The Long Bad Trip: Nixon’s Heir and the Boiling Frogs

Hunter S Thompson held up a twisted mirror to US politics. What would he have made of Trump and the current state of affairs? We attempted to find out.

“Some may Live, but the crazy never die”

Hunter S. Thompson

Editor's Note: in an Ill-advised seance following an absinth binge of political correspondents, attempts were made to contact Hunter S. Thomson in the hope of bringing back his acid commentary to etch into the tarnished copper plate of current events, and somehow resurrecting the American Dream. 

Now, some 72 hours later, the doors to the séance room remain locked, chained from the inside. Any transcript would be unintelligible. All that has come through the crack below the door in the past two days is the sound of weeping and these wretched written words below, typed in a staccato double space onto the back of wallpaper torn off the wall. An exorcist and locksmith have been sent for. ~ June 2024 

The Long Bad Trip: Nixon’s Heir and the Boiling Frogs 

What is the American dream—that anyone can grow up to be president? Well, then. Fuck. That logic cuts both ways. The great American nightmare has come full circle. Revolutions, after all, are just the wheel of history turning. When you are clinging on to the edge you might have moved forward, but you still end up where you've been.

Republicans are dragging Washington backwards over the Delaware. Pushing him heaving and half-drowned into the arms of a new Mad King George incarnate, who wants the power of an absolute king, and the responsibility of a toddler. 

America. This shitting city on a hill. Where the grotesque farce we call politics eclipses even my most fevered nightmares of yesteryear and we find ourselves in the throes of a surreal, blood-drenched odyssey reminiscent of the darkest days of Nixon. 

Truth, Justice, and Freedom hang bloated from gallows outside the capitol. 

Truth was the first victim of war, it was Pearl Harbour all over again, Arizona and Oklahoma were sunk before the rest of you poor bastards even knew the war had been declared. Justice is dying a slower death, the Supreme Court is complicit in delaying insurrection charges until Trump can pardon himself from his jail cell. Liberty is a lady, and Trump has grabbed her by the pussy then left her for dead.

Back in 1972, I rode shotgun through the infernal landscape of Nixon's America, chronicling the decay with an unflinching eye and a heart full of righteous rage. Fear and loathing on the campaign trail. Tricky Dick was a Machiavellian scoundrel, a greasy little demon with the soul of a used car salesman. But even in his most depraved moments, there was a glimmer of method to his madness. At least you could have a conversation with the man about football. 

Nixon was a Devil, but even the devil can garner some sympathy. God help us, Nixon’s bipartisan efforts created the Environmental Protection Agency back when the environment still had a chance to be protected. Trump isn't just evil, he’s stupid with it - seeking to slash and burn the EPA,  lighting a coal fire under it, a polluting bonfire of defunding, deregulation & defecation. 

Now, as we sit here, frogs in water coming to a rolling boil, it's hot as hell and getting hotter. 

Nixon was a creature of the shadows, a paranoid schemer who saw enemies lurking in every corner. His transgressions were those of a man desperate to cling to power, willing to bend and break the law to secure his grip on the presidency. The Watergate scandal was his undoing, a grotesque theatre of corruption that exposed the rot at the heart of his administration, but even it was hardly his worst crime, he extended the Vietnam War just for electoral leverage he probably didn’t need to win for Christ’s sake.

Trump is a creature of the spotlight. A mewling reality TV star turned demagogue whose sins are worn proudly on his sleeve. His crimes are not the result of paranoia but of arrogance and ego. 

“When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal,”

Richard Nixon

When Nixon said that he meant through the power of the office: Trump believes that he is above the law just because he is Trump, untouchable by mere mortals. For his political opposition, Jail time without due process is their just desserts just for opposing Trump. He believes he’s a Spangled star and so can do whatever he likes and we will let him.

His convictions for fraud and deception should have been a stake through the heart of his political ambitions. Christ, the Hollywood Access tape should have destroyed him. Instead, it has only emboldened him, transforming him into a martyr for a rat-bastard base that has traded reason for blind loyalty.

"I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, okay? It's, like, incredible."

Donald Trump

I thought it was hyperbole when he said. Then I realised - Jesus, he literally believes it himself- Now, I wonder if it is actually true. 

Nixon resigned to avoid dragging the country through the mud. Trump would flood the country in a river of shit if he thought it would make him a dime, or cost an enemy a nickel. 

The GOP is dead, it’s just not stopped moving yet. 

Nixon's denouement was a morality play writ large—a testament to the republic's fragile checks and balances. The Republican Party, for all its warts and wickedness, still had a semblance of decency. They rallied against their own, driven by a fear of the moral abyss, a terror of the howling void that would swallow them whole if they failed to excise the cancer within. Barry Goldwater, the arch-conservative bulldog, led the charge. “You've got to cut this malignant growth out,” he growled, and the GOP, however reluctantly, listened.

