On this date 47 years ago, Richard Nixon quit the presidency in disgrace and flew away. My girlfriend and I marked the happy occasion by playing hooky from work and binging carb-heavy breakfasts at our favorite diner – secure in our belief that democracy was safe forever and that no future president would ever be as evil.

Ah yes, the naivete of youth.

Say what you will about Nixon – the Watergate coverup exposed his mendacity and his obsession with enemies, both real and imagined – but at least he never plotted a coup, put his own veep in mortal danger, incited goons to lay waste to the U.S. Capitol, or behaved like a Russian mole. Indeed, when it became irrevocably clear that Nixon had stressed our institutions to the max, he agreed to go. Voluntarily! With no blather about a monarchist restoration!

With the benefit of 47-year hindsight, and with the latest MAGA revelations fresh in mind, it’s fair to say – dare I say it – that Nixon may not have been so bad after all. Yes, I’m grading on a curve here. And yes, perhaps I’m letting Nixon off the hook a bit too easily, mindful of what a craven character in the film Chinatown said many years ago: “Politicians, ugly buildings and whores all get respectable if they last long enough.” But at least he leveraged his long public sector experience to do some productive governing, which is more than we can say about the failed casino owner.

Consider this quote: “(We need) a coordinated attack on the pollutants which debase the air we breathe. I think that 1970 will be known as the year of the beginning, in which we really began to move on the problems of clean air.” So said Nixon when he hailed and signed the bipartisan Clean Air Act, which created the Environmental Protection Agency.

And this quote: “(With this law) the old, the unemployed, the underprivileged, and the largely forgotten people of our Nation may seek help. Perhaps it is an eviction, a marital conflict, repossession of a car, or misunderstanding over a welfare check – each problem may have a legal solution. These are small claims in the nation’s eye, but they loom large in the hearts and lives of poor Americans.” So said Nixon when he signed the law that created federal legal aid for the poor.

He successfully persuaded Congress to outlaw sex discrimination, and signed the legislation that created Title IX – the provision that bans sex discrimination in “any educational program or activity” that receives federal money. His administration also expanded the enforcement of affirmative action in all government employment. In fact, historian Joan Hoff has pointed out that under Nixon’s early ’70s budgets, “spending on human resource services exceeded spending for defense for the first time since World War II.”

Shall I go on? Instead of supporting plots to suppress the vote, Nixon expanded the franchise by supporting the constitutional amendment that lowered the voting age to 18. Instead of trying to weaken NATO, he buttressed it. Instead of doing nothing on health care, he proposed one of the first sweeping reform plans – it would’ve required employers to buy private health coverage for their workers, with subsidies for employers that couldn’t afford insurance; it also proposed government health care aid for low-income people – and it failed in Congress because Democrats didn’t think it was good enough. But key Senate Democrat Edward Kennedy later said he regretted not supporting it.

One other thing: Much of what we know about the devastating impact of climate change is tracked each day by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. For that, we can thank Nixon as well. He signed the law creating NOAA in 1970, “for better protection of life and property from natural hazards…for a better understanding of the total environment.”

Wait, one more thing: Nixon would’ve endured jowl reduction surgery before he’d have ever shared secrets with the Russians -unlike the Oval Office occupant who blithely dished classified intelligence – in the Oval Office, no less – to a pair of Putin flunkies.

So I’ll spare a moment on Abdication Day to give Nixon due credit for stuff well done. Granted, in his final days he drank too much and talked to the White House paintings. But unlike the recent ignoramus, he at least knew who those people were.