"Nixonmaxxing" Takes Over: The Right Rebrands a Disgraced President

Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace back in 1974. The Watergate scandal made him the poster child for American political corruption. More than half a century later, the man who once insisted "I'm not a crook" has become an unlikely idol for a new generation of conservatives. Call it "Nixonmaxxing": internet slang for taking Nixon fandom to the extreme. He is going viral all over again, recast as a pioneer of "America First." The rebranding echoes President Donald Trump's own style, and some are now calling the long-dead Nixon Trump's "newest ally."

Nixon addresses the nation on Watergate, August 15, 1973.

Social media feeds are flooded with archival Nixon footage. Editors chop it into short clips and memes, set to music from popular American rappers, and the results spread fast. Young conservative influencers now wear merchandise printed with slogans like "Pretty Girls for Nixon" and "Nixon Now More Than Ever." Baseball caps, T-shirts and fanny packs bearing the word "Nixonmaxxing" have reportedly sold out within hours of hitting shelves.

"I'm not a crook" is trending again. Gen Z conservatives have made Nixon their idol.

From Disgraced President to Meme Icon

The Wall Street Journal reported on July 17 that young American conservatives are using TikTok and Instagram to recast Nixon as a pioneer who stood up to the establishment and the "deep state." Some American netizens have even joked online: "Is Nixon staging the greatest political comeback in history?"

Five men broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters in 1972 to plant wiretaps, and got caught in the act. The investigation that followed traced the break-in back to Nixon's re-election campaign. Nixon then tried to cover it up and failed, triggering the scandal that bears the building's name to this day.

The Simpsons has mocked Nixon for decades.

Ultimately, Nixon resigned in 1974, the only US president in history to leave office mid-term. Several of his aides went to prison, and Congress passed a wave of reforms curbing presidential power. Nixon and Watergate have served as staple material for American political satire ever since.

Nixon has long been a punching bag on American television. The Simpsons mocked him repeatedly over the years. Futurama went further, portraying him as a disembodied head floating in a jar. The 1999 comedy Dick built its entire plot around Watergate, poking fun at Nixon throughout.

Futurama's take: Nixon, reduced to a head in a jar.

The anonymous administrator behind the Instagram account "Kawaii Richard Nixon" told the US online magazine Arc: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera that they don't fully support Nixon. But they believe Watergate overshadowed some genuine achievements of his presidency. "Watergate was of course wrong," the administrator said, "but compared to some of the things happening today, it's barely anything."

"Nixonmaxxing" caps sold out in hours.

Nixon's politics symbolize a bygone era, they added, one "completely different from today." He pushed through liberal policies such as establishing the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and advanced cancer research. The administrator estimated that most of the account's followers are high school and college-age Gen-Zs.

The Trend Takes Hold in US Politics

The "Nixon craze" hasn't stayed on social media. It has taken root inside American political circles. The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump has long admired Nixon. During his second term, Trump has repeatedly pushed back against the limits on presidential power that emerged after Watergate, a stance now echoed by senior Republican figures.

Trump wrote to Nixon in 1982, calling him "one of this country’s great men". The two kept up a correspondence for years afterward, bonding over shared grievances. Nixon wrote back in a 1990 letter: "Dear Donald — I know nothing about the intricacies of your business enterprises but the massive media attack on you puts me in your corner!"

Vance made the connection explicit in June. Speaking at an event at the Nixon Presidential Library in California, he said: "I think that his historical legacy is enjoying a bit of a renaissance, but I think deservedly so."

Vance, at the Nixon Library in June: Nixon's legacy is having "a renaissance."

Vance then compared Nixon's 1972 election victory directly with Trump's. He argued that the coalition returning both men to the White House was broader and more durable than the one that elected Ronald Reagan. "you know Reagan could not have won his landslide in 2024," Vance said, pointing to America's changing demographics, "Richard Nixon maybe could have won his landslide in 2024."

To some in this new generation of conservatives, Nixon is no longer labelled as Watergate's villain. He has become an "America First" pioneer instead, a tough president loathed by the mainstream media, besieged by investigative agencies, and ultimately brought down, in their view, by the "deep state."

Years of Rebranding Behind the Scenes

None of this happened by accident. The Nixon Foundation has quietly run a years-long rebranding campaign, working to re-present the former president's "historic achievements." Those include the Apollo moon landing and the Sino-US rapprochement.

Jim Byron, chairman of the Nixon Foundation, said planning began back in 2018. The goal was to repackage the more than 46 million documents and 3,700 hours of recordings held at the Nixon Presidential Library into short-video content. Once the foundation started posting clips on Instagram and TikTok, "We really saw it explode," Byron said. Some clips have racked up millions of views on YouTube.

