What slogans of today will lose the association with a particular political cause or candidate and — half a century or so in the future — become usable for other causes by people who would hate that cause or candidate if they knew what the hell he/she/it was?
Yes We Can... Stronger Together... Change We Can Believe In... Make America Great Again...
There's background on Nixon's slogan in a WaPo article dated March 15, 2017: "Now, more than ever, ‘now more than ever’ needs to go/The phrase's resurgence is historically inappropriate":
In June 1972, Republican pollster Robert M. Teeter commissioned two focus groups of ticket-splitting, middle-income, 35-and-older Detroit voters without college degrees to test campaign slogans for Richard Nixon. Nixon’s team wondered if one of the slogans under consideration was “too sophisticated,” but Teeter disagreed. In a memo to White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman, he explained that “the slogan had a certain emotional appeal which the other slogans did not possess,” and it looked good on a bumper sticker. So it became official: “President Nixon. Now more than ever.”...
Without reading that article, do you even know which way "Now more than ever" was resurging in 2017? Was it about needing Trump or needing to fight Trump? We're so self-centered that we always think NOW is the most important time.
Ah, that reminds me of another repurposable slogan: "The fierce urgency of now."
ADDED: "Now" always seems to be the most important time, but now is ever-changing... or is it?
Posts
93 comments:
"Everything Old is New Again
The establishment does not want the actual history of the Nixon administration coming out.
They must maintain the fiction the media wrote.
Really I’d like to repurpose Obama’s most truthful line but have not been in the proper position to declare “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for!”
If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor.
The fierce urgency of then.
I'm with her.
It depends on what the definition of is is.
Gen Z is very interested in Nixon. They see the parallels between what the Media-Deep Throat alliance did to Nixon and how the same Media-Deep State alliance worked the same scam on Trump. The alliance never expected him to fight back and WIN again.
Nixon was a really squishy and kinda racist pro-choice Republican who was soft on Communism. Also, wage-and-price controls, what the fuck. And using intelligence agencies to spy on his political enemies. Basically he was a smarter and sharper version of Joe Biden.
You know, I'm not into women at all, but man, I do love me some endless Anne Reinking legs. and I'm a sucker for Bob Fosse choreography. Glad this post made me think of that video clip. /digression
If they bring a knife you bring a gun.
Get in their faces.
Angry leftists who overdose on NPR and BSNow.
More than ever
Good Republicans take the loss and tuck tail like McCain and Romney and Dole…
I can imagine what can be, and be unburdened by what has been.
Whip inflation now is a funny one
I've always been fond of Tippecanoe and Tyler too.
"That would change my calculus. That would change my equation."
...the data suggests Nixon was kind of popular but revisionism and Watergate as verb changed all that. Perhaps it was his witty slogan? It's one that still gets 'em!
I like Ike.
On Happy Days, the Fonz said,
"I like Ike. And my bike likes Ike."
"All the way with LBJ."
He may or may not have said that when he pulled out his johnson and showed it to people.
a chicken in every pot
in your heart you know he's right
it's the economy, stupid
Best time to plant a tree.
Don't swap horses in the middle of a stream
Return to Normalcy
Keep Cool with Coolidge
Vote Yourself a Farm
For the Future
“Sock it to me” and “I am not a crook” live as bookends to his presidency.
He was for it before he was against it.
No Malarkey
Ma, Ma, Where's My Pa? Gone to the White House, Ha Ha Ha
"Angry leftists who overdose on NPR and BSNow.
More than ever"
yah, this is it- NBC product used the 'more than ever' slogan, prolly a gimme bag....reminds me- does public television still have enough money to blow on those crappy totes? Next time I'm in Boston...
Newsome. Not now. Not ever.
Mister, we could use a man like Richard Nixon again…
"Yes we can" will be recycled.
Heh heh heh...
Calling out the "its" in the streets of your town.
Can't meade do so ething about the granny infestation so you white she's dont have to see that? He's gonna drop the music video career like he did the dog park photo ing work.
You are so much wiser than all those state school kids coming to wisco to party,ann!
Lol
If Obama had done what Nixon did, we could truly label him a communist.
Here's Gemini on Nixon's wage and price controls:
In August 1971, President Richard Nixon imposed the first peacetime wage and price controls in U.S. history to combat rising inflation. The effort started with a 90-day freeze (Phase I) and transitioned through multiple, less restrictive phases until April 1974. While initially popular, the controls ultimately caused severe economic distortions, shortages, and black markets.Nixon's program, officially part of his "New Economic Policy", was rolled out in four distinct phases:
Phase I (1971): A sweeping 90-day freeze on all wages, prices, and rents. It was aggressively enforced by the Office of Emergency Preparedness and proved highly popular with the public.
