Note to mods; sorry no idea where to put this, so settled on Great Debates
“Nixon going to China” events, are described (by moi) as events when a politician known for opposition to one idea, becomes its champion or helps pass it through. Such as the anti-communist Nixon going to China in the 70’s.
Some example of the top of my head
The Irish Protestant Duke of Wellington agreeing to Catholic Empancipation
Some of these are just good examples of realpolitik. I think that if you filter out all the abuses of power, personal moral failings, foolish extension of the war in Vietnam (;)) Nixon exemplified one thing that genuinely is seen in most good leaders: the ability to pursue something that is in his state’s best interests even if it conflicts with his personal ethos.
Hey I have always rated Nixon highly for that exact reason, but politics is politics, going againts your own ethos and your political base (to use Karl Roves terminology) is something that too few politicians do.
Not that it hasn’t been implied, but it bears expounding that the key to the Nixon-in-China model is that your pre-existing hard-line credentials shield you from criticism from your hard-line base.
Your simple error aside, I don’t think this is a good example. Sadat was an apparent moderate, rather than a hard-line anti-Israel Islamist, who did something liberal and faced a fatal backlash from the base.
Likewise Gorbachev was a moderate whose liberal agenda realized the hard-liners’ worst nightmare.
I don’t think Earl Grey is a good example, because he was a Whig throughout his career, starting out in Parliament at the age of 22 as one of Charles Fox’s circle, and noted for favouring parliamentary reform. (See the wiki on Earl Grey.)
Since he never changed his views dramatically on this issue, I don’t think he qualifies.
Perhaps it’s useful to frame it in terms of that old Vulcan proverb, “Only Nixon could go to China”, with the implication that the idea was controversial enough that if anyone without such anti-X credentials made a serious proposal that could be interpreted as favoring X, the massive backlash would have made the initiative impossible to begin with.
Actually, I think that might be pretty rare–both in terms of historical circumstances and the kind of leader having the courage to take history by the reins that way.
One anectode does come to mind: the signers of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921. Supposedly, right after he signed, Lord Birkenhead turned to Michael Collins and said, “I may have signed my political death-warrant.” Collins reportedly gazed back at Birkenhead and replied, “I may have signed my actual death-warrant.”
But, even so, I don’t think it qualifies. Nixon wasn’t famous for saying, “We can work with Communist China” throughout his career, and then going to China. He was a strong anti-Communist throughout, which is what gave him credibility with the right in going to China.
Grey throughout his career pushed for parliamentary reform. It’s not like he opposed the idea, and then came out in favour of it, which is what the “Nixon to China” meme is about.
The “Political death warrant” comment upthread applies here as well. [thread=503294]Self-cite[/thread].
I don’t know what LBJ’s previous political record on Civil Rights was, and I shudder to think what his personal history was, but he knew he was surrendering the South to the opposition party for a generation or three, and he signed the bills anyway.
Agreed. Johnson was surprisingly progressive (at least as far as Southern Democrats of that era) on civil rights. But I’d argue that his Texas wheeler-dealer opportunist personna gave him the same sort of street cred on Civil Rights issues that Nixon had on anti-Communist issues.