Nixon does well enough after taking over from Eisenhower, but shit hits the fan when he goes all in on Cuba. The intervention is initially supported but American forces are embarrassed by Cuban guerrillas, the death count rises astronomically fast, and he keeps going on TV looking like a damn drunk. Soon enough the war is unpopular and Nixon is advised to pull out, but a man is finished when he quits, so Nixon bombs his way to a landslide loss to Hubert Humphrey.
Humphrey runs on "literally anything except what Nixon is doing" which gives him a considerable amount of leeway upon taking office. After a rapid withdrawal, peace talks break down, and with America out of the picture, the Cubans resume fighting and the communists win. Whatever. It was Nixon's fault! Humphrey did the best he could, you know. Additionally, Vietnam does not become a big deal as America is busy with Cuba and Humphrey does not want to appear a hypocrite for starting his own Vietnam. Vietnam is taken over by the communists so Cuba and Vietnam become attack lines for hawks to call Humphrey weak on communism. Doesn't matter, Nixon's fault! Humphrey's presidency is one of domestic action rivaling the heights of the New Deal, with sweeping legislative reform on civil rights, healthcare, labor rights, crime, and poverty. The angry anti-civil rights factions in both party are suppressed in 1964 as Humphrey and Morton are nominated, so I guess I should have added a third party in this election. Perhaps Orval Faubus shows his face. Nevertheless, Humphrey wins a respectable victory over Morton.
In 1968, there is a political boiling point because of civil rights and other policies enacted by that goddamn pinko Hubert. With no Vietnam War or conflict of equivalent magnitude, there is less social strife. The counterculture does not develop as we know it. This is why I really really don't like working with pre-60s divergences because so much of our modern culture in all aspects of life developed in this period and you could probably make a reasonable case for anything else coming out of the chaos. Anyway the Republican nomination is won by Nelson Rockefeller and JFK waltzes his way to the Democratic nomination over Symington and assorted figures. The segregationist crowd will not stand for both major party nominees being these northeastern liberals and so here comes George Wallace. Kennedy is able to combine Humphrey's popularity and his own charisma to win the north and west handily, while Wallace sweeps the south and Rockefeller is left in the dust in the mountain west.
Kennedy looks to continue Humphreyism, which needs a snazzy name like the Great Society or what have you, but he gets derailed by some war, could be Iran, a different later Vietnam, or Cuba again. Kennedy partially ran on not being weak as Humphrey on communism and now he has to commit, and boy does he. It was supposed to be an in-and-out job, sort of like Nixon in Cuba, but the defense establishment's hindsight is as terrible as its foresight and they keep telling Kennedy one more heave and it's done. The War and an economic crisis take a toll on his mental state and combined with his alleged illness, Kennedy soon finds himself dead. He is succeeded by Vice President Harris, who seems done for in the next election. However, though The War continues, the economy recovers. And Harris, who really did oppose The War, takes serious steps towards ending it.
There is chaos in the Republican Party, having lost four elections, undergoing an ideological civil war, and becoming a very big tent of "people who don't like Hubert Humphrey and John Kennedy." In comes Senator George Bush, a guy who is definitely not a rich northeastern patrician. No, he's a real Texas cowboy man. Didn't we do that last time and lose? Yes, but George Bush never stole anyone's milk or whatever the hell John Connally was doing. This guy is the real deal! Strong and stable leadership, he says, right up to the day he gets shot. Now nobody's been shot here in forever, no Kennedys and no Martin Luther Kings. So the Republican ticket is taken over by Winfield Dunn, a guy who nobody even heard of until George Bush pulled him out of the ether. Fred Harris says I am President Fred Roy Harris and my opponent is Governor Nobody Voted For Him. Nevertheless, the overwhelming "who?" factor works against Dunn. The sympathy vote, if it exists, is not enough to counter. It's close, but not close enough.
