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They told Richard Nixon his career was over. Then they told him again. He proved them wrong twice and, for a moment, he looked unstoppable.
I walk through Nixon’s political exile after 1960 and 1962, then his return to win the presidency in 1968 and dominate in 1972. The point isn’t nostalgia or hero worship. It’s a hard look at how comebacks really happen when political elites rush to declare a leader finished, but the “lunch bucket” voters still show up, still work, and still vote. Along the way, I draw a modern parallel to Donald Trump’s 2024 comeback after years of investigations, prosecutions, civil suits, and impeachment fights, and why many Americans see that era through the lens of “lawfare” and institutional trust.
To understand the country that produced Nixon’s return, we go straight to a defining source: Theodore H. White’s Pulitzer-winning The Making of a President 1960. White helped invent modern campaign journalism, writing scenes that capture Kennedy’s discipline, Nixon’s exhaustion, and the first truly television-driven presidential race where looking presidential mattered as much as sounding presidential. We also lay out the pivotal election sequence of 1960, 1964, 1968, and 1972, including how Barry Goldwater’s loss plants seeds that later power Nixon and Reagan.
Finally, we face the hinge point: Watergate. I explain why White’s series couldn’t survive Nixon’s resignation, why he turns to Breach of Faith, and where we go next with a deeper Watergate dive through Geoff Shepard’s trilogy and the argument that scandals can become tools used against future presidents.
Key Points from the Episode:
• Nixon’s two political “deaths” and the mechanics of a real comeback
• why the Trump 2024 return fuels comparisons about elites, voters and “lawfare”
• Theodore White’s The Making of a President 1960 and what it changed in political journalism
• the first TV-era presidential campaign and why “looking presidential” becomes decisive
• how 1960, 1964, 1968 and 1972 map the conservative movement’s rise from Goldwater to Nixon to Reagan
• “order” as a winning message for an exhausted country
• Watergate as the turning point that breaks White’s series and reshapes trust in institutions
• preview of the upcoming Geoff Shepard's Watergate trilogy coverage and the claim that scandal becomes a political weapon
Other goodness
America's pivotal election series:
https://www.teammojoacademy.com/mm342-pivotal-tuesdays-series-the-election-of-1968-part-1/
https://www.teammojoacademy.com/mm343-pivotal-tuesdays-series-the-election-of-1968-part-2/
We are building and have built out a whole library of book briefs, just one pager's five-minute read over at the Mojo Book Academy on Substack, mojoacademy.substack.com.
Keep fighting the good fight!
