Truly explain it like I’m 5, never really understood what happened.
In: 18
Watergate is the name of a hotel in D.C. It had some offices for Democratic campaign for the 1972 election. Richard Nixon’s operatives broke in to steal some documents to try to find dirt on them. Everybody involved of course lied about everything. As the lies grew more and more ridiculous under the scrutiny of Congressional investigations and journalism, Nixon was finally convinced to resign by, among others, members of his own Republican party (this is the part that is hard to imagine today).
The reason this scandal is the go-to example of political corruption is because it followed a series of events and trends that seemed like a pattern of disillusionment. The Vietnam war, high-profile assassinations, the counter culture, civil rights and its backlash and related riots, etc.
For many it killed off the notion that came from WW2 about American institutions being generally ok and worthy of some sort of trust, so dark cynicism.
I know you didn’t ask about that part but I feel like the consequences of Watergate are even more important than what actually happened. It seems like WATERGATE it this big epic thing the way people talk about it sometimes, but we’ve had so much worse since then. Its importance is about the wider context and culture.
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