That party is dead. It won’t follow Doctor’s orders, it’s too high injecting itself in the eyes with Bleach. The Republican party is a mega church now, bought and owned. Doubling down on dictatorship. The likes of Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy, political apparatchiks with the spine of a jellyfish and the ethics of a loan shark, have orchestrated a symphony of surrender. They've propped up his lies, perpetuated his delusions, and paved the way for his return to power. The party of Lincoln has become a grotesque parody of its former self.

Who put more vice in Vice President?

Nixon's VP Spiro Agnew, was a crook cut from the same cloth as his boss. His resignation in the face of corruption charges was a harbinger of Nixon’s own downfall, a prelude to the main event. Agnew was a thug in a suit, a snarling attack dog who served as Nixon’s enforcer, his public face of contempt for the media and the rule of law.

Mike Pence by comparison is a sanctimonious zealot cloaking is ambitions in the garb of religious piety. His role in the Trump administration was one of silent complicity, a yes-man who stood by as Trump chewed at the very carpet of the republic. His refusal to fully endorse Trump’s election lies on January 6th was not an act of bravery but of self-preservation, a last-minute attempt to salvage his own tattered reputation, he not only failed but nearly got hanged in the attempt. 

Under Nixon, the Supreme Court was a battleground, Warren Burger and William Rehnquist steered the court in a conservative direction but still operated within the bounds of decency. The court was a bulwark against the worst excesses of the Nixon administration, the rule of law still held sway damnit. 

Trump’s insidious appointment of justices like Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett has shifted the court to the far right, embedding a partisan bias that will undermine its legitimacy for generations. These justices, handpicked for their ideological purity, are less guardians of the Constitution than pawns in Trump’s grand game of authoritarianism. 

In Nixon’s day the partisan divide was real, but within a shared reality. Today’s politics are a nihilistic free-for-all, a zero-sum game where truth is malleable, and loyalty to the leader outweighs loyalty to the country, state or party. Trump’s Big Lie about the 2020 election has shattered the shared reality that once underpinned American politics, replacing it with a toxic brew of conspiracy and division. The modern GOP has embraced this new reality, turning away from the principles that once defined it in favour of a cult-like devotion to a single man. And Rudi, how far they fall. America’s Mayor. Was it worth it Rudi? You used to take down mobsters.

Morality, Religion, and Marriages

Nixon’s personal life, for all its flaws, was relatively conventional. He was a family man, his marriage to Pat a partnership that, despite its strains, remained intact until his death. His religious views were traditional, a reflection of the mainstream Protestantism of his time.

Trump is a walking scandal sheet. His marriages—three and counting—are a testament to his disdain for the sanctity of binding agreements. His dalliances with porn stars and Playboy models are not just tabloid fodder but symbols of his moral bankruptcy, a mirror to his six financial bankruptcies. His religious posturing, from holding a Bible upside down for a photo op to courting the evangelical vote, is a grotesque parody of genuine faith. He couldn't name a single bible verse, but they’ll lap it up if it means stripping back abortion rights. 

So where do we go? Biden is the establishment personified, He’s not the man to bring radical change to deep systemic issues, but Goddamit he’s who we’ve got playing out front on the field, so pass him the ball for a hail mary.  Trump, like Nixon, just by being Trump makes his enemies seem honourable.  Were Biden ten times worse he’d still be the lesser of two evils.  In November we’re faced with a choice between reason and madness, between some semblance of order and the unrelenting chaos of a Trumpian dystopia. The stakes are apocalyptic. Who the Gods wish to destroy they first drive mad. A man who procrastinates in his choosing will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance. This isn’t a battle for the soul of the Republican Party—it's a fight for the very survival of our Republic.

I can only rage silently here, screaming back through the mortal veil, an old warhorse after the setting of a tumultuous career, Nixon was an “American Monster, a liar and a quitter.”

“He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning.”

Hunter S Thompson - “He was a crook” A Scathing Obituary

Watergate brought Nixon Down, Trump, has shifted the Overton window so far he can shrug off a Watergate weekly. a minor indiscretion in a torrent of atrocities. It might not even survive 24 hours of news cycle, pushed over the edge of the torrential feed by the next outrage. Simultaneously called false and justified, by the Sycophantic red hats. They now are that band who so vauntingly swore ⁠that the havoc of war and the battle's confusion, A home and a country should leave us no more. 

I have a vision of Trump in a prison yard, his orange jumpsuit clashing with his fake tan, on his cell wall he scratches down counting the days to his inauguration so he can pardon himself, the Secret Service protecting him in the yard as he trades pardons he won’t deliver to the Aryan Brotherhood for jello and commissary hamburgers. Many fine people, maybe he will give the right sort of felons the vote, not that voting will matter again once America is great and remade in his image. 

It’s nearly time to go. I sense the ghost of Nixon sweating over my shoulder, Tricky-Dicky chuckles in the shadows, “You thought I was bad, …now you'll really see - at least I won the popular vote”. I try to ignore him, but it's a grim reminder that our republic is a man on a wire strung between decency and depravity, it's going to a long way down no matter which way we’re moving when we fall.

God help us all.

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With apologies to HST, if you don’t know it then read his Obituary of Nixon to get the measure of both men.