A 2024 short video posted by the foundation, with selected footage from the old TV series “Mad Men” that features the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon race, went viral on X. The clip opens with the character Don Draper's assessment of the two presidential candidates, waxing poetically about "the Abe Lincoln of California, a self-made man," before concluding: "Kennedy, I see a silver spoon. Nixon, I see myself."

The footage then cuts to photographs of Nixon set to music by an American rapper. In an accompanying recording, Nixon can be heard saying: "And believe me, when you’ve gone through the fires of having to work your way through school, of having to fight campaigns with no money, of having to do it on your own, you’ll come out a pretty strong man, and you’re not in awe of anybody."

Netizens have flooded the comments with praise. Many call Nixon "one of the most underrated presidents," while others say "we were probably too hard on Nixon."

Matthew Foldi, an editor at the conservative outlet Washington Examiner, said the Nixon Foundation once gave him a limited-edition baseball cap. It was printed with Nixon's iconic V-for-victory hand gesture.

A Mirror to America's Political Mood

Nixon's renewed popularity taps into something bigger. It reflects the hard-edged populism and nostalgia that have taken hold on the American right in recent years.

Conservative commentator Shashank Tripathi argues that Nixon represents "heterodox middle finger to the establishment". That is precisely what appeals to the young conservatives championing him. In their eyes, Nixon is no longer merely the "crook" of Watergate. He has become an early victim of the "deep state," a framing that resonates deeply with Trump supporters.

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson claimed in 2024 that Watergate was actually a "deep-state coup" orchestrated by the CIA and FBI. Podcast host Joe Rogan later echoed similar claims on his own show, saying "the whole thing was set up by the government".

1982: Trump calls Nixon "one of this country’s great men." A friendship is born.

Republican political adviser Roger Stone revealed that Trump has repeatedly asked him why Nixon chose to resign rather than fight back. Stone believes that "Nixon was in fact brought down by the same deep-state institutions that tried to bring down Trump".

White House spokesman Kush Desai struck a similar note. He said former President Nixon exposed the betrayals of the deep state and the "fake news" media. Decades later, Desai added, President Trump continues fighting these entrenched interest groups on behalf of the American people.

The Wall Street Journal noted that those pushing to rehabilitate Nixon's reputation see it as more than restoring the standing of one president. It is also a challenge to the system of constraints on presidential power built up after Watergate.

Since the start of Trump's second term, the White House has taken a series of steps to weaken these constraints. These include expanding presidential control over fiscal spending, firing inspectors-general, and adjusting protections for career civil servants.

Conservative commentator Christopher Rufo has gone further still. Nixon's importance to the right, he says, lies in the fact that "America has been essentially stuck in the year 1968." The right, he argues, needs to launch a "counter-revolution."

Watergate holds fresh appeal today for a simple reason. Americans can now scarcely imagine a president choosing to resign with dignity, sparing the country a long, divisive impeachment battle on the principle of putting "America first" rather than himself first.

Today's "Nixonmaxxing" may have less to do with young Americans genuinely warming to Nixon himself. It works more as a mirror, reflecting present-day American society's fraught relationship with its own past, its institutions, its power structures and its political order.

Deep Throat

** 博客文章文責自負,不代表本公司立場 **

South Korea wants its military back. Seoul hopes to reclaim wartime operational control of its own armed forces from the United States within two years. Washington refuses to commit to a specific transfer date.

Seoul Wants Control Back

Wartime operational control answers a simple question: if war breaks out again on the Korean Peninsula, who commands South Korean troops? For now, the answer is Washington. That authority has sat in American hands since shortly after the Korean War erupted in 1950, according to reports.

Lee chairs top military meeting, pushes wartime command transfer.

Under current arrangements, designated South Korean units would fold into the ROK-US Combined Forces Command in wartime, led by a US Army general. That general is Brunson, the commander of US Forces Korea. He also commands the roughly 28,500 American troops stationed in the South.

Exactly which units are involved is classified. But they are believed to include all of the South Korean Army's frontline combat units, plus most of its Air Force and Navy forces.

Washington Won't Commit

South Korean President Lee Jae-myung is pressing to take back wartime operational control. On October 19 he said Seoul "should take back wartime operation control at an early time" and is "fully capable of it". The government's target is to finish the transfer by 2028, two years before Lee's term ends in 2030.

The US military has its own timeline. At a congressional hearing in April, Brunson said it had already submitted a roadmap to hit the transfer conditions by the first quarter of 2029 at the latest. He was describing when the conditions could be met, not setting a handover date.

USFK's Brunson testifies on transfer timetable to Congress.

