In retrospect, we can see that by acquiescing in the ouster of Nixon after the previous landslide, those who voted for him had lost their chance to moderate the pace of that change. With the impeachment of Nixon, promoters of the Great Society had bought the time necessary to defend it against “backlash,” as democratic opposition to social change was coming to be called. In the near-decade that elapsed between Nixon and Reagan, entire subpopulations had become dependent on the Great Society. Those programs were now too big to fail.
