What if Nixon Was Never President?

Richard Milhouse Nixon we all know Nixon old tricky dick the legend the villain The Lovable little Scamp he ended the war in Vietnam what percentage of that was by choice I'll leave up to you he created the Environmental Protection Agency because if anybody speaks for the trees it's Nixon Nixon even started the tradition of attaching the word gate to whatever Scandal occurs in Washington he also did a lot of really bad stuff the 1970s were not the uh best time in American history or anywhere else in general it's not like the late 60s were even better but this was when the nation was really stagnating history and Global events are rarely influenced by a single person but what Nixon's actions ended up doing at least with the whole Scandal thing is it showed that not even the presidency could Escape being corrupt except for all the other times that the presidency was corrupt those were in the black and white times though we don't count them so here's a question a lot of people in the 70s were probably asking what if Richard Nixon was never president say he lost the 1968 election and somebody else took his place I don't like Hubert Humphrey no Jimmy as you see this video isn't just about Nixon never being president there was one person who almost ran against Nixon in 1968 but he couldn't because of uh reasons Robert Kennedy Bobby B the younger brother of JFK who met the same exact fade well not the same exact but you know what I mean so I apologize that the video title is a little bit of a lie because this scenario is really asking the question what if Nixon was never president because Bobby Kennedy was never shot the election of 1968 was something we had Vietnam civil rights assassinations riots things were getting spicy and things were at a Crossroads the results of 68 were actually Incredibly Close Nixon just barely squeaked by with a victory against Hubert Humphrey Humphrey was lbj's vice president and his policy seemed like it was going to be just a continuation of those policies continuing the Vietnam War continuing the war on poverty that sort of stuff and then there was George Wallace running for a third party his platform was basically just hey isn't segregation great and then he won 13 of the popular vote but this was not the election that many were anticipating despite Humphrey being the incumbent vice president he was the second choice for the candidacy as JFK's brother Bobby Kennedy was expected to originally win the nomination Bobby despite being from the richest whitest liberal family imaginable was popular particularly with minority voters as attorney general he had been involved in a lot of fights over segregation especially when deploying federal troops down to the South by 1968 he had become a much different man than the one who wanted to attack the Cubans during the first eight days of the Cuban Missile Crisis despite fighting against segregation and being an advocate for civil rights Bobby Kennedy was killed by neither of those things he was shot in a hotel kitchen by a Palestinian because he said he wanted to send Phantom Jets to Israel life is funny that way alright so a little tangent time I know there's a lot of ideas around who really caused all those Kennedys to drop like flies but when it comes to Bobby I'm not here to tell you who really killed him some eyewitnesses report that there were way more gunshots than a small 22 pistol was capable of firing apparently the bullet holes also don't really lie line up so this gives a little bit of credit to there being a second shooter that said I also think Sirhan Sirhan wanted to truly kill Bobby Kennedy he says today that he doesn't even remember shooting Kennedy in the first place but he's also said a lot of things like there's an interview in the 80s where he said he regrets the action and then he goes on a five-minute speech about how Israel is killing Palestinians from an American perspective this just seems completely out of nowhere this isn't a part of our narrative but to Sir Han Sirhan he felt betrayed keep in mind that Bobby candy was very popular with minority communities and Sirhan says that he felt it was very hypocritical that Bobby would defend the black civil rights movement while also giving weapons to the Israelis so Bobby B was killed because he was a neoliberal oops but what if he wasn't killed maybe Sirhan Sirhan comedically slipped on a pot in the kitchen and missed his shot I don't know what would this alternate 1968 election look like if it was between Robert Kennedy and Richard Nixon would Kennedy just sweep the election because he was so young and Nixon was crusty and mean well no while Kennedy was far more popular with minority groups and young people than Humphrey ones that would be something that in 60s America would actually hurt him in fact am I alienate him from a portion of white voters that otherwise voted for Humphrey for all you Zoomers compare it to Bernie vs Biden how much this would be nobody can say but I would not be shocked if the main opposition against Kennedy in