Phase II (1971–1973): Replaced the freeze with mandatory guidelines. The Cost of Living Council, along with a Pay Board and Price Commission, were created to limit wage increases to 5.5% and price increases to 2.5% annually.
Phase III (1973): Transitioned most industries to voluntary compliance, which caused prices to immediately surge upward.
Phase IV (1973–1974): Reimposed mandatory controls sector-by-sector (especially on food and energy) as shortages worsened, before the entire apparatus was abolished in April 1974.Economically, the controls are widely considered a policy failure. By artificially capping prices, the program created widespread shortages, most notably in the beef, poultry, and oil markets, as farmers and producers could not sell goods for what it cost to make them. Once the controls were lifted, suppressed inflation flooded the market, contributing significantly to the severe "stagflation" (high inflation and high unemployment) that plagued the U.S. throughout the 1970s.
We have nothing to smear but smear itself.
Democracy dies in darkness
Mediators Trying to Pull U.S. and Iran Back From Brink, Officials Say ~ NYT
A concept of a plan to renew talks to begin talks.
"Economically, the controls are widely considered a policy failure. By artificially capping prices, the program created widespread shortages..."
Interesting that this policy and its effects are completely forgotten. Wiped from memory. In the 50 years since, I've never seen reference to it in pop culture, and barely any in politics.
Maybe its impact, good and bad, really wasn't that great.
Iman at 831 for the win. All in The Family - IMO, greatest show ever. Could not be made today.
"Tanned, rested, and ready!"
...references to the gas lines emerge from time to time...
This period and the Nixon presidency generally are the most instructive for today’s Trump administration. But where Nixon was a very intelligent man crippled by insecurity Trump is an ignoramus powered by it.
I suspect the impact of Trump will be be deeper and longer lasting that Nixon's craziness. Nixon had brakes on him in the form of Kissinger and the GOP in Congress. Trump is surrounded by yes men and a subservient GOP. The world will take the view once bitten, twice shy.
""Yes we can" will be recycled."
The Mexican World Cup team used "Si se puede"... and they lost at home.
"Where's the beef?"
Unbothered. Moisturized. Happy. In my lane. Focused. Flourishing.
Useful piece, but I’d offer a different perspective: Nixon isn’t an analogue to Trump—he’s the origin point.
1971 was the start of the U.S. abandoning external monetary discipline in favor of short-term political expediency. What followed was 50 years of debt-financed consumption, asset inflation over wage growth and policy guided by market appeasement rather than national strategy.
Nixon could do this with minimal immediate consequence because the U.S. still had fiscal space, global trust and institutional cohesion.Trump, by contrast, is acting at the end of that model’s life, not the beginning. Today, the deficits are structural, debt service is surging and trust in the dollar system is fraying globally. Trump isn’t breaking the system, he’s standing amid its wreckage and trying, clumsily, to reset its foundations.
"Interesting that this policy and its effects are completely forgotten. Wiped from memory. In the 50 years since, I've never seen reference to it in pop culture, and barely any in politics."
The economic illiteracy in this country is scandalous. It may be purposeful.
I dunno.....'Now more than ever', let's see. How many states did he win, only 49? Maybe a pretty good slogan then. I thought Nixon was a good president who got railroaded out of office. And I was in high school, then.
"Arbeit macht frei"
I always hated that the Nazis used it, because I think it's good advice. It worked for me.
Hoo-rah!
Hoo-rah!
The country's rising
Henry Clay
And Frelinghuysen
"Now, more than ever" is an appeal to people's vanity. Well, you know (the ever* part) you are a knowledgeable/well informed fella/gal. It's easy to fall for flattery.
WIN= Whip Inflation Now
LOSE= Let's Overcome Simon's Economics
I have some Nixon memorabilia, including a signed card.
Did y'all forget: "They can't lick our Dick"?
"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy," Biden said. "I mean, that's a storybook, man."
It's no surprise that the Washington Post views everything that could be interpreted as pro-Nixon as "inappropriate" or much worse than that. Nixon does look better and better each year -- or at least less bad -- now that we know what the Deep State does. I don't believe the more grandiose conspiracy theories, but it does look to me like he was undone by trying to do himself what the FBI gladly did for FDR and LBJ.
Nixon was a child of Depression, World War, and Cold War, so he was more of a government guy than conservatives like. Garry Wills saw him as the Last Liberal. That's not entirely to Nixon's discredit. Markets über alles didn't prove to be the answer to everything. And yet Nixon was also willing to entertain ideas of taking down parts of the state apparatus that Reagan didn't consider -- government reorganization, impounding funds.
It's perhaps significant that Nixon's Library has been more favorable to Trump than Reagan's, which leans more towards the NeverTrumper gang. Reagan has proved strangely acceptable to the Establishment, while Nixon always proves a bit of an outlier and outlaw.
