You have to be old, or listen to a lot of classic rock to remember Kent State. History repeats itself not because people don’t remember it, rather because there is always one universal fuck-up that thinks they can “fix” it. Oh how it will be different this time because they will “fix” it.
The Nixon Playbook
During my yoot we had five television stations on our black & white television when the weather was good, three the rest of the time. Journalists, not the K–used-to-Be, were in charge of the news. A presidential impeachment was most definitely news. Guess what else was news? Protests over the Vietnam war. Unlike Trump, Nixon actually did good things. Nixon, a Republican, was the first to promote UBI (Universal Basic Income). It was a last ditch effort to avoid impeachment but UBI was on the table in 1969.
Wanting to be an authoritarian, just like Trump wants to be a king, Nixon ordered government agencies to attack his “enemies.” (Sound familiar?) Everybody was sick of hearing “Peace With Honor,” they just wanted to end the draft. Vietnam, the only war America lost in a post-World War I era. Well, until Trump lost Afghanistan.
Instead of listening to the people, Nixon expanded the war into Cambodia. He broadcast a lot of rhetoric and Kent State happened.
The Trump body count is a bit higher.
Understand the Times
Kids today think most anyone can go to college. Many companies provide cash scholarships/grants, there are student loans as well as government grants. Prior to Vietnam, only rich people’s kids went to college. Universities would award a full ride to a token few poor people having a brilliant mind, but children of working stiffs had zero chance.
Depending on where you lived minimum wage was $1.50-$2.50/hr. A standard work year was 2000 hours. Do the math. With Vietnam, an incredibly unpopular war, families went into massive debt to send draft age kids to college. Why? The college exemption. You still had to register for the draft and get assigned a number, but as long as you were attending college you could avoid going. As a result, instructors began liberally handing out passing grades.
It was a version of Trump’s bone spurs, but available to everyone willing to go into massive debt.
Just this past year I attended the wake of a friend and former boss who lived through this time. So many people were going to either Canada or college that the Nixon administration devised a plan. During the break between semesters the numbers of everyone using the college exception scrolled across the screen during the evening news. He got lucky. Being an engineering student he got sent to Germany to work on radar systems. Kids pursuing degrees the military could not use were sent to the jungle to die.
Draft card burning was widespread.
Deploy the Guard!
You really need to watch the above video. Deploying of the guard started under LBJ.
Hey Hey LBJ, how many kids have you killed today.
Protestor chant
Democrats started deploying the guard and it was rampant by the time Nixon took office in 1969.
On May 4, 1970, the guard shot 4 dead at Kent State in Ohio. For the first time in the history of America large numbers of blue collar kids were sitting in the same classrooms as rich kids. They were all out on the campus protesting the war. Poor kids had the numbers. Parents of rich kids had the money and influence.
On May 4, 1970, America turned on Richard Nixon. Every rich parent saw that bodies on the news and played the same scene out in their minds about their kids at their campus. It took them until 1975 to end the Vietnam war with the fall of Saigon.
Look familiar?
Less than 60% of people vote
Despite relentless retribution from the public, Nixon got re-elected. Republicans like war because it is good for the economy. Republicans don’t try to win a war, I say this as a Republican. Fighting a war ineptly as in both Vietnam and Afghanistan means trillions of dollars in munitions, tanks, planes, etc. have to be manufactured and purchased. This creates jobs. Someone else will have to sweep up the national debt because we are going to cut taxes on the rich while spending more and more money.
Even with a strong economy, how could Nixon get re-elected?
Nixon undercut McGovern’s main issue — a call for an immediate end to the Vietnam War — by promising to replace the draft with an all-volunteer force and by steadily drawing down the number of U.S. troops engaged in the conflict.
PoLITICO
Americans weren’t opposed to people who wanted to get killed joining the army and getting killed, they were opposed to a draft sending their kid to be killed while Trump’s dad could bribe or otherwise influence a doctor to fake a bone spurs exception for his kid. Trump has not been the only Adolf in the Whitehouse.
