If Nixon Had a Son

It would be the current occupant*

“He was the real thing — a political monster straight out of Grendel and a very dangerous enemy. He could shake your hand and stab you in the back at the same time. He lied to his friends and betrayed the trust of his family. Not even Gerald Ford, the unhappy ex-president who pardoned Nixon and kept him out of prison, was immune to the evil fallout. Ford, who believes strongly in Heaven and Hell, has told more than one of his celebrity golf partners that “I know I will go to hell, because I pardoned Richard Nixon.” — Hunter S. Thompson, Rolling Stone, June 16, 1994.

Somehow, everything today can still be traced back to Richard M. Nixon. Nixon, an unloved, resentful man, used every dirty trick going back to his days at Whittier College, per Rick Pearlstein’s Nixonland, where he formed a social club, the “Orthogonians,” the social strivers as opposed to the “Franklin’s,” the elites, because none of the other clubs or fraternities on campus would take him.

Nixon met and eventually married Patrica ‘Pat’ Ryan, in 1940. They had two daughters, Tricia and Julie. But…What if Nixon had a son?

A son, as resentful and paranoid as his ‘father,’ who, while not as socially awkward, still never quite fit in. A man who surpassed his status by lying and cheating, both in his business and personal lives and eventually political, as well.

A man who catered to the base emotions that have always been there, 48 years removed from his mentor-in-stoking resentment…