It Don't Take a Smart One to Know One," by the Four Tops, and "Silly Love Songs" by Paul McCartney and Wings. Those tunes, he contended, had helped him win the presidency by helping to win the youth vote—the so-called counterculture vote. The idea was to reach out to students by using R&B as a soundtrack for the next generation of politicians. "Now, when President Johnson was elected, he wanted to get young people's votes, and he did, and there's a little bit of that going on now," Nixon said, as if he were trying to preempt someone asking, "The '69 Tricky Dick campaign? The youth vote?" What came next, however, was even more interesting than Nixon's attempts at humor. It was the president's description of the state of national politics in 1965. His observation, in a way, was a perfect summation of the issues that he himself would face and had already confronted as president: _He was talking about the "Silent Majority," without naming it._ He talked about a "silent majority" that he claimed was composed of college students. "If the government is for the Negroes," he added, "who are we?" And who were "we?" Were they? Nixon described these young people as being against the establishment, as being "angry and very, very impatient." They were "very vocal," he said, adding that they were "out of step" with their parents. They tended to be less religious. They often lived in "communes" and wore their hair long. "They dress casual," Nixon said. "I'm not sure they shave." Nixon admitted to being surprised that all of these traits, particularly the long hair and long, unkempt beards, had any political impact. "It seems so trivial, but it matters," Nixon said. "The kids do not like their parents any more." It was not just a revolt against "the Establishment." It was also a rebellion against "the straight world." It would not be too far-fetched to compare these views with the views that Barack Obama had of those who supported him. He, too, talked about how "the establishment" was turning against him and those like him. He, too, talked about the generation gap that existed within the electorate and that would give him an edge as the underdog. He, too, talked about how his political positions were not really as extreme as they were made to appear. All this sounded eerily like Nixon talking about the "silent majority," except that he was talking about a generation of people who, in this case, consisted of not quite twenty-one years old. But if they were not quite twenty-one, neither were they as old as they were said to be. "I believe in God and that is an important factor," Nixon told his new, if still young, constituents. "My people don't call them 'coastal intellectuals,'" he said, referring to the leftists who had turned against him. Nixon, not yet knowing the names "Liberals" or "Democrats," had called them "coastal intellectuals." "I don't think of them as intellectuals," he said, in an era when a Harvard professor could speak so harshly about Nixon. "They are college radicals, that's all." Nixon spoke of people who wear long hair and wear their hair in strange styles as if they were a symbol of something. It was not just an image of rebellion against the Establishment. It was also an image of rebellion against traditional values. "I think this generation is going to go a long way toward determining the character of our country," he said. And the world. "I think the silent majority has a great deal to say in this matter." After all, "If we allow the long hair to be worn, then we shall be inviting anarchy and anarchy is just what is being produced." It was here, of course, that the similarities between Nixon and a certain American president ended. The president had used a "silent majority" metaphor to describe a demographic; Nixon had used it as a description of a generation. The president talked about "the quiet desperation" of his own generation. Nixon's generation did not "feel left out in the cold," but rather as if they were "living in the shadow of their parents." Both presidents spoke about college campuses as the breeding grounds of protest. The comparison between Nixon and Obama was not a superficial one. They did not share only a sense of how to woo a constituency. They did not even have that much in common when it came to where they stood on the issues. There were no real policy differences between Nixon and his new constituents. There were only impressions. Or, in Nixon's words, a "silent majority" of impressions. The two presidents held their positions not as the results of a complicated system of political negotiations but by virtue of the fact that no one was willing to go against them. Nixon would be no different from Lyndon Johnson had he gotten "the boys" in Congress to go along with him. It was not so much that Nixon was as conservative as he seemed. He was not a liberal, for instance, who was only posing as one in order to court the youth vote. He was a conservative who was portraying himself as a liberal in order to win that vote. "He seemed to believe he had something of value to impart to this crowd," said Andrew Kopkind, who wrote a book on the young New Left and the older one. "It's not a matter of political philosophy. It's a matter of style, of communication, a matter of attitude." In other words, Nixon's image of himself as a liberal seemed to be motivated by something beyond the shallow "politics of personal style." It was in the end a matter of how Nixon, for better or worse, had been shaped by his experience in politics. "The more I see of the real political world, the more I realize that it's a game," he once told Nixon speechwriter Ray Price. "One should be well aware of it. What has impressed me about you people [who] are liberals, that they're _aware_ of it. I must say I admire them for it." Perhaps what Nixon had in common with "the people" who supported him was not that they were liberals. Perhaps what they had in common was that they were liberals who were aware of their own image. # **10** # **NIXON'S WAR ON THE DEEP STATE** NIXON COULD ALSO not resist showing up the opposition in one of his speeches. He described a woman wearing an "I heart Nixon" T-shirt as the "one woman in the country who thinks I've done the best job I can do in the office of President." The woman, of course, was Lyndon Johnson's daughter, who had, in the intervening years, gone from one extreme to the other. One can almost picture her, circa 1974, on a book tour for one of those nonfiction books on Watergate. What the cover should have featured instead was one of those photographs of Lyndon Johnson with LBJ–Nixon buttons on his lapel. The Johnson button would read, "I'd rather be dead than live in a country run by Nixon." It would be one of those buttons that might later prompt a debate among historians as to which candidate was the real loser. "I'd rather be dead," the LBJ button said. "Nixon wins." Here was the difference between Nixon and Johnson. The only difference between them was Nixon's belief in the importance of "talking down the opposition." It was not just a debate on an electoral college map. It was also a debate about the soul of America. "When you look at Lyndon Johnson, look at the way he destroyed any vestige of any dignity which is part of the American Constitution, look at the fact that he has done more for this country than I have, and you wonder who has a better understanding of the problems of this country." When it came to discussing Nixon, though, Nixon himself turned into something like that LBJ button. The president seemed determined to prove that he had a better understanding of the problems of America. That was the difference between Johnson and Nixon. "This is a dangerous world," Johnson once said. "We have to learn to do without the luxuries that we have had and to depend on our own resources to get this country through." This was how one of the greatest "extremists" turned into one of the most "moderate" figures. This "dangerous world" was where Nixon was constantly looking for allies. He thought that he could win their support by being a better partner to the antiwar left and by being more cooperative with his critics. "He will go further toward making peace with the establishment," _The Washington Post_ announced, when it came to Nixon and the _Times_ 's editorial board. But the "establishment" seemed to think that this "going further" was not good for America. He had no choice but to defend himself against that. He would soon find himself defending a system of government, his own government. The president's actions would be seen as an attack on the system itself. "An American President is the most powerful man in the world," Walter Cronkite declared as Nixon took office. But Nixon knew there was something more powerful than even an American president. It was the nation's deep state. In other words, what