Fred Harris soldiers on. The War will be over by 1977. The War will be over by 1978. The War will be over by 1979. The War will be over by 1980. It is 1980. Fred Harris is having a bad year. Robert F. Kennedy, the former Senator/Attorney General/Secretary of State decides it's time to stop. Running as the REAL peace candidate, Kennedy wins the early primaries, not that there are many of them. Harris is advised to drop out, but he's mad at Kennedy for resigning in the middle of his first term and leaving him to face the gale force winds of war (which Kennedy assisted his brother in creating) alone. This is a serious beef, but Fred Harris looks likely to eat crow when Robert Kennedy is assassinated, allegedly by anti-communists, communists, agents of The War Country, the CIA, and everyone else. Efforts to draft Ted Kennedy or George McGovern at the convention fail, and Fred Harris is renominated despite having lost the primaries. His opponent is Edwin Reinecke (not Robert Finch), Nixon's protege, who slashes his way through the jungle that is the Republican primary with the dual machetes of New Conservatism (Now) and his own dirty tricks unit. His fire and blood rhetoric promises an end to The War and Humphrey-Kennedy-Harris liberal horseshit by any means necessary.
Not only was Reinecke the model of New Conservatism (Now) he had his friend in high places calling the shots for him. Nixon returned from his long retirement, fed up with all that had gone wrong from him simply doing the right thing. Unfortunately for them, they were a little too angry. Their ruthlessness was, in fact, reckless, and they were caught by a hyper-vigilant FBI kept on its toes looking to prevent antiwar subversion. Reinecke had done this, this, and this, when he was governor, and did this, this, and this against his primary opponent. Nixon was not implicated. If he had known, surely he would have put a stop to this. After all, he was a former president, above this nonsense, and he came from a better era of the past when folks were honest. No sir, Edwin Reinecke was not a Nixon man, he was a traitor. And Fred Harris looked pretty shiny. The sixth straight win.
A Republican Revolution had come about in Congress, though slightly weakened by Reinecke's exposure. These hotblooded youngsters believed in a lot of different things, but the most important thing which they all agreed upon was that they hated Democrats, and they hated Fred Harris. They blew up the systems and traditions of Congress and blocked Harris at every step. Between the two branches of government, not much got done. Nor could Harris end The War. After each troop decrease, some new fire would start that slowed down the process or reversed it. The Soviets were always there to meet the retreat with advances of their own. Harris found himself in the no-win situation.
When 1984 came around, there was only one man for the Republican nomination: the inexperienced Congressman George W. Bush. Once his father died, he said, he knew Something Must Be Done, and he was the one to done it. Right on, George, you done it good. There was still the experience gap, so he found the most experienced man in America, Richard Nixon. Isn't that illegal? No, he's running for vice president, not president. But doesn't the vice president have to meet the same eligibility requirements as the president? And what if he ascends? Yes, but he was only elected president once, and the constitution says "no one shall be elected twice." He's only been elected once. Okay, I guess you can do that.
For the Democrats, they fought the same fight they had four years ago. Vice President Edmund Muskie was unfortunately stuck with the administration line, and Edward Kennedy picked up his brother's sword. Robert, not John. But also, this isn't what John wanted. Fred's fucked it all up. There was an additional development. After Harris won the nomination in 1980, there was a big commotion about reforming the nomination process, and so it was done. Primary races were held in all the states to elect delegates to the convention. In the first race with the new primaries, Kennedy was sweeping once again. Then the news started coming out. Ted Kennedy is a serial philanderer. Ted Kennedy is an alcoholic. Ted Kennedy and his wife are looking to get divorced. This was no John Kennedy, that great man who was so dedicated to his country that he suffered in his mind and body and die for it. Nor was this Robert Kennedy, father of 14, the family man who stood up for what was right till the shadowy forces of the world silenced him forever. This was just some guy.
Muskie recovered and beat Kennedy in the remaining primaries. There was no chance for a convention comeback. Go home Ted, it's over. Well Ed Muskie would also be going home soon, as he lost mightily in the general. To his credit, Bush inquired about Kennedy's swift demise. Nixon didn't have anything to do with that, did he? A little bit of Reinecke redux? Nixon denied it all, and to his discredit Bush accepted this. Also Tom Hayden and Mike Gravel were there shouting about peace, not just in The War, but in All The Wars.
