This OTYCD entry originally posted in June 2017.

 

Check out the Presidential Job Approval Center on Gallup’s web site, which lets you see how popular many 20th and 21st century presidents were on specific weeks of their terms.

 

The Presidential Job Approval Center is weirdly fascinating and includes everyone from Harry Truman to Donald Trump. But we’re going to direct you to something very specific.

 

When you visit the site (the URL is posted below), scroll to the bottom. Select “All Presidents,” and select “Richard Nixon.”

 

Then look to the right, pull up “All Adults,” and select “Republican.”

 

Now click on the right extreme of the red line.

 

That will show you how popular Nixon was among Republicans during August 2-5, 1974–the week that he chose resignation over certain impeachment.

 

Even then, Nixon had the support of 50 percent of Republicans.

 

Turn that over in your mind for a bit. Even as Nixon was readying to board that helicopter and leave the White House for the last time as president, half of all Republicans still supported the guy. FWIW, Nixon also had the support of 22 percent of Independents and 13 percent of Democrats in his final week as president.

 

What can we learn from this?

 

We don’t have to wait for the goddamn Republicans to come around to our levels of distaste for Trump. We can agitate for impeachment while he still remains popular with his party, if it is clear–and it is increasingly so–that the evidence supports impeachment.

 

This is not to say that we should agitate for impeachment in mid-2017, however. Let Mueller and his team do its work. Let Comey’s testimony sink in. Let the Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington’s lawsuits carry forward.

 

Stay strong. Stay alert. Keep calling your MoCs, and keep asking your friends to do the same. Keep marching. Keep protesting. Keep writing those postcards. Keep fighting the good fight. It matters.

 

See the Gallup Presidential Job Approval Center’s interactive tool:

http://www.gallup.com/interactives/185273/presidential-job-approval-center.aspx?g_source=PRESIDENTIAL_JOB_APPROVAL&g_medium=topic&g_campaign=tiles

 

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