Watergate was an unforced error, to be sure, but he believed he had to know everything his adversaries were up to in order to be safe. Remember. Watergate was an attempt to bug the rat headquarters so he could find out what the democrats were plotting.
Sort of tragic in the dramatic sense that his very attempt at using his power to safeguard his campaign led to his downfall at the hands of the very people he feared.
The media is the highly visible puppet of the Deep State.
Don’t forget that the Deep State got Nixon the job as President, and they demand total obedience.
An amazing book on how it was done is Lisa Pease’s book published last year on the RFK assassination—”A Lie Too Big Too Fail”.
If you ignore her RFK hero worship and focus on the meat of the book it becomes clear that the CIA had RFK “removed from the board” to clear the path for Nixon, and controlled the coverup that followed (just like they did with JFK).
The CIA etal believed they “owned” Nixon, and controlled the media through Operation Mockingbird (which continues in some form to the present day).
Nixon was a guy who over-pledged the same collateral (political power) to multiple parties (Howard Hughes being one of them), and when they all came knocking on his door for payment the game was done!