Government

If Fox News Had Existed In 1974, Would President Richard Nixon Have Resigned?

Arguments for and against the proposition.

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Argue for the proposition:

Nixon ordered people to commit crimes. The evidence of criminality was obvious; indeed, many high-ranking government officials were convicted. The crimes were evil: They were meant to influence the electoral process.

Politically, the Democrats controlled the House of Representatives in 1974; the House surely would have impeached Nixon. The Democrats had 54 seats in the Senate in 1974; that’s at least a giant step toward getting the 67 votes needed to convict.

Even the Wall Street Journal — which passed for a conservative news outlet back in 1974 — ultimately said that Nixon should resign (although the Journal took that position only one day before Nixon actually resigned). Conservative Republican senators — including Barry Goldwater — told Nixon that he had no congressional support.

Surely no television station would have dared to suggest that the crimes involved in Watergate were somehow proper or had not actually occurred. Nixon would have lost his support in the media and, when Republican senators told him that he had also lost his support in Congress, he would have resigned in 1974, with or without Fox News.

Argue against the proposition:

What are you smoking?

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Fox News is all about tribalism, not truth. Trump tried to interfere with the electoral process more significantly than Nixon ever did, and Fox didn’t care. Fox News would have defended its party — the Republicans — no matter what the evidence suggested. Fox News would have gutted Republican congressmen who dared to oppose Nixon. In the age of Fox News, Goldwater never would have gone to the White House, and no Republican senator would have dared oppose Nixon.  Fearing primary challenges, those Republicans would have done as instructed by Fox and stuck by Nixon to the end — the election of 1976.

If Fox News had existed in 1974, then MSNBC would also have existed. The shrill voices of the left would have screamed that Nixon had to resign, encouraging everyone to huddle back into their tribes. Fifty percent of the population would have favored resignation (or impeachment); fifty percent would have opposed it; Nixon would have toughed it out.

Argue some other slant:

Nixon shouldn’t have resigned at all.

He simply engaged in the usual dirty tricks, the likes of which we’d seen long before 1974, and the likes of which we’ve seen long after. Nixon was no worse than the usual person who inhabits the presidency.

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History was wrong to have condemned Nixon to the fate of having been the only president to resign from office.

Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and is now deputy general counsel at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at inhouse@abovethelaw.com.

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