A constant theme in this election is that Donald Trump is unlike any presidential nominee who has come before. I’ll give you that he’s ruder and less informed. But he’s not quite as unorthodox as we think.

Michael Tomasky, a liberal commentator, has written a piece demanding that the media stands up to Trump (is that its job? Or is it to objectively moderate an election and report the facts? You tell me). In it he turns our attention to Trump’s remarks on Russia. Trump has said that a) Putin is a strong leader, b) he is stronger than Obama and that c) Trump can work with him. This scandalises Tomasky:

Russia is an adversary. Imagine Nixon having said in 1968 that Brezhnev was a much stronger leader than LBJ. It would have been thought of as verging on if not crossing over into outright treason.

Okay. Treason? Wow.

Thing is, Nixon did say something very much like that in 1968. In fact, on foreign policy Nixon sounded identical to Trump.

Poof? Nixon’s 1968 nomination acceptance speech. He told the GOP that America was in decline because her leaders “have failed”, that “military and economic and diplomatic power [has never] been used so ineffectively.” He said that America was disrespected:

For five years hardly a day has gone by when we haven't read or heard a report of the American flag being spit on; an embassy being stoned; a library being burned; or an ambassador being insulted some place in the world. And each incident reduced respect for the United States until the ultimate insult inevitably occurred.

Shades of Benghazi in there. But while Nixon advocated getting tough with opponents, he also said two things that are rather Trumpy. First, America's allies – such as Korea – must pull their weight: “I say the time has come for other nations in the Free World to bear their fair share of the burden of defending peace and freedom".