During the Watergate hearings, I was an 18-year-old just finishing my freshman year in college. That summer I worked two jobs and couldn't see much of the television coverage, even the evening repeats on PBS. You couldn't tape anything off TV then, and every one of the 3 or 4 available (pre-cable) television stations signed off just after midnight.
So I pored over the dozen or so closely-packed pages of transcripts and backgrounders printed in the NY Times after each hearing session. My memory is probably not so accurate, but everyone seemed keenly interested in the details, and they were eager to talk at length about them. I can still see many students with the newspapers stretched wide open on tables at the student union, just studying the transcripts, like we were all going to solve some murder.
I was 9 during the Watergate hearings, and concur with your recollection. It feels as though Nixon's resignation was a kind of national inflection point, a loss of whatever innocence was left after the 60s/Vietnam. Sure glad my military parents aren't around to witness the current sh*tshow
I was 12 - I remember being in Junior High - and they announced Vice President Spiro Agnew's resignation over the school intercom system. Seemed serious as a heart attack.
I can identify with this person. I have to discuss the trial with a friend who is equally obsessed, otherwise I have to keep my comments to a minimum. Most people are not that interested.
I work with a bunch of extremely bright 20-somethings who have Dump's number and do NOT want to talk about Flaming Ham. Which is great for me so I can think about something else while at my job
Personally I find it weird, not to say vaguely (or wholly) disturbing that people are NOT obsessed with this. Watergate happened my senior year in high school and literally all ANYone did who had afternoons free was turn on the tube and watch the hearings. And if that was holy shitballs America /this/ is holy FUCKING shitballs on cinnamon toast, America WTF are we doing.
tldr: if you're not obsessed with this, you are the problem.
Yup. Was roughly in the same age-range myself -- couple yrs older I think? and it was indeed HOLY FUCKING SHITBALLS ! My father (and he was not alone) solemnly shook his head and pronounced the "End of the Republican Party" if they managed to convict/impeach Nixon. (Bitter aside: HAH! ) Course, Nixon did the prudent thing and skedaddled, but Donnie Dumbass ain't that smart.
The Rethug party has been pronounced "Dead/Dying) 3 times in my lifetime. Look around, whaddaya see? Uh. Yep.
We were literally dancing in the streets the day Nixon resigned on August 8, 1974! So happy see the last of those Republican fuckers, as we thought. Reagan was elected 2,280 days later.
Nixon, I regret to say, possessed (a limited reservoir of) shame, which Assmouth was raised never to have. Also, we had a firewall between news and entertainment in the 1970s, which died a death in the 80s :((
Apparently they're releasing full transcripts, including sidebars and chambers, so the reporting is going to be really thorough. The Opening Arguments podcast made a cogent observation about not televising it--to protect the jurors' identities.
It would literally break the interwebz, most likely. And perhaps the teebee screens all over America, also too. Satellites would fall out of the sky....XD
I was aware of Nixon's bullshit even before Watergate, but that amped things up to the obsession level. Fortunately, my folks and my sister were similarly obsessed, so it all worked out.
And that was the start of my decades long fascination with the fuck ups of DC politicians, encompassing the acts of both those I politically supported, and those I did and do not.
I figure as long as I'm getting the rest of my life taken care of, it's fine. You can be both obsessed by a topic AND deal reasonably with the rest of your life.
Sports fans do it; religiously devout folks do it; dog and/or horse people do it. I don't feel like such a dork when I think about it like that.
I think one of the drivers for obsession from those of us on the left is a desire to FINALLY see justice done. And I don't mean justice in the legal sense (although, that will be great too) but justice from the point of view that "I live my life following society's rules, and that fucker doesn't. AND never has, and I want to enjoy seeing him put in what I consider his rightful place" ... BECAUSE THAT'S THE ONLY WAY THIS WORLD CAN MAKE SENSE AGAIN.
Its not "revenge" per se, but a restoration of order in which OUR (morally superior) life choices "win".
I've been way too interested in Trump, mostly because he's obviously a corrupt, unfit conman and I've been waiting for him to be found out and jailed / bankrupted / publicly flogged (metaphorically!). Sometimes it helps to remind myself that he is a malignant narcissist and by paying attention to him, I am giving him what he wants.
You're paying attention to the state of the American justice system that he has corrupted.
