How the Hell Did We Get Here?

When politicians rail against elites, corrupt institutions, rigged systems, and the betrayal of ordinary people, it can feel like a uniquely modern style of politics. It isn’t. In this episode of Past Is Prologue, I trace the long history of populism in the United States — from Andrew Jackson and the expansion of white male democracy, to the Know-Nothings, the Populist Party, Huey Long, George Wallace, the Tea Party, and Donald Trump. The pattern is complicated because the grievances are often real. Economic inequality, political corruption, institutional arrogance, and elite indifference have repeatedly created fertile ground for populist anger in A...

The Election of 1824 is usually remembered for one phrase: the “corrupt bargain.”

But that’s not really what made it a turning point. In 1824, Andrew Jackson won more popular votes and more electoral votes than any other candidate — and still lost the presidency in the House of Representatives. Constitutionally, the system worked exactly as designed.

Politically, millions of Americans concluded the system no longer deserved their trust. This episode tells the story of 1824 not as a scandal, but as a legitimacy crisis — the moment when a political order built on elite mediation collided with a rapidly de...

Look, I don’t like expanded police powers, surveillance, emergency declarations, suspension of normal rules… but this is an emergency. We can deal with civil liberties later. That logic isn’t new. It’s a recurring pattern in U.S. history — and almost every time, the rollback never comes. A crisis hits, government claims extraordinary authority, and when the crisis fades, the powers don’t fully retreat. They ratchet. The baseline shifts. What used to be unthinkable starts to feel normal. In this episode of Past is Prologue, I trace that “emergency powers ratchet” across two centuriesbefore bringing it to the present m...

The Missouri Compromise is often remembered as a clever fix — a temporary truce, a line on a map, a way to “save the Union.”

But that’s not what it really was.

In 1820, Congress faced a choice it had spent decades trying not to make: confront the future of slavery now, while the country was still small and fragile — or postpone the reckoning and keep the system expanding. Congress chose postponement. And by doing so, it didn’t avoid the slavery question. It built it into the machinery of national politics.

This episode tells the st...

The “Era of Good Feelings” is usually sold as a moment of national calm — a post-War of 1812 breather before Jacksonian chaos. But when the boom ends, that calm turns out to be thin. In 1819, the United States hits its first nationwide capitalist crash. Credit evaporates, paper money destabilizes, foreclosures spread, and debtors’ prisons fill — while the institutions most responsible for the speculation often survive intact. Americans called it “hard times,” and their reactions exposed something deeper than economics: a new, bitter argument over who the market was for, and who it was allowed to crush. In this episode (Sellers, The Market Rev...

Think America’s current immigration freak-out is some unprecedented modern breakdown?

Nope. It’s one of our oldest political habits. In this episode of Past Is Prologue, John walks through the “greatest hits” of American immigration panic — from 1798 and the Alien & Sedition Acts, to the Know-Nothings, Chinese exclusion, the 1920s quota system, post–World War II crackdowns, the 1965 pivot, and the modern era where immigration stays permanently “unsolved” because an unsolved problem is a renewable political weapon.

The point: these panics are never just about immigration. They’re about power — who gets to define what “America” is, whose cul...

The “Era of Good Feelings” is usually sold as a victory lap after the War of 1812 — unity, calm, and confidence in the American experiment.

But if you zoom in, it’s less a victory lap than a stress test.

Republican leaders are trying to build the tools of national development — banks, internal improvements, professional administration — while ordinary voters are demanding the opposite: lower taxes, smaller government, fewer insiders cashing in.

And that contradiction matters, because it becomes the political atmosphere in which the first nationwide capitalist downturn — what Americans called “hard times” — hi...

Older generations have been dragging “kids these days” for at least 2,000 years. From Cicero whining about Roman youth to boomers roasting Gen Z on TikTok, the script barely changes: lazy, entitled, soft, ruining the country.

In this episode, I walk through how every major wave of change in American history – the Market Revolution, the Gilded Age, the Progressive Era, the Jazz Age, the 1960s, all the way up to millennials and Gen Z – turns into a moral panic about young people, instead of an honest look at how the economy, technology, and power structures are shifting.

In thi...

America has tried the “tiny federal government” experiment before. After the War of 1812, Jefferson’s minimalist republic simply couldn’t handle a big-power world—so a new generation rebuilt the state.

This episode traces how Calhoun, Clay, Jackson, Adams, and the Marshall Court turned a weak agrarian republic into a nationalist market power between 1815 and the early 1820s.

