Nixon took the Republicans down with him when he resigned in discrace following the Watergate scandal. This is the only reason Carter was elected. The country thought that an apparently honest, good-ol boy from the South would cleanse the Republic's honor. Little did the country know that Carter was actually a naive, inept, Leftist fool (which, by the way, he still is).
I well remember the state the Western world was in before The Great Ronald Reagan got things as they should be.