Bush soon found the task at hand difficult. The War was a real quagmire, and it was no wonder Harris never got the job done. Peace through victory, and even peace through stalemate, was unattainable. Peace through loss then, if that's what it had to be. The Congressional Republicans were not having it. Here they were with the first Republican president in a quarter century, and the last Republican president at his right hand, and this is what they were deciding on? George W. Bush, they concluded, was a big coward. His father would never had stood for this. The American people didn't care. They were tired. They just wanted out. Bush largely agreed. Richard Nixon thought this was loser talk. A rational man would have learned from his past experience that sometimes a man is finished when he's finished. Richard Nixon decided that last time he had failed because he did what everyone else wanted, listening to his generals and public opinion. They were all wrong, and the same was the case now. Everyone else is always wrong, and that includes you, George Bush. This fight went on for some time before the president met the same fate as his father. Richard Nixon found himself president 26 years after he last left it.
It was a tragedy, which according to Nixon's first law is an opportunity. We can never let this happen again, and everyone must learn that I will not stand for this. Thus, the most obvious move was to drop nuclear bombs in The War Country, which is what he retrospectively decided was necessary in Cuba. He gambled that the Soviets would not risk MAD. Indeed they didn't, but this was largely because they were slowly falling apart. Nixon became an international pariah, and even a domestic one, but no matter. The War was over. Isn't that what you wanted? And then he decided to run for re-election, which, as we established previously, he could. So great was the anti-Nixon fervor that it exploded beyond the confines of the Democratic Party and saw two splinter tickets, George Wallace and Jerry Brown, two of America's most eccentric governors, decided that Democratic nominee Jim Sasser was a pathetic nominee who could not stand up to Nixon nor handle the job of repairing America's international relationships. Many agreed with this position, and in fact Sasser had only won the nomination by seizing advantage of the new primary system despite tepid support. However, they were not interested in voting for George Wallace for obvious reasons. Ramsey Clark and Gore Vidal decided to run on an Anti-Nixon line, which was also anti-Wallace, and somewhat anti-Sasser. This great divergence had only one natural result: Richard Nixon was elected to a second full term, continuing his reign as the second-longest serving president in history.
Democrats took Congress and figured they could impeach Nixon, but impeachment was a difficult process and they weren't all on the same page about the legal basis. The process continued through his term, as he retreated away from the public away, shocked by how the whole nation was seemingly turned against him. Vice President Clinton stepped in, and was caught between trying to do his job while also seeking impeachment so that he could become president outright. Sure enough, Nixon was impeached by the House, but he survived the Senate trial as Democrats lacked the supermajority for conviction on their own, and not enough Republicans joined them. Most of the Senate Republican caucus were the revolutionaries who supported Nixon's radical action. Gleeful at his victory, Nixon returned to work and berated Clinton for supposedly conspiring against him. Clinton could not be fired, but Nixon wanted make him miserable to the end of the term. However, Nixon was dragged back to earth by the illness of his wife, Pat, and did not have any remaining energy to deal with Clinton.
Clinton won the Republican nomination in 92, as he was known for his more responsible actions filling in for Nixon, despite Nixon's best efforts to quash him. Though he was popular with Republicans, his national reputation was still that of a Nixon stooge. As the Democrats nominated Birch Bayh, a movement sprung up around independent Kentucky Governor Gatewood Galbraith. His strange ideas and eccentric character made him a popular figure if not a serious one, but the launch of his presidential campaign was successful in giving him credibility. Galbraith attacked the systemic failures of the last 20 years, public suffering wrought by both parties. It was time to fight the power as one united populace. He rocketed in the polls, coming in strong thirds, before surpassing Clinton to second place. Then stories began coming out Clinton, being accused of infidelity and sexual assault. Was this Nixon's last trick on America? No. It was just Bill Clinton's past catching up to him. Near everyone abandoned him, from his wife Margaret and the kids to his friends in the Republican Party. And the voters, who largely flocked to Galbraith. Then Galbraith won the electoral vote and the rest was history. Nixon ended his last term and twelfth year in office on January 20, 1993, despite numerous people attempting to abbreviate his tenure. Bill Clinton would return to the political sphere. But the important thing is that we proved Richard Nixon could have constitutionally served 12 years as president.
