GOP’s downfall

Richard Nixon’s Watergate legacy of eroding innocence lives on all right! [“Watergate, 40 years later: a legacy of eroding innocence,” Opinion, June 18.] But it was just the bitter icing on the cake after Bobby Kennedy’s and Martin Luther King’s assassinations, the My Lai Massacre and more lies about the Vietnam debacle.

Since 1972, Nixon’s Republican Party has completely abandoned politics as the art of compromise.

Instead it has honed its practice of undermining civil discourse and will do whatever it takes to subvert what other fair-minded men and women in government try to accomplish.

The only thing the GOP is really good at now is protecting the interests of wealthy people and obstructionist behavior without any regard for the common good of all Americans.

It’s no wonder the electorate is so cynical.

— Steve Lequire, Des Moines