I hope you are following his much saner and much more brilliant niece Mary Trump on Substack -- whose revenge may come because she's too nice to say so outright but I believe as a matter of family lore that she believes Donald's malignant dysfunction essentially killed her father .. so if she can by doing her part by setting the American justice & media systems straight on what they need to do better (as well as praise for what they do right), she's going to return the favor.
Oh, Dump absolutely killed her father: it's Shakespearean and Mary is a knight parfit or whatever they taught us in undergrad. I've enjoyed watching Stinky fail to infiltrate what he considers to be the "upper class" since the 80s, when Spy would s*it on him on the regular. We all love to despise the villain, and he fits it to a T
I'm riveted to the news regarding insurrection, stolen docs, election interference... and so on because it's never happened before and seems worth paying close attention to.
I've been kind of that way with trump since he came down the escalator. I've learned to only talk about him to like-minded family and friends but I'm way too interested in him. I love to read and I go to bed at 9 or 10 o'clock to read my Kindle. Nope, now I grab my tablet and see what I missed on MSNBC from watching earlier in the evening. It's a sickness but it's contained (hubby might disagree though).
I have something similar to this with my dad. Not just the trial--Trump in general. We agree politically, otherwise we wouldn't be able to live together, but there was a period where Trump was all. he. talked. about. What did he do today? Watch the news about Trump. What's on his mind? Trump is horrible. Hey Dad, this really cool thing happened to me today! That's nice, did you hear what Trump tweeted? It got so bad that I finally just had to shut him down. "Dad, I get that you're passionate about this, but I don't want to talk about Trump anymore. I'm sick of feeling like the outlet for your anger. I have a life, too."
It's a little better now. I still wish he spent less time watching the news.
I briefly considered whether that letter describes me at all well...
... I’d say no, but it’s a bit of a technicality. Insofar as I’m not particularly obsessed with the trial, specifically. I think I could tell you in some detail the ins and outs of the evidence (it ain’t exactly arcane) and the prosecution’s argument that makes business record falsification a felony in this case, but that’s because, well, I read. I’m not actually paying a tonne of day to day attention to it. I do want to know where it’s going as so far I am finding the overall response of the US judicial system to the neofascist incursion vastly less robust and proactive than I’d have preferred. So what happens here is of more than a little interest, obviously.
... all this, because: while I may not be paying terribly close attention to the trial specifically, I absolutely do in case you haven’t noticed pay a fuckload of attention generically to Trump and the Trumpistas and his enablers in the kleptocracy in the US and beyond, and to the current alarming rise of neofascism in the US and in my own nation and elsewhere, and to the vast delusional phantasmagoric world of misinformation and disinformation that movement has built to feed and fuel and grow itself...
... but under the circumstances, I’d say saying I’m ‘obsessed’ with all of that would seem to me like saying to someone watching a raging, drought-driven wildfire encircling and bearing down on their city ‘why are you so obsessed with that fire’?
I think the problem is when angst and anger spill over into other relationships. It damn near ruined my relationship with my dad because he couldn't just let. it. go, and we AGREED. You can't sustain a relationship where all one person does is rant and rave about this one horrible person and politics we can't do anything about except vote. There was a point where I had to take a hard look at myself and realize that obsessing over every headline was actively making me a worse friend and person, regardless of how righteous I thought my positions were.
There's a lot of space between being ignorant of issues and obsessed with them.
What? No. It's the result of a 24-hour news cycle that makes more money the more outraged and engaged people are, so they sell angst 24/7 to the point of being repetitive.
Alongside the repeated efforts of White-dominated municipal governments to shut down community gardens to make sure people of color can't grow their own food?
Again, what? This is a weirdly aggro response to what I actually posted? I was referring to us, myself and my dad, who are the specific people who you implied weren't eating a balanced diet. "Sounds like dad also might could use some essential fatty acids." Yes, of course food deserts exist. Of course we have food insecurity. Of course American history is riddled with efforts to undermine and oppress BIPOC Americans. I never said otherwise.
"This is a weirdly aggro response to what I actually posted?"
Um. Actually, it's not.
Or - rather - it only is *characterized* as such to people who are blind to their own White privilege.
AND I wasn't going to mention it, but it was YOUR tone that was curtly dismissive to anyone describing a situation that was outside your own (limited) experience.
