Thread by @MarkJacob16

A 50-YEAR TIMELINE OF REPUBLICAN SLEAZE
1972: Republicans burglarize Dem HQ at Watergate.
1973: Republican VP Spiro Agnew resigns after taking kickbacks as MD gov.
1974: Nixon resigns, gets pardon from successor Gerald Ford.
1975: Former AG John Mitchell convicted of felonies.

1976: GOP candidate Ronald Reagan pushes “welfare queen” myth to demonize the poor. Also, Ag Secretary Earl Butz resigns after saying: “I’ll tell you what the coloreds want. It’s three things: first, a tight pussy; second, loose shoes; and third, a warm place to shit.”

1977: Nixon says presidents are above the law: “When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.”
1978: Before election to House, Newt Gingrich tells collegians: “One of the great problems we have in the Republican Party is that we don’t encourage you to be nasty”

1979: Donald Trump meets dirty trickster Roger Stone for first time. They’ll do business together.
1980: Jimmy Carter’s debate briefing books are stolen from White House and end up in the hands of the Reagan campaign. Reagan wins election.

1981: GOP strategist Lee Atwater explains “Southern Strategy” to exploit racism, saying you can no longer use n-word “so you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights."
1982: It’s revealed that ex-Rep. John Schmitz, R-CA, fathered 2 sons in affair and didn't pay child support.

1983: Interior Secretary James Watt resigns after mocking affirmative action by saying a panel has “a black, a woman, two Jews and a cripple.”
1984: Sen. Mark Hatfield, R-OR, faces scandal after his wife takes $55,000 from a Greek arms dealer seeking Hatfield’s help in Congress.

1985: Reagan administration secretly funds Nicaragua’s Contra rebels despite Congress' ban.
1986: Reagan denies selling arms to enemy Iran in exchange for hostages (and $$ for Contras).
1987: Reagan admits selling arms to enemy Iran in exchange for hostages (and $$ for Contras).

1988: George H.W. Bush wins presidency after using race-baiting Willie Horton ad and insisting he was “out of the loop” on Iran-Contra. (In fact, his diary said “I’m one of the few people that know fully the details.”)
1989: Federal debt soars in Reagan era, tripling in 1980-89.

1990: Gingrich’s PAC lists words to describe Democrats, including sick, pathetic, traitors, welfare, corrupt, cheat and steal.
1991: David Duke, former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, runs for Louisiana governor as a Republican and loses in a runoff, attracting 671,009 votes.

1992: Bush pardons Republicans in Iran-Contra.
1993: Haley Barbour named GOP chair 11 years after his losing MS Senate race in which a Barbour aide complained about “coons” and Barbour told the aide if he kept saying racist things he would be reincarnated as a watermelon.

1994: After a S. Carolina mom kills 2 sons, Gingrich says it shows “how sick the society is getting and how much we need to change things. The only way you get change is to vote Republican.”
1995: Sen. Robert Packwood, R-OR, resigns after dozen-plus women allege sex misconduct.

1996: Bob Dole campaign accused of whisper campaign against rival Steve Forbes, citing "homoerotic art.” In fact, the Forbes family yacht has a Robert Mapplethorpe print, but it’s a seascape, not homoerotic.
1997: Gingrich, now House Speaker, gets ethics reprimand, pays $300,000

1998: Rep. Henry Hyde, R-IL, who pushed for Bill Clinton’s impeachment over the Lewinsky scandal, is outed over his own marital infidelity decades earlier. Hyde calls it “a youthful indiscretion” even though he was 41 at the time.

1999: GOP Senate nominee Christine O’Donnell of Delaware says: ''I dabbled into witchcraft. … One of my first dates with a witch was on a satanic altar. ... We went to a movie and then had a midnight picnic on a satanic altar.'' (This really happened. You can look it up.)

2000: George W. Bush loses popular vote but wins when Roger Stone injects chaos into FL vote count and high court blocks full recount, with GOP hero Antonin Scalia writing opinion.
2001: After 9/11 attacks, Bush green-lights warrantless eavesdropping on citizens’ domestic calls

2002: WaPo reveals Bush got briefing before 9/11 that was headlined “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” and mentioned hijacking threat. This comes after FBI's Robert Mueller, a Republican, said “there were no warning signs.”
2003: Bush lies to get U.S. into war with Iraq.

2004: VP Dick Cheney, representing the family values party, tells Sen. Patrick Leahy on the Senator floor: “Go fuck yourself.”
2005: House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-TX, indicted for money laundering.
2006: Rep. Mark Foley, R-FL, resigns in sex scandal involving pages.

2007: Bush leads U.S. into Great Recession.
2008: National debt skyrockets under Bush, nearly doubling from 2001 to 2008.
2009: “We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush’s term,” says former Bush Press Secretary Dana Perino, forgetting 9/11.

2010: Reagan-appointed judge Jack Tarpley Camp Jr. resigns after he’s caught supplying cocaine to a stripper.
2011: ''Corporations are people, my friend,” says Mitt Romney.
2012: Romney is caught on tape saying 47% of voters are “dependent upon government.”

2013: NJ Gov. Christie’s office orders lane closures at the Geo Washington Bridge, causing backups in apparent retribution against Fort Lee mayor for not backing Christie.
2014: House ex-Speaker Dennis Hastert lies to FBI, leading to scandal over long-ago sex abuse of boys.

2015: Trump calls Mexicans rapists, and that makes him more popular in GOP.
2016: Trump wins presidency despite tape in which he brags about sexual assault.
2017: National Security Adviser Michael Flynn lies to FBI about secret talks with Russia, resigns.

2018: Trump regime orders migrant children separated from parents, then loses track of parents. Also, Trump refers to Haiti and African nations as “shithole countries.”
2019: AG William Barr lies about findings of Mueller Report to cover up for Trump.

2020: Trump impeached for attempted extortion of Ukraine to smear rival, but GOP senators block conviction.
2021: Republicans incite deadly insurrection at U.S. Capitol. Trump impeached 2nd time, but GOP senators block conviction. They also block probe into Capitol attack.

NOTE: I know Democrats have done scandalous things as well, especially in the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s. My point is that the Republican Party has been a sleazy, racist organized crime syndicate for decades. They endanger our democracy.