My History Can Beat Up Your Politics

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.

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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.

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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. 

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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Nixon's long buried memo reveals a lot, maybe

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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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).

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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.

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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.

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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.

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The writer Thomas Wolfe, known for his large novels and spewing prose, was a fan of Germany. On a trip there for the 1936 Berlin Olympics, he found joy, and worry. Initially he admired the changes, but would soon change his opinion after a series of events and a near run-in with Hitler himself.

He didn't live to see the true extent of Nazism, but left a warning for history.

[One note: Thomas Wolfe, the 1930's author should not be confused with Bonfire of the Vanities author Tom Wolfe. Also a good author, different guy.]

Nixon's first bombing campaigns had the names of mealtimes which seem to also correspond with the years of his first term: 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972. In this ( 2021) episode we look at Nixon, Kissinger and the Paris Peace Accords that ended the Vietnam War. In addition to providing some additional context for the Saigon 1975 situation so much in the news today, we revisit whether the accord was a sham peace or a true deal. The deal left hundreds of thousands of enemy troops in South Vietnam as U.S. troops exited. Could a better deal have been etched? Or could the same deal have been...

Average Americans, in the form of a DC jury, get the evidence. They hear the tapes, and they are shocked. But what will shock them more is what happens when Nixon testifies.

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Congress should be doing a lot more, and they would in Listener Page Brousseau's world. He and Bruce talk about Michigan, Article I, tariffs, and partisanship.

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Nixon shoves, Bob Strauss declines money, and another break-in happens, and no one talks about it.

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In this series, we uncover the lesser-known stories of Watergate.

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Chris joins the show again - it' s been a while. We catch up and talk today's politics.

Chris's Instagram is @doctor_nov

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From 2010, but still spot on...Lincoln had just one miderm in his Presidency, and it didn't go well. He very nearly lost control of Congress during a war.

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In this episode, no big deal, we just tackle about every significant problem we have in our politics today (back in 2021). norm-breaking, free-speech and free-speech limits, threats and violence, double impeachments, pushing envelopes and reverse virtue signaling is all part of this episode. Also, Abigail Adams, a treaty won by a forceful speech, a shadowy organization rising up to oppose a President's agenda, two Founders debate and trade charges of hypocrisy. And a bowling ball. Lee Rosevere -music.

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A great accomplishment and a historic scandal. And not the scandal you are thinking of, probably.

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Nixon - a mix of what you know and what you may not. First part of a 2014 episode. I don't know whether time has changed this cast, or if this cast has more meaning now, or less, that is for the listener to judge.

Sponsored by:

The University of Aberdeen:

https://on.abdn.ac.uk/online-history-courses/

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I talked with Peter about bank robberies in California in the 1970's through the 1990's and why it was the bank robbery capital of the country.

Peter's book is Norco 80 about a deadly robbery in CA in 1980.

https://www.amazon.com/Norco-80-Spectacular-Robbery-American/dp/1640092129

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Stories from the 1968 election, including an important factor driving it, and a bit about 1968 radio. And a little bit from the late political advisor David Gergen.

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We join Alex Hastie of Ohio v. The World Podcast once again!

and Author Paul Dickson (https://www.amazon.com/Bonus-Army-American-Epic/dp/0802714404) to discuss the Bonus Army march of veterans seeking compensation during the Great Depression, and the horrible way they were treated.

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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.

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Kevan Whitten has been listening for at least a decade and a half. He's from Maine (So we have to talk James Blaine) and he's talks about the program and asks Bruce a big question.

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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.

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We've been podcasting for 20 years and Billy Paige has listened to the show for all of those years. We talk to him and other listeners in some special episodes in the next couple of months.

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This phrase may have been stated by a Pennsylvanian in the 1880's described as a "German." as we talk about in this episode about family, assimilation, education and immigration. But it's not so simple. There were many German Americans, and two types in particular stood out from and sometimes in contrast with each other.

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The island-hopping and Second-front hoping after Pearl Harbor did not bring FDR a reverse of the traditional midterm curse or a victory for his party. The GOP and anti FDR Democratic winners of this midterm would ensure there would be scrutiny of the war effort and that New Deal programs domestically would be ended. They would lay the seeds for Truman's difficult Presidency and the eventual GOP recapture of Congress and the White House.

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In the last episode of the series, we ask the question of where Reagan fits in today's politics, given that parties have shifted so much since his Presidency. We also summarize the series, and ask new questions.

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