Not that you'd care, but I don't have the bandwidth to continue the conversation during this historic moment with someone who's deliberately choosing to blinder himself to experiences he PERSONALLY and/or people who look like him have not had -- in a country where 75% of White people STILL persist in self-segregating.
You don't see what I'm talking about -- that's not on me.
I've been on a jury. Statistically, most people have not.
I wouldn't have been allowed on a death penalty case, because that would be a hard NOPE from me. But jurors need to take their duties seriously. I probably got a dude deported after imprisonment and his partner and child might be unhoused. I feel bad about all of that.
The death penalty is an abomination, and no one should live with deciding it.
I was on two juries, both felonious assault cases, and I was so impressed with the professionalism and efficiency of everyone involved in the process.
And, yes, everyone sitting there takes their duties very seriously, because you're looking straight at a person whose life could be radically altered by your final decision.
First of all, reading the comments below I am surprised at how many readers are my age and remember Watergate!
Second, I fought a similar addiction by canceling cable about 5 years ago. Now I can only read about it. It helps a little.
I think he’s slowing bleeding out support until only the craziest remain. I think RFKJ might pick up many of them. That would be good for Biden.
He's not alone. I'm obsessed with that man's trial too.
It is like a nonstop car wreck.
Ta, Sara. Only an EP? Like the moon, you are a harsh mistress.
Just had to.........
https://youtu.be/PY0FR2-sYX8?si=BAB5fUmHLDLv7g-l
Are you sure she didn't print out the Starr Report for masturbatory purposes?
I mean, the 90's, you couldn't just download it onto your tablet and take it to bed and get comfortable.
I had a newfangled downloaded pdf, and I can attest that thing was miles away from anything you might consider erotica.
During the Watergate hearings, I was an 18-year-old just finishing my freshman year in college. That summer I worked two jobs and couldn't see much of the television coverage, even the evening repeats on PBS. You couldn't tape anything off TV then, and every one of the 3 or 4 available (pre-cable) television stations signed off just after midnight.
So I pored over the dozen or so closely-packed pages of transcripts and backgrounders printed in the NY Times after each hearing session. My memory is probably not so accurate, but everyone seemed keenly interested in the details, and they were eager to talk at length about them. I can still see many students with the newspapers stretched wide open on tables at the student union, just studying the transcripts, like we were all going to solve some murder.
I was 9 during the Watergate hearings, and concur with your recollection. It feels as though Nixon's resignation was a kind of national inflection point, a loss of whatever innocence was left after the 60s/Vietnam. Sure glad my military parents aren't around to witness the current sh*tshow
I was 12 - I remember being in Junior High - and they announced Vice President Spiro Agnew's resignation over the school intercom system. Seemed serious as a heart attack.
I love the storytelling here even though it was also your life. I was drawn right in.
I, that would be me, only check in to sed if Trump has stroked out already.
I can identify with this person. I have to discuss the trial with a friend who is equally obsessed, otherwise I have to keep my comments to a minimum. Most people are not that interested.
I work with a bunch of extremely bright 20-somethings who have Dump's number and do NOT want to talk about Flaming Ham. Which is great for me so I can think about something else while at my job
Personally I find it weird, not to say vaguely (or wholly) disturbing that people are NOT obsessed with this. Watergate happened my senior year in high school and literally all ANYone did who had afternoons free was turn on the tube and watch the hearings. And if that was holy shitballs America /this/ is holy FUCKING shitballs on cinnamon toast, America WTF are we doing.
tldr: if you're not obsessed with this, you are the problem.
Yup. Was roughly in the same age-range myself -- couple yrs older I think? and it was indeed HOLY FUCKING SHITBALLS ! My father (and he was not alone) solemnly shook his head and pronounced the "End of the Republican Party" if they managed to convict/impeach Nixon. (Bitter aside: HAH! ) Course, Nixon did the prudent thing and skedaddled, but Donnie Dumbass ain't that smart.
The Rethug party has been pronounced "Dead/Dying) 3 times in my lifetime. Look around, whaddaya see? Uh. Yep.
We were literally dancing in the streets the day Nixon resigned on August 8, 1974! So happy see the last of those Republican fuckers, as we thought. Reagan was elected 2,280 days later.
Nixon, I regret to say, possessed (a limited reservoir of) shame, which Assmouth was raised never to have. Also, we had a firewall between news and entertainment in the 1970s, which died a death in the 80s :((
Just based on the reporting from those inside the room, imagine if this was televised.