But, as Stephen Ambrose notes in his 1989 political biography, in private Nixon was “furious” at McGovern. “What upset him,” Ambrose writes, “were McGovern’s remarks about Nixon as a person. It was not so much the ‘most corrupt administration in history’ charge, or even the accusation that Nixon’s tactics were those of the KKK; the charge that cut was the comparison of Nixon with [Adolf] Hitler.”
POLITICO
November 7, 1972 Nixon was re-elected in a landslide. The draft ended in January 1973. Nixon realized “the people” had him by the testicles.
Watergate
Less than 60% of people vote but nearly 100% watched the evening news and/or read a newspaper. The majority of people wanted Nixon gone but McGovern was such a failure as a candidate most didn’t bother to vote. Nixon did a lot of shitty things, no doubt, but he kept his word. His first month back the draft ended. It did not and could not erase the memory of Kent State or Daley’s “shoot to kill” order in Chicago, but it bought him some breathing room.
Believing he could be king is what took Nixon, and now Trump, out. Trump has no salvation. He is going to prison. The midterms is going to flip both houses so that people willing to lock up every Trump lackey for contempt of Congress until they get their hands on the un-redacted Epstein files. In there will be crimes Trump cannot “hoax” away. Kind of stuff Evangelicals can’t ignore without burning in Hell.
Nixon could have dodged the Watergate bullet.
All he really had to do was say “I told people to get me the information, not how.”
All the President’s Men
If you don’t have time to read the book find and watch the movie. We are now at the beginning of that book for Trump. A lot of people went to prison or had their lives ruined in the climb towards Nixon. One by one they removed his support network from the field so to speak.
Ghislaine Maxwell to be virtually deposed on February 9. She’s going to take the fifth because Trump’s lackeys won’t give her immunity. After the midterms she will get immunity. She might even get a couple of years knocked off. If Trump pardon’s her, there will be nothing to stop her from publishing the tell-all book. A prisoner is not allowed to profit from the crime, but a pardoned felon does not have such restriction. Primaries are in March. Do not be surprised if some low polling Republicans offer immunity and a few years off to win favor with the MAGA base.
March 3, 2026 Kristi Noem will testify before Senate Judiciary Committee.
Pam Bondi impeachment is on a roll. Republicans on Oversight Committee have little political cover. Supposedly there are now more than 170 signed onto the articles of impeachment. Consider for a moment if you will, the MAGA base wants this. Despite Trump’s claim that he is MAGA, his base wants the Epstein files in unredacted form and they are turning to Democrats to get the files.
Follow the Money
World Cup will be boycotted. Honestly, FIFA will probably take it away from USA and just host it wherever they can find room. I don’t follow soccer. Who hosted it last year? Do they still have the stadiums?
Consumer confidence at lowest level since 2014. People don’t make big purchases when they feel life is unaffordable. Affordability isn’t a hoax. Anyone who buys groceries knows it. What used to cost $100/week at Kroger now regularly costs close to $300. Sometimes over that.
Stubby little tariff boy is now forcing big customers to purchase elsewhere. EU and India seal a trade deal which means American agricultural products will most likely be locked out of both. A side effect of this is that Ukraine will become part of the EU (no matter what Putin wants) as soon as there is a cease fire. Ukraine produces a lot of corn and India is trying to get people to use alcohol stoves instead of burning dung to cook.
Kent State – Summary
Despite the stock market, the economy is in the toilet. It’s going to go further down thanks to dimwitted little tariff boy. Consumers stop spending when they find it difficult to change jobs or just buy groceries. Tariffs made groceries cost more. The cans and plastic cost more because of tariffs.
Minnesota is Trump’s Kent State. He has been forced to demote “commander at large.” All of the countries Trump has put tariffs on are going to sign deals cutting America out as a trading partner. They have at their disposal the nuclear option as well.
When pushed, especially once they have new trade deals in place with everyone but us, they can take us out by dumping our debt. If the top three countries do it, that’s it, we will never be able to borrow money from a legitimate country again. We will be bankrupt. I realize bankruptcy is nothing new for Trump, but America has never declared it.