the 68 election is that he's a bit too close something that is vocally spouted by George Wallace while subtly hinted at by the Nixon campaign now could Kennedy have won probably ish for the sake of the scenario he sure does but realistically this is an entirely different 1968 election which probably gets far nastier in in regards to race relations but let's just say Kennedy wins what's this new presidency look like all right so there's always an issue when it comes to imagining presidencies that never happened and it's that campaign promises rarely play out typically a politician will play more into their base during the election and then be more Centrist in office as an example imagine if Obama was just never president every alternate history Theory today would imagine that he would have changed everything gone America the Middle East by 2010 closed Guantanamo fixed income inequality or at least he would have done more stuff than he actually did and I bring Obama up because Bobby Kennedy was kind of seen in a similar light hope change all that stuff now the problem with him being killed so early in his campaign is that he never really solidified a lot of his policies most of it's just kind of General stuff a lot of this stuff was just a tad farther to the left than the current Johnson Administration and the main thing they really differed on was just Vietnam keep in mind Johnson was in his own way still attempting to solve the poverty issue and he signed off on a bunch of civil rights bills that may or may not have been effective when doing research for this video and at least seeing old interviews of Bobby Kennedy on YouTube the comments are always about if he had lived the us would have been so much different there's never really any concrete reasons given why it would be different it's not like Bobby had the answer to it all usually people just mean he would have changed the energy of the United States and Nixon was bad energy because of Watergate a lot of his fans are those older hippie dippy types you know the ones had Bobby won the presidency for real he would have had a democrat-controlled Congress that was on his side one that Nixon wasn't so lucky to have so in regards to domestic policy he could have continued on those poverty programs of LBJ so what would have Bobby even done if we want to have a good idea for where rfk's mindset was for Nam it was in his 1967 proposal for how to end the war along with a speech he gave in Chicago in 1968 it's hard to say whether this would have been his actual policy this is just campaign speech but it's the best we got to sum both of these up his idea was to gradually end the war by steadily replacing U.S troops with more International ones somehow I don't know who would sign up for that also the US would stop the bombings of North Vietnam Kennedy knew the war wasn't going to be won since the South Vietnamese didn't really bother to fight the war themselves why bother staying in a conflict that wasn't going to end in Victory and for us today you know that mindset seems pretty reasonable when looking back on Vietnam but the main reason is because in our timeline we had Nixon in the early 70s saw a massive escalation in the fighting more bombs more troops every option available was used and yet by 1973 the US had to flee anyway Saigon still fell and it gave this idea of finality to the war in this alternate timeline with Bobby Kennedy overseeing the war even if the same exact results occurred the common conception at least among the American right is that America could have won in Vietnam but Bobby Kennedy sold us out if this policy was put into effect it's true that it would have reduced the American casualties in the war just by the nature of there not being many Americans left there to die and with hindsight we all know that Vietnam was a lost cause but had RFK actually gone through with it in the 70s his administration would be viewed as cowards by many hardliners all the faults of how Vietnam went down would be blamed on Bobby sure tons of young people already died in Vietnam but those lives lost would be squarely put on Bobby's shoulders because he couldn't see the war through essentially they died for nothing one of the biggest effects Bobby Kennedy would have in American politics is reinvigorating the American right which sort of faltered through one Scandal and a Jerry Ford in the 1970s it was was kind of directionless until Reagan came but in this alternate scenario Bobby becomes the ultimate Boogeyman it's History's Greatest if Bobby had won he would be just as Infamous as Jane Fonda to 1970s America now while LBJ was a Democrat he was an old blue Southern Democrat a remnant of what the party was under FDR but Bobby he'd be a scrawny New England rich liberal the one who made the US lose its first war and this is just kind of one of those annoying debates in history that we would always suffer through was the war in Vietnam really truly lost or did Bobby Kennedy Chicken out it literally only depends on your politics to be frank the 1970s were just not a