Apparently they're releasing full transcripts, including sidebars and chambers, so the reporting is going to be really thorough. The Opening Arguments podcast made a cogent observation about not televising it--to protect the jurors' identities.
It would literally break the interwebz, most likely. And perhaps the teebee screens all over America, also too. Satellites would fall out of the sky....XD
Loved this, thanks, although I prefer my cinnamon toast, er, uncluttered.
👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆
I was aware of Nixon's bullshit even before Watergate, but that amped things up to the obsession level. Fortunately, my folks and my sister were similarly obsessed, so it all worked out.
And that was the start of my decades long fascination with the fuck ups of DC politicians, encompassing the acts of both those I politically supported, and those I did and do not.
I figure as long as I'm getting the rest of my life taken care of, it's fine. You can be both obsessed by a topic AND deal reasonably with the rest of your life.
Sports fans do it; religiously devout folks do it; dog and/or horse people do it. I don't feel like such a dork when I think about it like that.
I think one of the drivers for obsession from those of us on the left is a desire to FINALLY see justice done. And I don't mean justice in the legal sense (although, that will be great too) but justice from the point of view that "I live my life following society's rules, and that fucker doesn't. AND never has, and I want to enjoy seeing him put in what I consider his rightful place" ... BECAUSE THAT'S THE ONLY WAY THIS WORLD CAN MAKE SENSE AGAIN.
Its not "revenge" per se, but a restoration of order in which OUR (morally superior) life choices "win".
I think of it as a "re-balancing."
I've been way too interested in Trump, mostly because he's obviously a corrupt, unfit conman and I've been waiting for him to be found out and jailed / bankrupted / publicly flogged (metaphorically!). Sometimes it helps to remind myself that he is a malignant narcissist and by paying attention to him, I am giving him what he wants.
You're not really paying attention to HIM.
You're paying attention to the state of the American justice system that he has corrupted.
I hope you are following his much saner and much more brilliant niece Mary Trump on Substack -- whose revenge may come because she's too nice to say so outright but I believe as a matter of family lore that she believes Donald's malignant dysfunction essentially killed her father .. so if she can by doing her part by setting the American justice & media systems straight on what they need to do better (as well as praise for what they do right), she's going to return the favor.
I am here for it.
The Good In Us - Mary Trump
https://marytrump.substack.com/
Just subscribed, thanks for the tip. I am reminded that Nemesis was an older, wiser, and maybe more powerful deity than that jerk Zeus.
Paid subscriber.
Oh, Dump absolutely killed her father: it's Shakespearean and Mary is a knight parfit or whatever they taught us in undergrad. I've enjoyed watching Stinky fail to infiltrate what he considers to be the "upper class" since the 80s, when Spy would s*it on him on the regular. We all love to despise the villain, and he fits it to a T
That said, the types of Sutton and River Place and 5th Avenue Park Avenue NY upper class were never
EVER
going to accept dumb mafia-ensared, classless, thuggish Donald.
From Queens.
No matter how much money he made.
I had a whole comment get eaten
But here is Bob Gale admitting he patterned alternate timeline Biff on Donald - not like we didn't know it
https://twitter.com/ChrisAlbertoLaw/status/1782924869572981011?t=eO3VilHgNfmNE028eldLMQ&s=19
I'm riveted to the news regarding insurrection, stolen docs, election interference... and so on because it's never happened before and seems worth paying close attention to.
I've been kind of that way with trump since he came down the escalator. I've learned to only talk about him to like-minded family and friends but I'm way too interested in him. I love to read and I go to bed at 9 or 10 o'clock to read my Kindle. Nope, now I grab my tablet and see what I missed on MSNBC from watching earlier in the evening. It's a sickness but it's contained (hubby might disagree though).
I have something similar to this with my dad. Not just the trial--Trump in general. We agree politically, otherwise we wouldn't be able to live together, but there was a period where Trump was all. he. talked. about. What did he do today? Watch the news about Trump. What's on his mind? Trump is horrible. Hey Dad, this really cool thing happened to me today! That's nice, did you hear what Trump tweeted? It got so bad that I finally just had to shut him down. "Dad, I get that you're passionate about this, but I don't want to talk about Trump anymore. I'm sick of feeling like the outlet for your anger. I have a life, too."
