The Watergate Scandal signified the beginning of one of the most difficult times in American history. It called into question the moral aptitude of the head of the most powerful country in the world, and brought up the unsettling topic of the legitimacy of future presidents. Richard Nixon, once an American hero, now became one of its most infamous figures in one of its darkest hours. The Watergate Scandal weakened Nixon’s presidency because it dissolved the people’s trust in government and created an attitude of cynicism towards presidents and government that continues to this day.

On June 17th, 1972 four men were arrested for attempting to break into the Watergate Hotel in Washington DC, the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee. The four men, revealed later on to be government employees, were assigned to steal sensitive information about potential Democratic presidential candidates for the use of rigging the elections to give the GOP the weakest opposition possible. Nixon denied any involvement whatsoever with the break in, and life continued on as usual. The defendants pleaded guilty to the burglary charges, and a week after Nixon won the presidency by an even bigger landslide than in his previous campaign. At his inauguration, “Nixon issued one of the more prophetic, if least original, inaugural addresses ever delivered by an American president: ‘Ask not just what the government will do for me, but what can I do for myself’” (Horn, 1). With the ultra-conservative Nixon ushering in the new decade, his effect on American culture could be more clearly seen. The activists of the 60’s no longer carried the fervor they once did, trading their passion for radical change for a desire for inner peace and tranquility. As more people took Nixon’s advice and began looking out for number one (Horn, 1), self-help books became national bestsellers and every child had access to a vast array of media with CD’s and walkmans, and video game arcades. Nixon could be found continuously reasserting his self-reliant, defensive/aggressive beliefs (the ideology that the best defense is a good offense) with such quotes as “Those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them” (Schneider, 1). Under the influence of such a leader, these message slowly incorporated themselves into the mindset of the public, slowly crafting the average American to be more neurotic and paranoid, someone who would easily support the now controversial war effort in Vietnam.

As people looked inward for comfort and entertainment, a growing amount of pessimism and cynicism could be found in the minds of the American populace. One factor that fed this pessimism was the introduction of television news into mainstream American life. With television becoming a more accepted medium for journalism, news broadcasts became more common as the 70’s progressed. Coincidentally, the Vietnam was occurring at the same time. This caused the Vietnam War to be first armed conflict to be televised live for Americans back home to see. The images of what their sons and sweethearts were being put through was too much to bear for many. Support for the war dwindled and died as the conflict dragged on with image after image of dead and dying soldiers peppering the nightly news in the same way the bombs peppered Vietnam soil day and night. The reason is simply because “the more sensational…or negative the image is, the more that it will be remembered” (Shaw, 2). With the institution of the draft for Vietnam, Watergate was not that important in the minds of Americans. To many college students, the draft was a fate worse than death (Smith, 1) and was the larger issue at hand. However, there was no greater blow to the American sense of civic duty and government respect other than the cover-up of Watergate and the impeachment trials of Richard M. Nixon

1974, the year of the calls for impeachment, was the lowest point of Nixon’s political career. The citizenry of the United States, familiar with government corruption before, was shocked to see such a blatant display of everything that America was supposed to prevent sitting in the Oval Office. As the trials began to unfold, details of what was occurring under Nixon’s presidency were revealed to the public, and they were absolutely horrified. “Indeed, the White House seemed at war with the people, even spying on religious, academic, and professional leaders deemed ‘enemies of the state’” (Horn, 2). The counts against him were numerous, and even his own staunch supporters chose to abandon him lest they commit “political suicide”. Accused of “making false and misleading statements”, as well as withholding “relevant and material evidence” (Articles of Impeachment, 1), the Nixon administration could only watch as count after count of injustices was brought against it. As even more accounts of government corruption were revealed, such blackmailing opponents and critics with sensitive medical records in exchange for their silence, a sense of grim cynicism swept the nation, and wire-tapping the homes of regular citizens without any sort of notification. These things were traits of dictatorships in far away lands like the banana republics of South America or the Communist states in Eastern Europe. In a country where image is everything, character assassination might as well have been the real thing, with the Nixon administration declaring all critics of their practices enemies of the state and Communists. It became clear that those who were not in favor of the Nixon presidency treated like citizens of a third-world Communist nation, citizens who’s inalienable rights were not valid in the eyes of this particular government.

