer. Mayor, or just as 18 Vermeer in much the way 9-11 has become an abbreviation in Synecatechi for the terrorist attacks of 9-11, 2001. Napoleon's coup, of course, used a false accusation of an incipient Jacobin coup as the justification for the deployment of military forces, which were then used to intimidate any opposition to Napoleon's actual coup, something akin to what Trump planned with the constant

talk of Antifa and how it is now well-documented hopes to use the Insurrection Act against anyone who opposed the JN6 coup. Louis Napoleon's 1851 auto coup was a much different affair. Karl Marx's, the 18th premier of Louis Napoleon, discusses both Napoleon's and history overall through the lens of Marx's historiography. Marx's historiography. I had not read it since college,

and since I am squarely in the demographic for this podcast, you can estimate how long ago that was, but reading it in the Trump era is simply eerie, practically every hit land. For example, here is Marx. It is not enough to say, as the Frenchmen do, that their nation was taken by surprise. A nation no more than a woman is excused for the unguarded hour when the first adventurer who comes along can do violence to her. The riddle is not solved by such shifts.

It is only formulated in other words. There remains to be explained how a nation, 36 million, can be surprised by three swindlers and taken a prison without resistance. Mutadus mutandis, between a France of 36 million in America, 10 times that, and that feels like a criticism of America. in 2016, via a horrifyingly sexist never Trump Republican, perhaps. Yeah, you don't say. The text is too rich to summarize beyond saying that reading it today is an unsettlingly modern experience, but there's one snippet I felt compelled to pass on. It is a fact that intrudes, in my mind, at least monthly, a thing that once known

cannot be unknown. The famous opening line of the 18 premiere is, Hegel says somewhere that the great historic facts and personages never recur to twice. twice, recurred twice. He forgot to add once as a tragedy again as farce. And the title itself makes clear that that opener accuses Louis Napoleon of being a farcical echo of his great uncle. But here's the thing. If you convert Gregorian dates to the French Revolutionary Calendar, the 26th U.S. presidential election was on 18 Premier. I don't know what's due with this information beyond spreading it further, recommending that your listeners readmarks might be outside

of the podcast's remit, but all I can say is 18 Premier slaps. I don't think it's outside the podcast. I think both, I think I feel like everyone on this episode has read the 18th premiere of Louis Napoleon. Like it's, it's like a, it's like a thing people read. Um, uh, the, uh, Michael's, uh, uh, take on the book as like weirdly prescient. I think is, is right. Is absolutely true. I, I, I hear it when to say that, um, if one, you know, when people talk about reading marks, they're always like, I got to read the Communist Manifesto. I got to read Capital. I don't necessarily know that those things are the things you should do. If you really want to read Capital, go for it.

But you could also just read a smart summary by a smarter person. But I do think people should read Marxist's more journalistic and historical writing. I think it's very good. 18 Premier, his writing, his sort of columns about the U.S. Civil War, which are collected in a couple different volumes, are terrific. And there's other work, too. But Marx was a very, when he's writing in this mode, he's a very good writer. And he's a very, like, powerful observer of events.

And so I do highly recommend that people check that stuff out. It's the best piece of political journalism ever written. I would say. I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I'm just struck by how remarkably erudite your listeners are. Oh, yeah. Yes, well, they love to show off. And we love to have them show off. Yes.

Very proud of our listeners. I think I'm glad people tried to show off their knowledge. It's great. So again, you can reach us over email at unclear and present feedback at fastmail.com. Our next episode in two weeks will be on the 1996. Let me see. There I still have it up. the 1996 movie

Broken Arrow directed by John Wu I think it's John Wu's first Hollywood picture and this one

stars John Travolta and Christian Slater Here's a very brief plot summary when rogue stealth

fighter pilot Vic Deacons Okay deliberately drops off the radar while on maneuvers the Air Force

ends up with two stolen nuclear warheads and Deacons co-pilot Riley Hale is the military's only hope for getting them back. Traversing the Desert Canyons of Utah, hail teams with Park Ranger Terry Caramichael to put Deacons back in his box. This is not a good movie. I'm just going to say that right. I watch this movie as a kid. I like it a lot.

I'm looking forward to this one. It is very dumb. So that's her next film. Broken Arrow, you can find it to rent or buy on Amazon or iTunes. You can also wrench it on Google Play. I think there's a disc you can probably buy easy to, easy to access. And don't forget the Patreon. The latest episode of our Patreon podcast is on the 1977 film, The Private Files of Jay

Edgar Hoover, written and directed by Larry Cohen. We talk about that. I think we're going to do for the next Patreon episode, Clinise, and we're kind of breaking the rules of the Patreon a bit, but we're going to do Clint Eastwood, Jay Edgar from 2011. We're actually going to try to get Beverly on the show for that. I'm sure she'd be happy to promote

her book a bit more. And I think I kind of think we should do after that secret honor just to kind of like continue the whole mid-century thing. And I'd like to watch that again. More Nixon talk. So that's the Patreon plan.

Patreon is $5. month. It's two episodes a month. We've started doing like an open thread at the end of the week so people can talk about what they're watching and such. And that was last week's was like really great to see people really participating in. So if you want a way to just like directly talk about the movies, especially movies in this sort of vein that you might be watching and we both participate. Please join the Patreon and like participate in the open threads. And check out our episodes on many, many things. We kind of go through these periods of of doing kind of themed stuff.

And so I think we're in the middle of a theme, which is just sort of like, you know, mid-century American politics. So check that out. Nikki, do you have anything you want to plug? Yes. Well, after you donate to this Patreon, which you absolutely should do for all the excellent content,

there's also another podcast that I do in addition to past present called This Day in Esoteric Political History. and right now we're having our fun drive for Radiotopia. So if you want to pop on over there, we have some new merch that you can get a discount on if you become a Radiotopia funder. So first and foremost, unclear and present danger. But if you have a few pennies left over, come kick them our way. I want to plug your book.

If you're interested in the 90s, which if you listen to this podcast, you definitely are, you should definitely read Nikki's book, Partisans, about the right in the early, and the right in the 90s in general, which is extremely insightful. And I think if you like this podcast and the era we're talking about, you would really dig. Really appreciate that. Yeah, I second that. Partisans is really terrific. And it's like, it's like four listeners of this podcast.

Yes, very much. So please, please check that out. All right. For John Gams and Nicole Hammer, I am Jamel Bowie. And we will see you next time on, clear and present danger.