Watergate revisionism is Trump’s latest attempt to turn history upside down

Donald Trump's Justice Department is reassessing the conduct of the prosecutors who investigated Watergate, according to The Wall Street Journal, and MS NOW commentator Isaac-Davy Aronson argues the effort is part of a broader campaign to rewrite American history. Historians and people who lived through the scandal reacted with outrage. Steve Benen noted that the tapes show Richard Nixon's offenses were his own doing rather than a plot by the "deep state."

Aronson sees two immediate payoffs for Trump. A story in which federal officials hounded a Republican president would bolster Trump's claims that he is a victim, and if Nixon did nothing wrong, the reforms adopted after Watergate lose their rationale, which would justify the administration's ongoing dismantling of them.

The larger danger, Aronson writes, is to the country's shared understanding of itself. He points to Trump's fights with the Smithsonian, orders on national park signage, and pressure on schools and universities over curricula, and compares the pattern to Vladimir Putin's glorification of the Soviet past. Citing Anne Applebaum, he says eroding common beliefs readies a nation for something radically different.

Summarized by PolitiKool from MS NOW’s reporting. Read the full story at MS NOW →