And the helpful, "Don't change Dicks in the midst of a screw."
""Now" always seems to be the most important time,"
"Now more than ever" may have originated here : “For he says, ‘In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.’ I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation” --2nd Corinthians 6:2
"No dejes para mañana lo que puedas hacer hoy"
The boomers who fell so completely for the deep state trickery back then, are still the ones who suck it up most today.
It would be a very different world today if Nixon never went to China. I suppose someone else would have soon after, but opening up china to trade changed everything.
We hear every time that "This is the most important election of our lives." It also seems to be true every time.
LOL, RC: “ Newsome. Not now. Not ever.”
Concise and witty and topical.
In the 1968 election, Nixon's slogan was "Nixon's the One!" Some people responded by publishing photos of pregnant women wearing that campaign button.
IMO, Nixon was not a good president. But he was far from the evil demon the press and the Dems (before they married) made him out to be
"Fifty four forty or fight!" Take that, Mark Carney!
Probable-Possible, my black hen,
She lays eggs in the Relative When.
She doesn't lay eggs in the Positive Now,
Because she's unable to postulate how.
"Now" is what we have and what we can do something about. The past is gone. We can build for the future but can't be sure that anything will come of our efforts. Sometime in the past may have been the "most important time," but we can't do anything about it now and can't live entirely in the shadow of some past moment. There might be room for a bit more modesty (there were fiercely urgent times in the past, and we are not the one's everyone has been waiting for), but it's not self-centered to focus on the now.
Behavior in office indicates that Nixon was modest and egalitarian towards those on staff, values he attributed to his Quaker mother. He often spoke in anger, but his targets were his political foes. White House staff were reportedly deeply fond of him, unlike their feelings towards LBJ or the Kennedys. He was neither slickly elitist and immoral, nor was he, well, LBJ. The Archie Bunker reference seems fitting. Ben Stein writes movingly about him.
I always thought we lucked out with the mascots.
Democrat: "I'm a jackass. I bite and I kick. I have a harsh, unpleasant laugh. And I'm stubborn."
Republican: "I'm an elephant. I am big and strong. I remember everything. I respond to the bugle call. And when we go on a rampage? Oh shit, look out."
“"Now" always seems to be the most important time”
Now is when you are, and when you will always be.
You know my grammar is bad. Sorry, Mr. President.
It ought to read, "When he pulled out his Johnson and showed it to people."
He used to have a slogan, "Me and little Johnson will kick your ass!"
And people would giggle at that and laugh at him. And President Johnson would sputter, "I meant he's smaller than me! He's not little, damn it." And then he'd have to whip it out again and show everybody.
That slogan did not catch on.
Lady Bird: "It's Johnson and I, Lyndon. Johnson and I."
And he'd flash his penis at her, too. But she'd seen it before, and she was not afraid.
Build Back Better
Unburdened by what Has Been
He Kept Us Out of War.
I cannot believe we had a President who routinely exposed his penis in the workplace.
I know sex harassment law was different back then. But seriously.
That's how the Vietnam war started, probably. There were sensitive diplomatic negotiations. And then Johnson goes, "Look at my dick, yellow man! Look at my dick."
And Ho Chi Minh said some shit in Vietnamese. And they all ran out of the room. And it was on.
He Kept Us Out of War.
Can you imagine, using that as your campaign slogan while you were secretly plotting to get into the war? Wilson was a shit.
"Making the world safe for democracy, where you lie to millions of people to achieve power."
"Read my lips, no new taxes."
"no more backbone than a chocolate eclair"
more of an insult than a slogan, I guess, but still useful for future generations, I say
"Bastard Brat of a Scotch Pedler"
"Grant is a man of vile habits, and no ideas."
"Pimp of the White House"
"Jackson's mother was a common prostitute."
My response to that one, by the way, is "Your mother was a high-class prostitute. She charged extra to lick my ass."
That last burn was so good, Google removed it
"Alfred E. Smith, the wet, Romish, East Side, Tammany Hall candidate"
“a hideous hermaphroditical character which has neither the force and firmness of a man, not the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.”
NBC News with Tom Brokaw, 1995.
The world is watching. now more than ever.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpTp2sgEnz0
Post a Comment
Please use the comments forum to respond to the post. Don't fight with each other. Be substantive... or interesting... or funny. Comments should go up immediately... unless you're commenting on a post older than 4 days. Then you have to wait for us to moderate you through. It's also possible to get shunted into spam by the machine. We try to keep an eye on that and release the miscaught good stuff. We do delete some comments, but not for viewpoint... for bad faith. Also: No italics, even briefly. Use asterisks for emphasis. And don't play with the format by changing fonts or using boldface or all caps. Never include more than one extra line break between paragraphs.