Republicans have every reason to be nervous about November. But after spending the past two days at the Nixon Foundation’s Grand Strategy Summit, I regained some hope. Our 37th president reminds us that Republicans not only have the power to win elections, but to beat the left decisively, as long as we understand what made Richard Nixon so popular in the first place.
Now, “Nixon” and “popular” don’t really go hand in hand in the public imagination. But Nixon is having a new moment online. A generation that was previously taught that there is nothing more to Nixon than Vietnam and Watergate is taking a second look.
At the summit, Rep. Riley Moore (R-WV) pointed to a part of Nixon’s story that helps explain why. Long before the White House, Nixon earned a scholarship to attend Harvard, but his family needed him at home. His older brother Harold was sick with tuberculosis, and the family grocery business was suffering. Nixon decided to stay in California, attend Whittier College, pick up produce in the early morning, and help keep the family business running. He put his family before Harvard.
As Moore put it, duty begins with the people closest to you. “You have to take care of things at home first.”
That instinct would become central to Nixon’s politics. Moore added, “Nixon was first and foremost a fighter for the American people.”
And the people rewarded him for it.
Nixon won 49 states in 1972 with the largest share of the popular vote ever won by a Republican presidential candidate. He did so by building an extremely popular majority coalition united by principles that sound familiar to conservatives today: anti-communism, foreign policy realism, strong economic growth, and a commitment to draining the Washington swamp. But unfortunately, conservatives have largely forgotten one of the foundational pillars of Nixon’s legacy: the environment.
In his 1970 State of the Union address, two years before his landslide 49-state victory, he called the environment “the defining issue of the new decade.”
That year, he created the Environmental Protection Agency, signed the Clean Air Act and the National Environmental Policy Act, created the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and launched the Legacy of Parks program, which converted more than 80,000 acres of federal property into 642 new parks. He also signed the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. While subsequent administrations certainly abused these laws, at root, they were designed to deliver clean air, clean water, and a strong environment.
And they did. Today’s cars are 98% cleaner than they were in the 1960s. The Clean Air Act alone prevented more than 200,000 premature deaths in its first 20 years. The ESA helped save 99% of listed species from extinction.
Nixon did not do all of this because he was a liberal but because, as a conservative, he wanted the government to serve the people. Then, like now, Americans want clean air, clean water, and a healthy environment, without sacrificing economic and energy dominance.
That’s what Nixon delivered. On top of his environmental achievements, he launched Project Independence to achieve energy independence. Where left-wing environmentalists treat energy as the enemy, Nixon understood that energy production, done right, is cleaner than the alternatives and essential to national strength.
Republicans have done best when they imitate this Nixonian drive for the best of both worlds. On that front, President Donald Trump has some genuine wins.
The Trump administration’s deregulation of nuclear energy will create a cleaner, more reliable grid. The private sector’s unprecedented buildout of solar energy is putting that technology on track to become the world’s largest power source by 2035. And the EPA’s new study screening drinking water for over 1,400 contaminants, including PFAS and mifepristone, represents exactly the kind of targeted, science-driven protection Nixon championed.
But it hasn’t just been wins. The EPA has proposed rescinding drinking water standards for four PFAS “forever chemicals” and delaying enforcement on two others, leaving millions of people exposed to contaminants linked to cancer, immune disorders, and developmental harm. The administration also moved to protect glyphosate in court, even as MAHA voters reading ingredient labels and filtering their tap water are watching closely. These are precisely the voters Republicans can’t afford to lose.
I VOTED FOR TRUMP AND RFK JR. TO CLEAN UP OUR FOOD. THIS FDA NOMINEE THREATENS THAT PROMISE
Most voters aren’t pro- or anti-regulation. They care about solving real problems the most effective way possible, whether it’s flammable rivers and dangerous air in the 1970s or contaminated water and pesticide reliance today.
Republicans who want sustained majorities cannot afford to cede the environment entirely to the Left. Rather, Nixon showed that when the GOP takes the lead, preserving natural spaces and protecting public health, voters reward the party handsomely.
Clare Ath is the co-Founder and president of Vita et Terra, a conservative Catholic environmental nonprofit organization that champions care for creation.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
