My History Can Beat Up Your Politics

4 years ago we said this... Call 2022 the Mick Jagger midterm - neither party got fully what they wanted. Both parties experienced win and losses. It is, so far, largely a "stave midterm" where the President's party lost less seats than expected - we've discussed a few of these on this podcast, and thus for the party expected to have lost seats a kind of win. Yet in this case as opposed to other 'stave' midterms, the President's Party looks like they will lose the house. So when is a win a win and a loss a loss? Is this...

A normal midterm with its usual issues between the parties becomes a test for a new President when a labor strike unexpectedly reaches his desk. The opposition party gains, but so does his.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nixon's first presidential midterm election (the election in which the House and Senate would be up for election) would turn out to be his last, but no one knew it at the time. Nixon tried something Presidents hadn't tried and took off in Air Force One to boost GOP candidates and attack hippie "thugs" across the country. He hoped to reverse the midterm trend. He did not, and he blamed bad audio and unhelpful political science. He may have done better than he thought.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Grover Cleveland, Woodrow Wilson and William McKinley's midterm elections are not remembered. But each one changed history in its own way. One confined a President, the other changed a party. And the third may have cemented America's place in the world.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the run up to the Civil War, former first lady Julia Tyler participated in a political debate. Moderns will appreciate her participation in politics as an empowered well written woman. Her cause less so.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The midterm election that didn't. In 2002, With national security on the minds of voters and a poor message in opposition, the President's party gained seats in the House for the first time in a first-term Congressional election since FDR's time. George W. Bush's GOP also gained back the Senate.

But it's hard election to analyze. We'll try, with a little help from a former President.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It had a short history, but within the time of the Civil War, the Confederate States had two Congressional elections. The second in 1863 (and 1864 in some states) should be seen as a midterm, and like those in the Northern states, it didn't go well for the party in power, that being the increasingly unpopular government of Jefferson Davis.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hoover did a difficult thing. He beat back challenges and his party won control. Until a string of congressional deaths changed the picture.

The 72nd Congress of 1931 was, as elected, a very narrow Republican , House 218 R - 217 D. Close, but for President Hoover, good enough. That is until, 14 Congressmen-elect died.

Not all at once -- that would be weird -- it was over 13 months, for all kinds of reasons but heart attacks and pneumonias leading the list. When special elections were held, it went 218 D and 216 R.

1 Farm Laborer supported the Democrats so...

Strange, introspective, radical, achieving, protesting, scoffing. These words could all be used in TIME magazine's Men and Women of The Year to describe late Silents and Boomers. We look at this, and then a 90s Atlanta Constitutional article on Generation X.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's oft said that Washington refused a crown. With Richard Lim of This American President, we get real about this topic.

His book Refusing a Crown is the first book to place Washington’s decisions within the sweeping Western shift from monarchy to republic, showing why that transition was anything but inevitable. Drawing on the Judeo-Christian moral tradition and the political inheritance from Great Britain, Refusing a Crown reveals how early Americans sought to build a republic strong enough to govern real people—not an idealized political fantasy.

At a time when Americans once again argue a...

In our final episode, we look at a few historic media that truly sought to tell readers not just the news, but what the news was. From Bennett to Drudge, we look at these innovators. And we talk about today's media innovation. All of us, and our politicians as media.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A talk with Listener Jerry Spencer about Coxey's Army, which marched to DC during a depression in the 1890's. And also about how Hearst and Pulitzer's papers fueled the story.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the past 100 years, over 80% of the first term midterms went badly for Presidents, and their party lost seats.  But in a few cases they did not. And a few times when they did, the result was very little real change or even a kind of win. A look at first term midterms during the Presidencies of Chester Arthur, Harding, FDR, GW Bush, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. 

A combo of new and previously recorded MHCBUYP episodes reveals that while many first term midterms have devastated the President's plans, Presidents don't always do badly, there...

We've talked about who owns media, who writes it. Now will talk about the debates about what is in it? This episode is about bias in the news media.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"To the victor goes the spoils" True of government jobs after a 19th century election. Also true of newspapers. Much of the spoils system perfected during Jackson's time helped newspaper publishers get ads, printing and postmaster jobs.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First rule is: Nobody talks about Giggle Club. Second. When he says no pencils, it's no pencils. Third. Get a buddy. Fourth. Don't take it so seriously, my good man. FDR's Press relationship on this episode, and Wilson before him.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Press has power. Can it be too much? Or is it needed to offset governmental power? We look at some interesting, powerful, and at times problematic press people. The renegade Grant critic Don Piatt, the FDR basher McCormick, Seward's pain and Lincoln's booster Medill, and the man who ran for President, Horace Greeley.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

TV technology arrives on the scene half press and half novelty. Politicians learn they can bring messages on at times that won't be critiqued. Yet twice, in big historic moments, the TV industry realizes it has to stop simply covering and speak for itself. These moments rare but pack a punch. Also, Kennedy, LBJ and their relationship with television and magazines. Mutual dependence and communications. Favors and frustration.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Battle of Chancellorsville. The Union has got the Confederates in their sights. But not for long. All the while, a reporter named Whitelaw Reid is tracking events. He's been kicked out of the coverage pool by the Union Army but that won't stop him. He rents a boat. And his readers love him for it.

