|
That's very true and more people should realize it. But that Nixon proposal is also a prime example of the continuing form of politics in which the opposition party in congress is resistant to ever giving the president a "win." Since of course it was Democrats who made sure it never went anywhere on the grounds that it wasn't the utopian ideal (Teddy Kennedy eventually came to view his opposition as a major misstep).
Also, though much despised for many good reasons, Nixon was also amazingly progressive by modern Republican standards on many issues. The party changed a lot between him and Reagan, it is an interesting game of alternate history to consider what would have happened to the party if he hadn't crippled his wing of it with his glorious downfall and opened the door to the ascendancy of the religious wing.
|