What I think of as the 'Nixonpill' is what my mother once explained to me as the moment when the truth about Watergate came out and how it changed everything for many of her generation. It was a single truth getting revealed that shattered many of their beliefs and woke many in her generation up to the truth that the government was full of criminals.
They had been raised to believe and trust their government, that it would never lie to them and would always have the people's interests at the front in everything it did.
It was the sudden, shocking realization of, "Wait, the government lies? The government lied to us? They lied to me?"
It changed their view of the government from being an entity that worked diligently for the people to seeing it for what it was. Not only did they discover that the government did not have the people's best interests in mind, they realized that they were just a bunch of criminals who regularly lied to the people for their own gain and who regularly committed crimes and all helped each other cover them up, etc.
Interesting perspective, thanks.
You're welcome. I'm interested in other Nixonpill descriptions, but that is what comes to mind for me in regards to Nixon. She also noted the 1960 U-2 'incident' with Gary Powers and the spy plane over Russia when the truth about it 'came out'.
"Wait a second, you mean the government lied when they said that our plane just drifted into their airspace accidentally and that they were actually running illegal spying observations in their airspace for a long time and just got caught this time?"
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