He won't hold back his opinions, especially about President Lincoln. Not because he's against the cause, because Reid is very much for it. Reid does not truck this idea of being objective. His readers love him for that...

Eisenhower gets irritated. Lincoln finds a friend. Theodore Roosevelt seeks the truth at lunch. Madison sees talent. Greeley won't miss his dinner, despite the riots.

And a man has a simple plan. He'll make a newspaper that won't dirty your table.

Part One of Our Mediated Republic: a series on media in America and its role in creating political power.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It went by fast! Show update. We've reached a milestone. And a few things you can do if you are interested.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Does Protest work? Maybe, with other steps & factors. Looking at the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Freedom Summer, Mothers of the Disappeared and the American Revolution, we look at change, from despair to anger to moderation. These stories are used to answer the question – What does political change take? What numbers does it take? How do you know when it’s happening? 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A now forgotten incident about an attempt to have a second hostage crisis during the Carter administration, only narrowly averted by heroic of the embassy staff.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Stories of Presidential inflation fighting and fund-raising that seem to have a similar ring to today's events, in this episode. Nixon's plans to cut housing costs by reducing prices on the key element of housing inspires timber companies but riles environmentalist.

Johnson uses his air fleet to shuttle the right people around to get the price of electrical wiring down.

Eisenhower, Reagan, Hoover and Clinton raise the gas tax.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The history behind a rebellion against a state of the new United States, why it happened, its impact on our Constitution, and what it means today. From a 2014 cast, but it's been a while. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It comes down to milk and cherries? Plans change when a nation's hero falls, and historians go to work, reinterpreting the events of 1850.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

They thought he was an illiterate frontier colonel. They thought he'd never use the veto. Never comment on issues. Let Congress do the heavy lifting. But he has a plan.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A new President comes to Washington. No one knows what to expect.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A.B. Farquhar would go on to be an advisor to President Cleveland and run his successful non consecutive re election campaign.

But prior to that, he was part of a plan to sell out to Confederate army before they reached York and possibly destroy it. For this he'd get some infamy, until Abraham Lincoln stepped in.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nixon's long buried memo reveals a lot, maybe

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

an early project doesn't go so well. A corporate entity finds it can't work well with the Don, and walk away, after court battles. For Trump, it's formative. And other stories.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A brief look at the family legacy of Chester Arthur, his son and grandson. From the White House to San Francisco's hippie scene.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Many know of President Arthur's work on civil service reform. Less known is that he also sought to change his party's position on the use of tariffs.

He had been a customs official, the nation's highest. In that job he learned to work with businessmen and merchants. When he became President, he turned his attetnion on the high taxes on imports of his day. As a 19th century Republican this was near heresy. His effort was only partially successful, but it would stoke discussion on tariff reform for the next half century.

Learn...

Officially, as any part of US policy, tiny room in 1982. We tell that story.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From the early attempts to depict Washington, to the first Congressional attempts to block Confederate statues, to today's debate. In this episode Bruce examines the history behind statues in America, and Bruce looks at every debating point and angle he can think of regarding Confederate statues, the dates of their construction and their removal.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

not a surprise in my book, but the SCOTUS recently ruled on Trump's executive order of 2025 denying citizenship by birth in the United States. We look at the arguments, and the two takes by Kavanaugh (on the concurring side) and Gorsuch (on the dissenting side, but not fully with the Trump position).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Forgotten but once famous, Whitelaw Reid was a top journalist and politician of his time. In 1906, as ambassador to Britain, the former vice-presidential candidate was asked by Cambridge University to explain why the British lost the American Colonies. Although he shuddered and thought he would rather speak on any other subject, he gave that speech and it serves a good history of the events that led up to history.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's in a word? Lots, maybe, when its a key word in the most contentious debate in America. The word "infringe" determines the threshold of how the Constitution should be enforced. But do we understand the word, and if we do, are we applying it correctly in our political debates over guns and politics? In this cast we look at how framers like Washington, Madison, Hamilton and Jefferson used the word, and how it's applied in DC v. Heller and US v. Miller. We contrast infringe to its Constitutional cousin abridge, and we look at what the NRA asserts...

First - The history of the Declaration -- the actual document, and how it was saved from British capture.  Then we speak with listener Jason Petri about his Signers Playing Card project.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With Tom McMillan, we take a look at some of the assumptions of 1776 in the history books. First of all, why July 4th and Not July 2nd? And what about May 15th, when Adams got delegates to move and issued his own Declaration-like preamble? And a second look at Jefferson's authorship of the Declaration: writer or draftsman?

We are part of Airwave Media.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices