Because the light is better here

[womzilla]

james_nicoll asks a fairly straightforward, unfraught question:

How did Richard Nixon manage to get elected as President in the timeline we see in Watchmen?

Notice the number of respondents who answer a question James did not ask--"How did Nixon stay in office until 1985?"

The second question is more directly addressed in the comic than the first one is, though an answer can be ferreted out, which is why I titled this post what I did.

(My answer to James's question is this:

The first public demonstration of Dr. Manhattan's abilities in 1960 did put him in a military context (destroying a tank). However, the implication in Dr. Glass's essay (the text piece to issue #4) is that Kennedy and LBJ thought or feared that using Manhattan for small conflicts would be an escalation that the Soviet Union would consider comparable to using nuclear weapons.

Midway through his first term, Nixon, the "mad bomber", deployed Dr. Manhattan despite that consideration. The gamble paid off, and Nixon won easy re-election in 1972.

)

Comments

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I keep seeing statements that, in the Watchmen universe, Nixon is in his third term in 1985. That would mean he wasn't elected until 1976 in the first place.

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

Those comments are wrong about both the comic and the film. Nixon was in office for events dated to 1970 (the end of the Vietnam war) and 1977 (the police strike and the subsequent Keene Act) in both works.

Additionally, in the film, Hollis Mason jokes about voting for him five times, but I don't remember that from the comic--it's a bit too blatant a bit of incluing for the comic. (Hollis could have voted for him six times if he went for Nixon in 1960.) I don't actually have problems with the film having taken some narrative shortcuts--a three-hour film doesn't have as much information as a 300-page comic as densely told as Watchmen--but it's unfortunate if people are coming away from such blatant incluing without the information.

[avram]

There's no incluing so blatant that someone won't miss it.

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

Tru dat. But if multiple people are making the same mistake, I'm wondering how they're missing the right info.

Ah, as I wrote that I remembered that in the opening montage of the film there's a caption "Nixon wins third term." So, some people are missing that that even was nearly a decade before the "present day" of the narrative.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Yes, that would explain the error. (And I wouldn't be in a position to realize it myself, because I haven't seen the film yet. People ask why, if I hated the Jackson LOTR films so much [actually, I didn't: what I hate is the widespread claim that they're a good adaptation of the book], I went to see them at all, and this kind of thing illustrates why: if I didn't, I wouldn't have any idea of what the heck people were talking about when they spouted film-born misinterpretations.)

Sparrow, We've Already Been Over VVN Night...

[(Anonymous)]

...but something about Nixon in 1985 bothers me.

To date, only one Amendment to the Constitution has been repealed (the 18th, which the 21st undid). When the 22nd Amendment was proposed in 1947, it was clearly the act of a back-in-power Republican majority out to insure that there would never be another Franklin Roosevelt (while, as you've noted, shooting themselves in the foot, because until 1996, the only two-term Presidents were Republicans), but the wording of it stressed that it was for future incumbents, not for the current (Democratic) holder of the office. Thus, Harry Truman could have run again in 1952 (and if you believe an early 1950 issue of *Time,* he was planning to)

For that reason -- and because I believe that in this "Watchmen" world that the Congress was Democratic (Moore never does specify whether the Republicans controlled either House) -- I wonder whether it wouldn't be more credible if Nixon finished his second term in 1977, then had to wait until 1980 to run again, much as certain governors can serve an infinite number of terms...but can't succeed themselves. (Or only two in succession, as I believe it currently is in Alabama -- George Wallace saw to that.)

Given the way some people regard the 1977-81 administration, maybe it'd make more sense why (golden olden here!) "Nixon's the One." Or Would Be the One.

It's too early in the morning to go into Gerald Ford as a several term Vice-President, but not to mention that two Vice-Presidents served under two different Presidents,George Clinton under Jefferson and Madison and John Calhoun under Adams and Jackson.

Lady and I look out upon Desolaton Row...

Re: Sparrow, We've Already Been Over VVN Night...

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

As I understand the 22nd, once Nixon served two terms (or is it a term plus 50%?) he could not serve as POTUS ever.

The easiest explanation is that for some reason the 22nd never passed in this universe.

Re: Sparrow, We've Already Been Over VVN Night...

[(Anonymous)]

The 22nd Amendment does allow serving up to two years of an unfinished term (which is why Lyndon Johnson was a candidate until he decided to shall not seek and will not accept another term as your President).

If it were repealed, I don't think the framers of the Amendment would want to make it seem like a reward for an incumbent (Four More Years! Eight More Years! Years! Years! Glorious Years!), any more than the original was meant to be a slap at Truman (you may start 1950 wanting to run again, but after McCarthy in February and Korea in June, Independence is going to look mighty good to you). For that reason...

It's probably best to think that it didn't pass, as you say. And to accept that the world of *Watchmen* is what it is and not to poke too closely at it, lest you destroy it all together. (What sort of Iranian hostage crisis would take place when Nixon's favorite leader after de Gaulle's resignation was the Shah?)

All hail the Thermodynamic Miracle!

[sarah-ovenall.livejournal.com]

Pandagon has a post up about Watchmen in which a commenter claims that Alan Moore is deeply conservative, one might even say wingnutty. Is that true? I don't know anything about him but having read Watchmen, V for Vendetta and Promethea I find it hard to believe.

The post itself is interesting, though distracting that the author keeps referring to the title as The Watchmen. http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/comments/non_funny_satires_and_how_we_even_know_how_to_spot_them/

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

The Pandagon commenter Zinfab is absolutely, completely wrong.

To say that Moore he's "deeply conservative" and "homophobic" is batshit insane. Before and during Watchmen, Moore wrote V for Vendetta, which posits that there are really only two political positions, fascism and anarchy, and sides with anarchy; it was written in specific response to the rise of Thatcher and the (then-)growing influence of the National Front, the British fascist movement. The work he published immediately after Watchmen was AARGH (Artists Against Rampant Government Homophobia), a benefit book to protest British laws discriminating against homosexuality.

Moore may have the residual sexist patterning of someone growing up in Northlands England in the 1960s, but he's no conservative by any stretch.

I think the later comment that Zinfab had mistaken Moore for Miller is probably right. Miller is a "law and order" conservative.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Um, hang on a sec, I'm doing arithmetic.

So, 1985 is one year into Nixon's fifth term, so he's been president for nearly 17 years, correct? This means that he became president in 1968, right? I mean:

Term One: 1968 - 1972
Term Two: 1972 - 1976
Term Three: 1976 - 1980
Term Four: 1980 - 1984

Am I forgetting my real history? I thought the real Nixon was elected in 1968. If this is so, why the question about how he got elected the first time?

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

In our timeline, Nixon an extremely narrow victory in 1968 because LBJ had completely botched the conduct of the Vietnam conflict. James's question was basically, "Why didn't LBJ use Dr. Manhattan in Vietnam and coast to easy reelection in 1968?"

An answer is what I said: Kennedy and LBJ both saw Manhattan as an escalation of the war by unconventional means and feared a nuclear response from the USSR. I believe this is the answer indicated by the book.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see. Somehow, I took the bit about the light being better as meaning that Nixon did better in the debate against Kennedy, despite this making no sense, as Kennedy was elected in 1960 and died in 1963, same as in our world.

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

No, it was just me using a title that signifies only to myself: it's my metonym for "people will address the questions that they can answer even if they're not the questions that are asked".