“[The Emperor] was a politician. Richard M. Nixon was his name. He subverted the senate and finally took over and became an imperial guy and he was really evil. But he pretended to be a really nice guy.” - George Lucas

So I know Lucas was inspired by Nixon when creating Palpatine, but wasn’t Palpatine charming, patient, and collected? Even in his public image Nixon was notorious for dirty tricks and was also very paranoid while Palpatine was none of this if anything Palpatine reminds me more of LBJ’s public image but aside from the hairline and corruption I don’t see parallels between Nixon’s behavior and Palpatine. Even in the OT, Palpatine is openly a dictator while Nixon wasn’t really a dictator