great time for any leader to be in charge and oftentimes it doesn't matter how charismatic a politician is when they're dealt with a bad hand of cards in politics Bobby Kennedy is one of those great what-ifs but in reality he would always be seen as the weaker Kennedy JFK has kind of viewed so fondly because he died before things got bad he's seen as the president of the before times before Vietnam before the riots but Bobby would be president smack dab in the middle of all of those and it wouldn't be unfair to compare him to JFK Bobby would do it probably all the time always evoking his brother's Legacy in everything especially once astronauts land on the moon and Bobby is there to talk with Neil Armstrong instead of Nixon he would probably say how his brother's dream was finally realized so the question is could Bobby Kennedy have won a second term and this was the election map of 1972. yep all that all for Nixon the economy was good so he was good if the economy was just as good under Bobby perhaps he would have a chance one Victory Kennedy would have is Health Care reform now there had been calls throughout the early 70s for Universal Health Care Now Nixon did still expand Healthcare at the time but his policies weren't as well Universal as calls on the Democrat side were it's very possible had Bobby been in power there would be this far earlier adoption of Universal Health Care in the United States what the ramifications of this would be or how this Universal Health Care System would be specifically run I'll leave up to your imagination keep in mind the specifics of the system would only be ironed out by alternate debates and committees under an entirely different Administration and political climate that's a long elaborate way of saying who knows alright so Nixon worked for America because he was seen as the Law and Order president after the uneasiness of the 60s Bobby for some was seen as a breath of fresh air but for many he would be seen as someone who rocks the boat way too much if Bobby Kennedy was a one-term president his legacy would not be great closer to Jimmy Carter than Jack Kennedy yet if he continued on and won that second term he would still not really be like that much there were just so many factors against the US in the 70s and that anger and disappointment was reflected in three presidents who are today not really that highly regarded in this alternate timeline for at least six years of the 70s decade Bobby Kennedy would be the face of it all the one who promised a lot and didn't get results so there you go that's the Bobby Kennedy presidency Bobby wouldn't have really dramatically changed that much unless they did the Universal Health Care thing that probably would have been big but in terms of the big ramifications it really is just simply because Nixon's not president foreign as much as Nixon's Legacy has really just been Watergate and really nothing else to your average American who probably couldn't locate Germany on a map he actually did a lot of things as president pushed through policy that went into effect remember when presidents did that me neither if you know much about Nixon I'm not gonna give you a full recap but for those that don't know here's a few things he did one he made the EPA that's probably the most commonly known fun fact because it's just funny imagining Nixon signing off on that hippie stuff two he worked to get us out of Vietnam by expanding it three he met with China four he removed the gold standard five he started the war on drugs and finally six he resigned yeah Watergate I know pretty busy for a president that didn't have two full terms while presidents can make policy that otherwise wouldn't have happened without them General Trends in the course of history can sometimes do more whether they were in the driver's seat or not so as an example without Nixon some environmental agency was going to be made regardless of whether he was there or not if you lived in the late 60s you could not Escape pollution a river even caught on fire no matter what the federal government was going to get through something to clean up the environment Bobby Kennedy seal of approval or not without Nixon we would still get out of Vietnam but we wouldn't have expanded it to the level that we did most particularly Cambodia when Nixon was first elected he said he had a secret plan to get us out of the war and it turned out that secret plan was Crossing Borders and bombing the out of the cambodians the official reason was to take out the Ho Chi Minh trail and fight the Khmer Rouge if you want to be kind of cheeky you can also say that the bombings in the first place led to the Khmer Rouge overthrowing the Cambodian government and just so happened to lead to the Cambodian genocide but I'm not gonna open that can of worms uh yeah uh Nixon environmental agency that that still happens let's go back to that regardless of Nixon or not we most likely also would have removed the gold standard within at least a decade or two I know a lot of people are very angry that he did this uh but it