In the current debate, we’ve become used to these reminders that Watergate was a political story, not just a legal one. But the lessons are more numerous — and more deeply rooted — than we may think. While many Americans may be hoping for a Watergate-style salvation from Trump, think again: It helped Democrats for a total of four years but also set the stage for a powerful conservative backlash. America in 2018 looks a lot like America in the 1970s — divided, polarized, riven with tribal antagonisms.

But those victories were short-lived. Many of the “Watergate babies” in Congress came from affluent suburbs, where good-government issues, like campaign-finance reform, resonated. But they didn’t speak to a lot of voters, including blue-collar Democrats, who had voted for Nixon and then been slow to accept his guilt in Watergate — as had the three in four people who, in a poll published before the Senate Watergate hearings began, agreed with the statement “Nixon’s campaign people were no worse than the Democrats, except they got caught.” Carter too failed to connect with those voters.

Four years later, the Republicans roared back, led by Nixon’s staunch defender, Ronald Reagan.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-05-11/watergate-hangover-is-still-tormenting-liberals

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