Richard Nixon “is having a moment” among MAGA supporters, as young conservatives seek to cast the disgraced former president as a victim and repair his reputation. But according to Nixon biographer Lee Huebner, there is “a fundamental difference between the two men” — one that MAGA is unlikely to appreciate: Nixon’s respect for democratic processes.

Huebner argues that the 37th president’s “politics of resentment and his pugilistic style clearly appeal to the populist right,” and “his antiestablishment sensibility is shared by President Donald Trump,” a longtime admirer of Nixon. Writing Monday in the Washington Post, Huebner noted that the attempts to vindicate Nixon reach the top of MAGA. Perhaps the most blatant example came from Vice President JD Vance, who said in June: “If Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story. The idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy.”

Yet according to Huebner, the real lesson Trump supporters should take from Nixon is not his willingness to break the law, but his surprising devotion to upholding the Constitution.

“One of the most troubling aspects of Trump-driven MAGA politics denies election results and works to undermine confidence in America’s electoral system,” Huebner writes. “And it likes to blame an amorphous, villainous ‘deep state’ for the nation’s political problems. Nixon, by contrast, battled against such impulses even though on one notable occasion doing so cost him a chance at the presidency, and on another cost him the presidency itself.”

Huebner points to former President Bill Clinton’s call to remember Nixon “in totality,” delivered when Clinton spoke at Nixon’s funeral and reminded mourners that Nixon’s life extended beyond Watergate. “As serious as his mistakes surely were, and as Clinton also implied, a great deal can be learned” from Nixon’s other actions, Huebner writes.

In the era of Trump, he argues, “the element of his totality that may be most beneficial to appreciate right now involves two moments when Nixon refused to join Republicans who were urging him to deny election results and defy court rulings. His refusals bookended his career in presidential politics.” That distinction matters now because questions about election legitimacy and compliance with judicial rulings remain central to contemporary Republican politics, and Huebner uses Nixon’s record to contrast those pressures with an older norm of institutional restraint.

The first such reckoning came in the 1960 presidential election, when Nixon, then vice president, finished in a virtual tie with his Democratic rival, Sen. John F. Kennedy. Kennedy prevailed by a 118,000-vote margin out of 68 million votes cast, with his success resting on extremely narrow margins in two key states, Illinois and Texas, both of which had a history of dubious vote counting.

“A broad chorus of his supporters urged him to contest the result, but Nixon quickly conceded, reportedly telling a friend, ‘Our country cannot afford the agony of a constitutional crisis,’” Huebner explains. “He may have agreed privately that he had won enough votes to elect him, but he discouraged Republican officials who began investigating the results and publicly emphasized his support for an orderly transition of power.”

Then, 13 years later, as his political career collapsed under Watergate, “Nixon again demonstrated his commitment to constitutional order,” Huebner writes. When the Supreme Court on July 24, 1974, denied the president the use of executive privilege to protect Oval Office tape recordings — including the “smoking gun” tape that did him in — Nixon did not hide the tape, or destroy it, as many had urged him to do.

“Nixon immediately decided not only to accept the decision but also to announce publicly that he was doing so,” Huebner writes. With impeachment pressure mounting, Nixon resigned within two weeks.

Huebner concludes that MAGA should take a hard look at itself. “Respect for democratic processes — specifically, election results and court rulings — is not in vogue today in some Washington circles, even among those who purport to admire Nixon. But such respect, especially when the chips were down, was a key part of Richard Nixon’s totality.”