Watergate Babies

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The term Watergate Babies is a political slogan , originating in the 1970s in the United States , the leaders of the Democratic Party referred to that in 1974, during the aftermath of the first Watergate scandal , in a public office were elected.

background

In August 1974, the then US President Richard Nixon was forced to resign as the only president to date in the wake of the Watergate affair . Nixon thus avoided impeachment proceedings that had already been initiated in Congress . He was followed by Vice President Gerald Ford in the White House . The Watergate affair, in the course of which grave abuses of power by Nixon were uncovered, led to a massive loss of confidence among the American people in the government and politicians in Washington . This distrust was compounded by other factors such as the aftermath of the Vietnam War and the exposure of illegal activities by US intelligence agencies in previous years. The reputation of the Republican Party , to which Nixon and his successor Ford belonged, also suffered from the consequences of the Watergate affair . The new President Gerald Ford was still very popular in opinion polls after taking office on August 9, 1974 and enjoyed a "leap of faith" from the population. However, when he issued an amnesty for Nixon in early September 1974 , his public reputation fell rapidly. Within a week, according to surveys, his approval ratings fell from 71 to 50 percent.

A few months after Nixon's resignation, in November 1974, there were regular midterm elections , which are always held exactly between two presidential elections. All 435 members of the House of Representatives and 33 of the 100 members of the US Senate were newly elected . Elections to the governors and parliaments of the states were also held in around two-thirds of the states . Although losses by the President's party in midterm elections are not uncommon in American history , the Democrats made massive gains in the November 5, 1974 election. They increased their majorities in both chambers of Congress: in the Senate they won four additional seats, which increased the democratic majority from 56 to 60 of the 100 members. In the House of Representatives, the Democrats were able to win 49 more seats and thus a close two-thirds majority . Of the 435 MPs, 291 were members of the Democratic Party. Constituencies, which in recent years have always been held safely by Republicans, also went to the Democrats, who also won a majority of the gubernatorial elections. Attempts by many Republican candidates to distance themselves clearly from Nixon and Watergate also had little effect. Political science speaks here of a wave election .

As a result of these elections, the American media and the public quickly coined the term Watergate Babies for those politicians who won a seat in Congress or a governorship for the first time. So the political catchphrase was intended to express that the election of these Democrats was primarily a result of the aftermath of the Watergate affair. It was not so much their personality or political positions that played a role in the voting decision, but rather the efforts of many voters to defeat the Republicans. The name Watergate Babies, however, only refers to first-time Democratic Party politicians elected that year and not those who were re-elected.

Effects of the 1974 elections

At the federal level, a legislative struggle ensued when the newly elected Congress was constituted in January 1975 : President Ford's vetoes were rejected with the required two-thirds majority in the two chambers of congress. The parliamentarians also refused further financial aid for the US ally South Vietnam . Opposition to this was particularly strong among the newly elected Democrats, the Watergate Babies. The Republican Ford government therefore blamed the Democrats in Congress for the collapse of the South Vietnamese regime and the victory of the Communists in April 1975. Domestically, the Democrats were able to push through more left-wing liberal projects.

Prominent examples

Numerous Democrats, who were first elected in 1974, developed into prominent political figures in the United States in the years and decades that followed. They include, among others:

  • Patrick Leahy , first elected to the US Senate in 1974, where he has represented the State of Vermont from 1975 until today . From 2012 to 2015 he was also President of the Senate pro tempore .
  • Tom Harkin , first elected to the House of Representatives in 1974. He represented Iowa in the Senate from 1985 to 2015 .
  • Thomas Downey , first elected to the House of Representatives in 1974, of which he was a member until 1993. At 25 he was the youngest politician in the Watergate Babies.
  • Jerry Brown , first elected Governor of California in 1974. He held this office from 1975 to 1983 and again from 2011 to 2019.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Google Ngram Viewer: Watergate babies (1965-2000)
  2. ^ John Robert Greene: The presidency of Gerald R. Ford . University of Lawrence: Press of Kansas, 1995, ISBN 0-7006-0639-4 , ISBN 0-7006-0638-6 , p. 53
  3. ↑ a b 1974 Midterms Bolster Liberalism in Congress Infotext of Ashbrook University (English)
  4. ^ John Robert Greene: The presidency of Gerald R. Ford . University of Lawrence: Press of Kansas, 1995, ISBN 0-7006-0639-4 , ISBN 0-7006-0638-6 , pp. 54 ff.
  5. ↑ Christof Mauch: The American Presidents . CH Beck Munich, ISBN 978-3-406-58742-9 , p. 384 ff.
  6. ↑ A '70s flashback at Capitol in Times Union