Social issues have been used to distract Americans from their own self interests since Nixon's southern strategy, and now people are paying the price.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
People getting their fundamental interests wrong is what American political life is all about.
It was accountability that Nixon feared.
Since the time of Richard Nixon, there has been a strange lack of will in the media to identify the real cause for Americans' anger at politicians who fall, publicly and spectacularly.
I first came on the scene during the Johnson years and that crowd was out all the time enjoying themselves. Nixon wasn't particularly social but a lot of the people in his administration were.
Nixon represents that dark, venal and incurably violent side of the American character almost every other country in the world has learned to fear and despise.
People were concerned about national security, and that precluded us from having the opportunity to break through on the issues that we cared most about - the economy, education and health care.
Over the past few years special interests have had a larger and larger say over who gets what in America, and the voices of average citizens are being shut out.
The polarization of Congress; the decline of civility; and the rise of attack politics in the 1980s, the 1990s, and the early years of the new century are a blot on our political system and a disservice to the American people.
Any of the social changes in American history are because people thought there was injustice. We have to show that this corporate welfare and cronyism is unjust - and that it's not only rigging the system so people get wealthy who don't deserve to get wealthy.
The Vietnam War required us to emphasize the national interest rather than abstract principles. What President Nixon and I tried to do was unnatural. And that is why we didn't make it.