It's a little better now. I still wish he spent less time watching the news.
The jury system is as broken as the Electoral College and has been for nearly 240 years.
I briefly considered whether that letter describes me at all well...
... I’d say no, but it’s a bit of a technicality. Insofar as I’m not particularly obsessed with the trial, specifically. I think I could tell you in some detail the ins and outs of the evidence (it ain’t exactly arcane) and the prosecution’s argument that makes business record falsification a felony in this case, but that’s because, well, I read. I’m not actually paying a tonne of day to day attention to it. I do want to know where it’s going as so far I am finding the overall response of the US judicial system to the neofascist incursion vastly less robust and proactive than I’d have preferred. So what happens here is of more than a little interest, obviously.
... all this, because: while I may not be paying terribly close attention to the trial specifically, I absolutely do in case you haven’t noticed pay a fuckload of attention generically to Trump and the Trumpistas and his enablers in the kleptocracy in the US and beyond, and to the current alarming rise of neofascism in the US and in my own nation and elsewhere, and to the vast delusional phantasmagoric world of misinformation and disinformation that movement has built to feed and fuel and grow itself...
... but under the circumstances, I’d say saying I’m ‘obsessed’ with all of that would seem to me like saying to someone watching a raging, drought-driven wildfire encircling and bearing down on their city ‘why are you so obsessed with that fire’?
the word 'obsessed' is showing up a lot lately, mostly ladies' smallclothes and skinfood.
I think the problem is when angst and anger spill over into other relationships. It damn near ruined my relationship with my dad because he couldn't just let. it. go, and we AGREED. You can't sustain a relationship where all one person does is rant and rave about this one horrible person and politics we can't do anything about except vote. There was a point where I had to take a hard look at myself and realize that obsessing over every headline was actively making me a worse friend and person, regardless of how righteous I thought my positions were.
There's a lot of space between being ignorant of issues and obsessed with them.
Sounds like dad also might could use some essential fatty acids.
More of our collective dysfunctional behavior is linked to food deficiencies than I think the FDA wants to admit.
What? No. It's the result of a 24-hour news cycle that makes more money the more outraged and engaged people are, so they sell angst 24/7 to the point of being repetitive.
Our diet is fine.
"Our diet is fine."
... says the middle-class-to-reasonably-well-off White person
Know anything about "food deserts"?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rd8J-9uUnfc
Alongside the repeated efforts of White-dominated municipal governments to shut down community gardens to make sure people of color can't grow their own food?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCjaHcpV_yw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-rjRnV67xU
Not to mention the billions in Black farmland that were flat-out stolen?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldLiR794DsQ
Perhaps a bit more research prior to just tossing off commentary, maybe
Again, what? This is a weirdly aggro response to what I actually posted? I was referring to us, myself and my dad, who are the specific people who you implied weren't eating a balanced diet. "Sounds like dad also might could use some essential fatty acids." Yes, of course food deserts exist. Of course we have food insecurity. Of course American history is riddled with efforts to undermine and oppress BIPOC Americans. I never said otherwise.
"This is a weirdly aggro response to what I actually posted?"
Um. Actually, it's not.
Or - rather - it only is *characterized* as such to people who are blind to their own White privilege.
AND I wasn't going to mention it, but it was YOUR tone that was curtly dismissive to anyone describing a situation that was outside your own (limited) experience.
Not that you'd care, but I don't have the bandwidth to continue the conversation during this historic moment with someone who's deliberately choosing to blinder himself to experiences he PERSONALLY and/or people who look like him have not had -- in a country where 75% of White people STILL persist in self-segregating.
You don't see what I'm talking about -- that's not on me.
You have yourself a nice evening.
I've been on a jury. Statistically, most people have not.
I wouldn't have been allowed on a death penalty case, because that would be a hard NOPE from me. But jurors need to take their duties seriously. I probably got a dude deported after imprisonment and his partner and child might be unhoused. I feel bad about all of that.
The death penalty is an abomination, and no one should live with deciding it.
I was on two juries, both felonious assault cases, and I was so impressed with the professionalism and efficiency of everyone involved in the process.
And, yes, everyone sitting there takes their duties very seriously, because you're looking straight at a person whose life could be radically altered by your final decision.
I've been seated twice. Maybe it's how I present when answering questions.