“So, you like politics, eh? Eh? Well, have all the politics in the world…”

Over the last 48 hours, The Avocado has turned into one giant political roundtable. It has gone from a subject some members like to avoid to one that everyone wants to talk about. Since I’m going to assume this trend will last forever, I must adapt with the times, doing a header on the least controversial political figure of all time: Richard Nixon. And hey, he’s a Watchmen and Futurama character. Superman has even worked for him. So he’s fair game as a pop culture figure.

As you have no doubt heard in one of the 10,000 television documentaries about JFK, Richard Nixon’s 1960 presidential run against him didn’t end well (for Nixon, that is; it ended pretty well for Kennedy, at least until some stuff happened). A common claim Nixon would supposedly make was that Kennedy’s good looks gave him an unfair advantage over him, but the truth of the matter was he was a very easy politician to make fun of. Obviously, he would run again in 1968 (which did end pretty well for him, at least until some stuff happened), leading to a chain of events resulting in the greatest campaign slogan of all time. Kind of.

Yes, this is real. When I first stumbled across this, I assumed it was a joke. And yeah, it was, but you know, “words change” and all that, but it was still using a crass remark to his advantage. You see, “lick their Dick” was a phrase Nixon’s opponents used against him in 1968, with “lick” being slang for “defeat” or “beat up” among other similar meanings. By the time Nixon ran for reelection in 1972 and did nothing illegal whatsoever while doing so, his supporters decided to take ownership over the insult.

And so “they can’t lick our Dick” became a piece of American history, although how much the campaign actually used it is hard to determine. It’s even disputed what year the phrase specifically emerged. Heck, most if not all of the buttons and posters produced with the saying may not have been part of the “official” campaign but at the same time were absolutely used. And that’s good enough for me. Because I’m immature.

Have the power tonight, y’all! Be safe, be well, be you!