Washington's official line is simple: No transfer until agreed conditions are met. At a think tank seminar in Washington on October 14, Brunson said any handover must rest on satisfying the relevant conditions and cannot be tied to a political timetable. US officials repeated the message on October 27, saying "the United States intends to transfer OPCON to South Korea when the agreed conditions are met."

A South Korean defense ministry spokesperson voiced the fear out loud on October 15. In her personal view, the handover may never happen if Washington keeps moving the goalposts.

The Kyunghyang Shinmun reported on October 27 that, in midyear consultations, the US demanded that stronger air-ground communications through the SATURN program be added as a new yardstick for the transfer. SATURN is a next-generation, NATO-standard anti-jamming technology for upgrading military radios, and its full deployment has slipped from 2028 to 2032. That delay has some in the South Korean government worried that, if Washington keeps adding evaluation items, Lee's goal of finishing the transfer within his term will be at risk.

The two defense chiefs met in Cebu, the Philippines, on October 28. They agreed to push the annual security consultative meeting, originally set for October, to early 2027 and to hold talks in Washington in December.

South Korean media blamed scheduling difficulties. The Korea Herald, though, noted earlier speculation that the delay was tied to the fallout from the US-Iran conflict and the US midterm elections.

South Korean Defense Minister Kang Shin-chul said on October 30 that US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reaffirmed the transfer commitment at the meeting and dismissed talk of alliance discord as "fake news." National Security Office Director Wi Sung-lac said South Korea expects progress at the talks early next year.

DMZ Remark Sparks Uproar

Brunson stepped into another storm around the same time. On Oct. 14, he told the same seminar that, from the UN Command's point of view, South Korea starts at the barbed-wire fence on the southern edge of the Demilitarized Zone.

Barbed wire, guard posts on DMZ's southern side.

The DMZ is the buffer strip along the inter-Korean border, running about 2 kilometers on each side, and the fence sits on the southern side. Read literally, his line left the band north of the fence outside South Korean territory.

Kim Min-seok of the ruling Democratic Party said the remark was highly inappropriate on constitutional grounds. South Korea's Ministry of National Defense called it the UNC commander's personal view, and the Army chief of staff told a parliamentary audit he could not agree.

The UN Command said the comment was tied to management duties under the armistice agreement. One South Korean online program headlined the story by asking whether Brunson was a governor-general, a loaded reference to the top Japanese ruler of Korea from 1910 to 1945.

Foreign Minister Cho Hyun said on Oct. 27 that he had met US Ambassador to South Korea Michelle Steele the previous week and lodged a protest, according to reports.

Lawmakers Split on Transfer

The sparks flew on October 26, when the National Assembly grilled the Ministry of National Defense in a parliamentary audit and the command issue set off a fierce debate. Sung Il-jong of the opposition People Power Party warned that the matter concerns the life and death of the nation, and demanded the defense minister be extremely cautious when offering recommendations.

Kang Shin-chul pushed back. He called the claim that transferring command authority would endanger South Korea's security an exaggeration. Given the uncertainty in the global security environment, he questioned whether Seoul could keep betting everything on US forces.

Some commentators read those remarks as doubting the US military. The ministry clarified the next day that Kang was rebutting lawmakers' concerns about the transfer, and stressed the importance of mutual trust.

Within the ruling party, some wanted a harder line. Kim Byung-joo, a Democratic Party lawmaker who serves as the president's defense policy adviser, said that if Washington keeps obstructing the transfer process, South Korea should declare it will exercise wartime operational control on its own. He also proposed legislation making clear that the president can hold supreme command even in wartime.

The JoongAng Ilbo pushed back in an editorial. A unilateral declaration that bypasses consultations, it argued, would only damage the negotiations.

Kang Shin-chul rejected the approach the same day. Command authority, he said, must be transferred through close consultations between the two countries, on the premise of mutual trust.

China Looms Behind Conditions

So why does Washington insist on the conditions? Kim Yeol-soo, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for Military Affairs, points to what he calls an undisclosed motive: keeping influence over the South Korean military to counter challenges from China.

The context he cites is telling. In May, Brunson compared South Korea to a dagger on a podcast at the US Army War College. Last year he went further, calling the country a fixed aircraft carrier between China and Japan.

Brunson explains US East Asia posture at US Army War College.

Beijing fired back. A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in South Korea said on May 28 that his remarks had crossed the line.

Doo Jin-ho, a researcher at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University, sees it the same way. Washington, he said, wants to use the ROK-US alliance not only to deter North Korea but also to contain China.

The geography explains the stakes. China's Shandong Province sits only about 300 kilometers from the Korean Peninsula, he noted, and fighter jets could cross that gap in under 10 minutes. On strategic value alone, he said, the United States cannot afford to lose South Korea.