Too young to vote, but the conservative commentary I heard on the radio back then pointed to Nixon’s signing off on EPA and OSHA.
Nixon maintained the big government LBJ built and suckered conservatives by attacking liberal media and saying ‘law and order’ in his speeches.
When I think of China’s belligerency in the South China Sea today and its power as a nation fed by the US and other countries, I’m not only reminded of what happened with Japan and Pearl Harbor, I’m reminded that Henry Kissinger (who won’t endorse Trump at this point) and Nixon started the process.
Nixon cut deal with Communists, said some were better than others when he visited Ceaucescu in Romania, a brutal dictator. Our foreign policy today in Libya and Syria is based on the same notion that some Jihadis are better than.
The EPA or something was needed in the 1970s. Pollution was killing us, literally.
I remember the Love Canal. I remember thick smog in LA. I remember Zug Island and Lake Erie catching on fire.
Capitalism was failing to regulate itself appropriately, in my opinion. Conservatism means conserving our nation including the natural aspects of it, within reason.