Is Richard Nixon cool now?

Former President Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace 50 years ago this August. He lost the support of his country, his party, and his friends. Just two years earlier, he won in a historic landslide , but he soon became one of the most hated men in America. In 2024, however, something is changing: Many young conservatives regard Nixon as a hero.

At the Republican National Convention, college students said they were fans of Nixon, while one even said he was a "top-10" president. Nixon pins were handed out by the Nixon Foundation, which was celebrated by a group of young people trying to advance environmentalist policies within the Republican Party. TikTokers and X users are regularly producing meme homages to the 37th president, and Politico has labeled the trend a "Nixon renaissance."

The simplest explanation for this phenomenon is the existence of numerous parallels between Nixon and former President Donald Trump. Both had scandal-plagued presidencies and blamed the political establishment for many of their troubles. Nixon famously said , "Never forget: The press is the enemy. The establishment is the enemy. The professors are the enemy.” If someone did not know any better, that line could just have easily been attributed to Trump. Moreover, Trump was impeached, and Nixon certainly would have been impeached if he had not resigned from office.

Nixon won the presidency in 1968 after previously losing in 1960, and Trump is attempting a similar political comeback in 2024. Trump’s running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), has also been compared to Nixon, as both were selected to be vice presidential nominees at the age of 39 after only two years in the Senate.

However, the Nixon revival is deeper than just some superficial similarities to contemporary figures. Right-wing journalist Christopher Rufo produced a video last year titled " Nixon Forever " that argued conservatives need to look at Nixon’s “counter-revolution” and appeal to the silent majority to reclaim the culture. He said Nixon was able to bring back law and order after the 1960s and put together the blueprint for combating the administrative state.

Voices on the “New Right,” such as Sohrab Ahmari, have praised Nixon’s policies that “made peace with the New Deal and pursued realism and restraint abroad.” Former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy even said that he considered Nixon to be the “most under-appreciated president” because he was “deeply pragmatic” and “a realist.”

The Nixon Foundation has also played a part in promoting Nixon’s legacy to young people. Its social media accounts regularly go viral with “hard edits ” designed to make Nixon look cool or clips from his speeches and interviews. It has dabbled in contemporary politics, particularly when Nixon’s legacy is in question, such as criticizing Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson for blaming violence in his city on Nixon.

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The strangest part of this trend is that Nixon was not seen as being particularly conservative during his presidency. A prominent right-wing group criticized him at the time for “inflation and unemployment, excessive taxation and inordinate welfarism," as well as for "his overtures to Red China, done in the absence of any public concession by Red China to American and Western causes.” Furthermore, the Watergate scandal discredited Nixon in the eyes of the vast majority of people.

Nixon's presidency did have more accomplishments than it is given credit for, such as passing the National Cancer Act of 1971, but it is still better relegated to the ash heap of history.