Despicable subversions of civil rights were abundant during this presidency, one of them being the blackmail and silencing of Daniel Ellsberg, the former defense analyst for Nixon and publisher of the Pentagon Papers. The Pentagon Papers were a secret government history of the Vietnam War that was published by the New York Times in 1971, leaked to them by Ellsberg. This government record of the war contrasted sharply with what was currently being broadcasted to the public, and in response federal agents burglarized a psychiatrists office for files to discredit Ellsberg and the papers (Smith, 2). Over 4,000 hours of White House conversations were held in the hands of Nixon and his Administration, describing various illegal activities from the illegal wire-tapping of private citizens to the Pentagon Papers to the cover-up of the Watergate burglaries they also implicitly revealed that Richard Nixon had ordered, planned, and directed the burglary of the Watergate Hotel. Former White House lawyer John Dean revealed to Congress “Nixon had been recording his conversations in the White House for posterity.” (Smith, 2). With the revealing of this corrupt government, it brought into question the morality of past presidents. But perhaps even more importantly, it brought into question how would our future presidents be different, or similar to Nixon. Would they put us back on the right path that the Founding Fathers had in mind when they forged this nation? Or would they continue this trend of corruption and oppression of civil liberties, forever distorting the future of the United States of America? America was soon about to find out just how much they would change from the horrible scandal that put these questions in their minds, questions never conceived before because the generations of the past had that one key element that made their government function: trust.

Watergate changed the way America looked at the messages it was being sold. For example, the post-Watergate business world could no longer get away with “using a catchy jingle or a cute character to get people to feel good about their products” (Denari, 1). People would no longer believe a business that even spoke the words quality, or value. Government messages would become extremely unpopular, and from this point on any message from an institution would be viewed with skepticism, cynicism, and raw suspicion (Denari, 1). From this point on, the focus of major political debates and elections would be less about the party and their platform, but the individual character flaws and moral shortcomings of the candidate (Shaw, 3). Stories of problems with policy and legislation became drowned out by the countless ethics stories of candidates and the tabloid-esque cynicism that slowly began to creep into mainstream journalism as people begun to trust the people they were voting for less and less with each election. Making the matter even worse was the dominance of television journalism, which was heavily influenced by the cynical news anchormen and the attitudes of the reporters.

The revelation of the American government’s lack of legitimacy was devastating to the American public at first, but the worst damage to the American psyche and faith in government had yet to reach its lowest. The posterity of the Baby Boomers, known as the “Me Generation” for the way that they were spoiled with every little want and desire they could possibly dream of; now were forced to turn even further inward to escape the metaphorical death of their innocence. The family structure that their parents had grown up with, commonly known as the “nuclear family” was deteriorating right before their very eyes. An idea of a mother, father, and two children (preferably a boy and a girl) as the perfectly rounded family was become less of a fact of life and more of an unattainable myth as the post-Watergate years dragged on. The numbers of divorces had more than doubled in one decade, and the number of children living with one parent tripled (Horn, 4). Tom Wolfe wrote that “a new alchemy: changing ones very self” was becoming the preferred method of escaping a morally dead post-Watergate society. Many people emotionally closed in, trying to find what psychoanalysts (a budding profession in the 70’s) called the ‘inner child’. The book IM OK—YOU’RE OK, a self-therapeutic guide for this inner child, a resident of Berkley College bookshelves since 1967 became a national bestseller (Horn, 1), and more importantly stated the desire of the American people to salvage what was left of their faith that at one point was the defining factor in their lives.

