Yeah, but it took a Democratic majority.
And I know I’ve already mentioned this a couple of times, but when it came down to impeachment time for Nixon, a majority of the Republican members of the committee voted against all charges for impeachment. After there was already a recording available of Nixon committing the crime he was being charged with. Meaning, if Republicans had a majority, and the chairship, Nixon’s impeachment would likely have never even come up for a vote, and Nixon would have served out his full second term.
“What did the president know and when did he know it?” was uttered by a Republican senator, partisanship was not what it is now. And it was the public/media who rose to the occassion to hold their government officials accountable, not the opposing political party. Barry Goldwater himself urged the president to resign, which essentially cemented the decision in his mind. We all know Trump wouldn’t make that call.
I agree things are more polarized now, but the votes from the time reveal most Republicans lined up behind Nixon even after the facts were out and incontrovertible. So that really just means that Republicans would not have considered impeachment if they ran the show back then, and they’re even less likely to vote to impeach today.
From August 7, 1972, the day before he resigned:
“In the senate, John Powers, chairman of the Republican Policy Committee there, and in the past a strong Nixon supporter, said today that it was “his guess that the majority sentiment among Republican senators is that Nixon should resign.””
"Every member of the Judiciary Committee who voted for President Nixon last week has now reversed his position. As a group they feel particularly badly let down and have taken the lead in calling for the President’s resignation.
Nobody any longer argues that there is insufficient evidence to convict the President, and only a tiny hardcore appear to agree with him that the crime was not big enough to warrant impeachment. Out of 435 members of the House, Mr Nixon would be lucky if he could find even 35 to vote against impeachment"
but Goldwater? He was a Nixon competitor–a leader of the nascent conservative movement getting a chance to get a dig at America’s last arguably liberal President. Of course he called on Nixon to resign.
Goldwater’s chances at the presidency were killed in 1964, he was a party leader and highly respected nonetheless. What would he be competing for? From that same article:
“Mr Rhodes’s view usually reflects very closely that of Senator Barry Goldwater, the Republican kingmaker, who is again being pressed to lead a Republican delegation from Congress to call on the President to resign.”
“President Nixon is still trying to resist the growing crescendo of powerful voices calling for his resignation. He is displaying a masochistic determination to stay in office until the bitter end.”
Nixon was resisting on Aug 7, what happened between that resistance and his resignation the next day?
But I also agree Trump wouldn’t make that call under any imaginable circumstances either.
Well, at least that isn’t in dispute.