Based on your description the politician Vaughan seems more modeled after is not Nixon but Lyndon Johnson. What you describe is a perfect metaphor for his character, a well meaning leader that led the United States into an unwinnable disaster in Vietnam and kept it there long after this became clear.
Excellent, Mr. Kerstein!
Your Substack is superb.
Thanks!
Brilliant insight and great writing. Thanks.
Thanks!
Based on your description the politician Vaughan seems more modeled after is not Nixon but Lyndon Johnson. What you describe is a perfect metaphor for his character, a well meaning leader that led the United States into an unwinnable disaster in Vietnam and kept it there long after this became clear.
He's closer in the end to Johnson, but I've read that he was somewhat consciously based on Nixon. These were Hollywood liberals, remember.
You are right. But as you note in attempting to model Nixon villain, they instead reveal a tragic hero that more resembles Johnson.
I agree.