This article discusses how Republicans frequently compare various controversies, both real and imagined, to the Watergate scandal, highlighting the overused and often inaccurate nature of this comparison. It points out how the term has lost its impact due to overuse, particularly in the context of political attacks.
Barack Obama’s presidency was remarkably scandal-free, although during the Democrat’s tenure, Republicans routinely tried to argue that they’d uncovered a Watergate -level scandal involving him and his White House.
Benghazi, Americans were told, was “worse than Watergate.” A discredited IRS controversy carried “echoes of Watergate.” A job offer for former Democratic Rep. Joe Sestak was characterized as “Obama’s Watergate.” The “Fast and Furious” story was also poised to be “Obama’s Watergate.” The Solyndra story, which I only sort of remember, made “Watergate look like child’s play.” NSA surveillance was one of “Obama’s Watergates.” The Affordable Care Act itself was worse than Watergate. Donald Trump, however, created a related list of his own. Uranium One, he said, was on par with Watergate. So was the nonexistent wiretapping of Trump Tower. An investigation into Obama’s birth certificate, Trump wrote, “could dwarf Watergate.” Alas, we can keep going. The Justice Department’s investigation into Trump’s 2016 campaign was “bigger than Watergate.” An imaginary FBI “informant” in his political operation was “bigger than Watergate!” Trump even falsely accused Joe Biden of illegally accepting money from China, which he said was “100 times bigger than Watergate.” The president’s allies have stuck to a similar script. When former special counsel John Durham’s boring report reached the public in 2022, then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said the revelations went “further than Watergate.” So stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri told reporters this week that something called “Arctic Frost” is “100 times worse than Watergate.” For the record, “Arctic Frost” isn’t an actual scandal. It’s a pseudo-controversy, hyped by the GOP and conservative media outlets, based on the misguided idea that the Biden-era FBI was caught “spying” on members of Congress and “tapping” their phones as part of the investigation into Republican efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Almost immediately after the story broke, it started unraveling into nothing, but that hasn’t stopped assorted partisans on the right from telling Americans that the largely meaningless “scandal” is “worse than Watergate.” For the love of all that is good in the world, GOP officials really need to come up with a new historical touchstone as a point of comparison. You’ve heard of the boy who cried “wolf”? Over the past decade or so, Republicans have become the party that cried “Watergate.”
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