What is the relevance today of the Watergate Scandal?

Answer 1

It is having very little effect now.

In the wake of Watergate came campaign fiance reforms that drastically reduced the power of big donors. However, money never sleeps and the investor class through their Congressional representatives and a conservative Court have repealed and/or overturned all of the Watergate reforms.

The Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 50 (2010) Supreme Court decision returned us to a system with no meaningful limits on money in politics and allows Political Action Committees to raise unlimited funds that get spent in the closing weeks to buy negative TV ads against candidates without equal resources. The result since the Supreme Court ruling is a congress unduly influenced by big money interests, mainly banks but other special interests as well.

Currently, there is a drastic difference in the way the two parties raise money. One side raises most of it's money through large numbers of small donations. The other raise most of it's money through a small number of very large donations.

We have returned to the system of unlimited, secret donations that were caused such a public outrage when uncovered by the Watergate investigations.

Now, the populace is not displaying any such outrage.

Answer 2

The Watergate Scandal reduced the trust that the average American in the US government. That feeling has transferred to the present time.

Answer 3

The Watergate Scandal did affect the United State in a negative way. It made the Americans cynical towards the politicians, politics and the government.