Nixon’s lessons for today’s Republicans

If the past few weeks are any indication, conservative Republicans learned very little from the 2012 election. While the party’s establishment tries to claw its way back from defeat, tea partiers and neoconservatives have decided to double-down on obstructionism.

Less than a week after nearly derailing the fiscal cliff negotiations, tea partiers threaten to drive the U.S. into default in the coming debt-ceiling showdown. Meanwhile, neoconservatives are sharpening their knives over foreign policy realist Chuck Hagel, whom President Obama nominated this week for Secretary of Defence.

Mired in ideological infighting, how can the Republican Party rescue itself? The answer, surprisingly enough, is Richard Milhous Nixon.

Nixon, born 100 years ago today, would not recognise the current Republican Party. Though a life-long Republican, his view of the party was at odds with the doctrinal conservative movement that dominates today’s GOP. Yet Nixon was a much better conservative than most contemporary Republicans. He may not have showed a boot-faced commitment to the tenets of American conservatism, but that’s not the standard by which he should be judged.