@Cubs Fans and the @WorldSeries: Richard Nixon Would Have Understood.

What with spring training having started, and Opening Day barely a month away, this seems like an appropriate post.

I recently watched a panel discussion, “Nixon’s Grand Strategy,” organized by the Nixon Foundation.  Among the panelists were Richard Allen, Winston Lord, and Niall Ferguson.  The discussion was pretty depressing, given the contrast between the 37th president and our current president, not to mention some of the current president’s predecessors, but it is definitely worth watching.

After watching it, I clicked on another video, which included President Nixon’s remarks on leaving the White House on August 9, 1974.  I thought one thing he said would hit home with Cubs fans, whether they remember 1969¹, 1984², 2003³, or even the eighth inning⁴:

“[W]e think that when we lose an election, we think that when we suffer a defeat that all is ended. …

Not true.  It is only a beginning, always.  The young must know it; the old must know it.  It must always sustain us, because the greatness comes not when things go always good for you, but the greatness comes and you are really tested, when you take some knocks, some disappointments, when sadness comes, because only if you have been in the deepest valley can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.”⁵

As I said, Richard Nixon would have understood.
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¹ See, inter alia, here.
² See 1:51:45 in this video.
³ See 7:35 and 11:50 in this video.
⁴ See 1:50 in this video. 
⁵ This section starts at about 19:50 in the video.