General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Where were you 40 years ago this evening when President Richard M. Nixon resigned? [View all]onehandle
(51,122 posts)He was right. My parents were horrified when Nixon was first elected. The first election I can remember.
I had a McGovern sticker on my notebook in school in 1972.
Little did we know what would follow Nixon...
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Noam Chomsky: Richard Nixon Was 'Last Liberal President'
Three Democrats have held the position of commander-in-chief since the Richard Nixon era, but if you ask philosopher Noam Chomsky, it was the 37th president and infamous Watergate casualty who was truly the last liberal to preside in the Oval Office.
During a discussion on HuffPost Live, Chomsky weighed in on the minimum wage debate, blaming neo-liberals for keeping talk of wage increases off the table until now.
"It's a shame that it's taken so long to even be a discussion," Chomsky said. "As for support, we may recall the last major program for helping families at the level of survival was under Richard Nixon. In many respects Nixon was the last liberal president."
In the 1950s and 1960s, before Nixon took office, minimum wage stayed on track with productivity. However, that pattern fell off in the next decade. After six years of stagnant wages and escalating costs of living, the Nixon administration stepped in -- in 1974, Nixon signed an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act. That law raised wages by more than 40 percent.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/21/noam-chomsky-richard-nixon_n_4832847.html