With his legacy forever tarnished by Watergate, it’s easy to overlook just what a consequential president Richard Nixon really was. Nixon won re-election with one of the biggest landslides in US history. He pursued relations with China, detente with Russia (culminating in the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty), oversaw both the Equal Rights Amendment, created the Environmental Protection Agency, sponsored the Clean Air Act and the Endangered Species Act and implemented the 26th Amendment that lowered voting age to 18.
If he was a Democrat, he’d be remembered today as one of the greatest presidents. Roosevelt set up race-based concentration camps and stomped all over the two-term convention established by George Washington (‘No Kings’, they say?). Hell, the Kennedys could kill people and still get voted back in for decades.
But Nixon was a Republican, so naturally the left hated him with the fury of a thousand suns. In an echo of current ructions, when Nixon won his 1972 landslide, the left responding with a sustained campaign of violence that makes today look like a Sunday picnic. The leftist bombing campaign through the early ’70s saw thousands of bombs detonated across the US, from movie theatres to the Capitol. At its peak, two bombs a day were exploding.
So, it’s quite appropriate that the first official recognition of Donald Trump’s peace-making efforts should come from the Richard Nixon Foundation.
President Donald Trump accepted the Architect of Peace Award from the Richard Nixon Foundation during a closed ceremony at the White House on Tuesday morning.
Trump earned the award due to his central role in negotiating the current cease-fire deal between Hamas and Israel to end the unchecked war in Gaza that began when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct 7, 2023, CBS News reported.
Presenting the award were Nixon’s daughter, Tricia Nixon Cox, former national security adviser Robert O’Brien and Jim Byron, the acting archivist of the United States. The award, established in 1995, after Nixon’s death, is given to people who embody Nixon’s “lifelong goal of shaping a more peaceful world”. The award is not given annually, but rather at the discretion of the foundation, when its representatives decide one has been earned.
The award last year honored former President George W Bush, Farah Pahlavi and Reza Pahlavi.
Bush received the award for establishing the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which globally has saved millions of lives.
The Pahlavis received the award for championing a secular Iranian government, religious freedom and human rights, according to the Nixon Foundation.
Farah Pahlavi is Iran’s former queen, while Reza is her son.
So, will the Nobel Peace Prize be next? Trump’s achievements in Gaza came too late to be included in this year’s running. Instead, the award went to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado. Machado publicly thanked Trump as she accepted the award, for “the way he has supported democracy and freedom in the Americas”. Pakistani government representatives have already nominated Trump for the 2026 Prize.
The meltdowns will be epic.