There were large groups of people, however, that found this form of solace unfulfilling. They instead joined encounter groups to force themselves to re-create the innocence they had as teenagers through religious fanaticism. Groups like Hare Krishna and the Symbionese Liberation Army sprouted up across the nation, spreading their messages and convincing people that all was not lost. They tempted the people by offering them salvation from the shame of living in a society that was still in the grasp of the kinds of people who would commit the type of constitutional atrocity that was Watergate. What really made these cults unique was that contrary to most cult memberships, these groups recruited mainly from the upper-middle class societies that usually have nothing to do with such things. With the most enfranchised members of American society trying to bring that society down, it becomes clear just how greatly Richard Nixon and his blatant disregard of the law of the land affected the minds of the people. Like the other remedies and balms to soothe the ache of the lost innocence, cults were not the answers of blissful ignorance and peace-on-earth that they made themselves out to be. The SLA kidnapping of heiress Patty Hearst in 1974 reflected this rising tide of cult-based violence. Waves of skyjackings forced all U.S. airports to begin carrying metal detectors, which found near 900 weapons in the first six months of their nationwide installment (Horn, 3).

The actions of Richard Nixon destroyed the myth of infallibility in the American leadership, and called for the further investigation of the moral doings of other presidents, and in some cases completely changed the modern view of these presidents. Warren G. Harding, a proprietor of big business in the ‘20s and responsible for one of the biggest industrial booms in American history was a notorious womanizer. Even some of America’s most beloved heroes such as Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy were suspected of immoral doings. FDR is suspected of knowing beforehand about the attacks on Pearl Harbor and JFK is believed to have had mafia connections. Newly discovered documents suggests that even Abraham Lincoln, considered to be one of the greatest presidents America ever had, also had a checkered history. Although their deeds and actions more than made up for their moral shortcomings, it destroys the notion that they were pure, just, all-American heroes. And perhaps during that time when America began to question their leaders and their actions with a greater vigor than ever before, that may have been precisely what we needed.

While it can be argued that Watergate destroyed America’s will and replaced it with a collective psyche comparable to that of a traumatized child, it was not without its positive effects. Many took the opportunity of a shell-shocked America to, in their own way revive counterculture movement of the 60’s, turning a hormone-fueled smorgasbord of protests into a more constructive and organized (and therefore more effective) form of political activism. Initiative-driven young men and women took up law and business in order to protect environmental interests and found new, reliable charities. Women and minorities shrunk their goals down to a smaller and much more attainable size, creating greater opportunities for them in both the workplace and in mainstream society. The late 70’s became an age of progress for these groups, as affirmative action helped undo the past discriminations in schools and at work. Feminism gained a huge victory over the religious right with Roe v. Wade further expanding the rights of women to choose.

And what of now? Has the effects of Watergate on the American public rippled through the decades to influence us now in the 21st century? The answer is yes. With the beginning of the 21st century enthralled in controversial legislation and a slew of discrepancies in the way situations are being handled, the cynicism of Watergate is beginning to fester. “The lowest poll numbers of this presidency, and rising doubts of his ability to lead” (Whitelaw, 33), convince many voters that this presidency is incapable of restoring faith in a government that has not completely won back the trust of the people. From the Iran-Contra affair in the 80’s, to the Iraqi Occupation in this first decade of the new millennium, the government has responded for pleas of legitimacy with corruption and scandals, furthering the amount of cynicism and voter apathy that currently resides in the minds of Americans today.

Nixon’s actions at Watergate are an inexcusable example of government illegitimacy. The actions taken throughout his presidency have magnified ability of human greed to infect the American government and the way of American life. The common citizen might not make these connections through the course of everyday thought, but after careful analyzation and research it can be deduced that Watergate directly affected Americas trust and government, and indirectly destroyed the already fragile trust that America had in its government. Because of this, Watergate severely weakened the Presidency of Richard Nixon, leaving him a traitor to the Constitution in the eyes of the public; and a bad memory for those who once supported him.