The third notable test of America’s democratic institutions was the authoritarian behavior of the Nixon administration. Despite his public gestures toward it in the 1950s, Nixon never fully embraced norms of mutual toleration. He viewed public opponents and the press as enemies, and he and his staff justified illicit activities with the claim that their domestic opponents—often depicted as anarchists and communists—posed a threat to the nation or the constitutional order. In ordering H. R. Haldeman to organize a break-in at the Brookings Institution in 1971 (an act that was never carried out),
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