Could Nixon Make A Comeback?

by Chris Bodenner

Tom Switzer tries to resurrect Nixonian foreign policy:

“I think of what happened to Greece and Rome, and you see what is left — only the pillars,” Nixon concluded somberly. “What has happened, of course, is that the great civilizations of the past, as they have become wealthy, as they have lost their will to live, to improve, they then have become subject to decadence that eventually destroys the civilization. The U.S. is now reaching that period.”

Imagine if President Obama or leading Republicans today welcomed the end of U.S. pre-eminence and the rise of global multipolarity. The American body politic would denounce them as declinists, defeatists, perhaps even un-American. Yet Nixon’s speech sparked no outrage in July 1971.

Jacob Heilbrunn nods:

Whether Nixon was always right is another matter. It could be argued that he took too dour a view of America's future. But he may also have been prescient. At a moment when America is mired in misery, at home and abroad, his sagacious counsel should not be airbrushed out of the history of the GOP. Back in 1973, one of Nixon's longtime critics, Walter Lippmann, so Switzer observes, praised him for being the great liquidator of American adventures–the war in Vietnam, the Great Society–were "beyond our power." Nixon was pleased: "wise observation," he jotted down.

Such wisdom should make a comeback in the GOP. Will it?