was going to happen anyway don't debate me on this the main two decisions that were a hundred percent because of Nixon and Nixon alone was the idea to go to China and starting the War on Drugs Nixon going to China was massive and probably was the most influential decision of his entire presidency before that visit China was disconnected from the U.S since the end of their own Civil War but Nixon knew that it would be important to reconnect and rebuild that relationship and we all know how that turned out so without Nixon would Bobby candy have just done the same uh you see if Bobby Kennedy was President he probably wouldn't have met with China it would have been a terrible move from an optic standpoint Nixon visiting the Communist Chinese was shocking because he was such a conservative figure he was one of the most staunch anti-communists now Reaching Across the aisle the fact that he was the one to extend his hand meant the move was more accepted by hardliners at Bobby County done the same especially after Vietnam his administration wouldn't just be called cowardly but traitors as well the only person who could have visited China and have it come across as a peaceful diplomatic meeting was ironically always going to be a staunch Republican so in this alternate timeline what does that mean I I'm saying Reagan Reagan would visit China instead because Reagan would probably always have been president regardless if Bobby Kennedy was president or not typically in these things there's always like six or seven people to choose from it's not a lot Reagan almost beat Gerald Ford in the 19th 76 primaries and that was when Ford was president had Bobby been president for one or two terms it would just bring on a Reagan presidency earlier sorry Twitter and that really is one of the biggest issues with a video like this had Bobby Kennedy been president he would have done all right but the reaction against him would just bring on the Reagan Era sooner Nixon was the conservative backlash to all of that and had it not been him it would have been someone else Reagan it would have been Reagan and Reagan for reasons I'm not gonna get into was far more influential to the United States today than Nixon ever was but that's a video remake for another time oh so that's the answer then huh nothing happens things stay the same well no and also yes the problem with viewing history as just a series of guys doing things especially presidencies is that it gives into this great man view of history and while 20th century presidents are influential incredibly influential to Global Affairs don't get me wrong they were also affected by Grand societal shifts as much as anybody and for the United States there was no shift really bigger than the one coming off of the late 1960s and sadly Robert Kennedy's Legacy would pay the price he'd be viewed as the bad Kennedy while his brother would forever be the good Kennedy JFK would always be remembered as a good president because he was riding off of the highs of the 50s while Bobby Kennedy would be remembered as a bad president because he was riding off of the highs of the 60s but Cody what about Watergate ah yes Watergate I guess it would be true that without a president resigning there would be more trust in the institution of the presidency I guess but how much of that is really true I'd say more young people in the general public would be just as disillusioned with the United States thanks to the war than if the presidency was wrapped in Scandal as much as we hear about it it was something very localized to Washington DC funnily enough you could say that watergate's biggest impact is that today whenever a scandal happens people like to add gate to the end of it so I know I haven't talked about him like this entire video but I would say the biggest impact in this entire scenario is that Jimmy Carter is never president now hold on hold on I know you see Jimmy Carter is never president and so he never is able to sign the Camp David Accords an action that was meant to bring peace but it ended up dividing the Arabs against one another to sum all of that up it pretty much stopped Egypt from attacking Israel ever again as for all Bobby Kennedy he might have been able to pass a health care Reform Bill and that might have been his biggest accomplishment with the United Congress to back him up he could have probably done a lot in four years oh and also everything he would do would probably get undone by Regin okay bye

Channel: AlternateHistoryHub

Views: 1,063,694

Keywords: What if Nixon Was Never President?, What if Nixon wasnt president, No Nixon, Nixon Alternate history, what if bobby kennedy had lived?, what if robert kennedy wasn't assassinated?, jfk, kennedy, bobby kennedy, nixon history, richard nixon, nixon cambodia, nixon vietnam, vietnam alternate history, alternatehistoryhub, alternate history, alternate history nixon, what if nixon didnt win, what if bobby kennedy was president, 1970s america

Id: nhUmi0Jf35c

Length: 20min 49sec (1249 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 20 2022