America has tried “small government” in a big-power world before. After the War of 1812, Jefferson’s tiny federal state—low taxes, a skeleton army and navy, deep suspicion of banks—collapsed under the pressure of war, markets, and territorial expa...

In this episode of Past Is Prologue, John looks at more than 200 years of American economic history to answer a deceptively simple question:

Why does the United States keep crashing its own economy?

Starting with the Panic of 1819 and running through 1837, 1873, 1893, the Great Depression, and the 2008 financial collapse, John shows how the same boom-and-bust pattern repeats with stunning consistency. Rather than treating each crisis as a fluke or “black swan,” he traces the underlying structural forces that make meltdown a recurring feature of the American system.

He examines the development of the market econ...

In this episode of How the Hell Did We Get Here?, John digs into Chapter 2 of Charles Sellers’ The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815–1846 — a pivotal moment when the United States was pushed, pulled, and coerced into a radically new economic order.

Rather than a smooth evolution into a “modern” market economy, Sellers shows a far more turbulent reality: political battles over surplus capital, state-driven development, forced restructuring of everyday life, and deep conflicts between the winners of the new order and the many people who never asked to be part of it.

John walks through the major...

In this episode of Past Is Prologue, John looks at what 250 years of American history can teach us about the rise of artificial intelligence.

Rather than treating AI as a totally unprecedented rupture, John compares it to five earlier waves of technological and economic transformation:

1. The Market Revolution of the early 1800s

2. The First Industrial Revolution and the rise of wage labor

3. The Second Industrial Revolution, corporate power, and the Progressive backlash

4. Post–World War II globalization and the hollowing out of local economies

5. The Internet and di...

What did the United States look like before canals, factories, and cash wages rewired everyday life? In this episode, John explores Chapter 1 of Charles G. Sellers’s The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815–1846, reconstructing a largely cashless “subsistence” order where independence meant owning land, bartering with neighbors, and avoiding debt. We trace why profit was suspect, how reciprocity bound communities, and why patriarchal households sat uneasily beside republican talk of equality.

This episode is something different. After a year of tracing U.S. history from the pre-Columbian period through the War of 1812, I wanted to step back and talk about why I’m doing this — and what I think history can actually teach us about the world we’re living in now.

In this manifesto, I lay out the purpose behind How the Hell Did We Get Here?: to cut through the noise of hot takes and partisan shouting, and use history to make sense of the present. From Vietnam to Iraq, from Reconstruction to the Gilded Age, I explore...

In this episode, John discusses the social, political and economic evolution of the United States from the late 1700s to the end of the War of 1812. John talks about the evolution of the U.S. from a limited democracy with a decidedly agricultural bent toward a bustling trade hub and nascent manufacturing sector with a huge middle class that starts to flex its political muscle. This episode serves as an explanatory bridge between how the high-minded and elite-controlled economic and political institutions of the late 18th century gave way to a much more democratized and practical ethos that would...

John gives everyone an update about what's been going on and what they can expect from the next season of How the Hell Did We Get Here?

In this episode, John discusses how the War of 1812 continued and ultimately came to a conclusion. John talks about the campaigns of 1813 and the British offensives of 1814, how things continued to linger in a position of stalemate and how the U.S. managed to survive despite a serious financial crisis and the capital city of Washington D.C. being burned to the ground by the British. John covers the American triumphs at Fort McHenry and Lake Champlain, as well the resounding victory of the United States against British forces at the Battle of New Orleans that actually took place...

In this episode, John covers the first year of the War of 1812 and why it was such a struggle for the United States. John begins by talking about how the Madison Administration and the Congress prepared—or rather, did not—for the war against Great Britain. John discusses the state of the land and sea forces as the U.S. went to war, what Madison and Congress chose to do to prosecute the war and why they made the choices that they did.

John goes on to break down the planned invasion of Canada in 1812, how those who...

In this episode, John explains how it is that the United States, less than 30 years after fighting Great Britain to become and independent country, wound up fighting the British once again. John begins by discussing James Madison as a presidential figure: how he became president, what he wanted to achieve and how he differed from the first three presidents. John also breaks down the issues that Madison had to deal with during his term that didn’t involve Great Britain and France messing with American shipping and trade, including the annexation of Florida, congressional and party factionalism and maintaining na...

In this episode, John stacks up the lives and careers of two of the most important Founding Fathers of the United States: Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. John goes into a lot of detail about the endeavors and accomplishments that make both men the legendary historical heavyweights that they are. He talks about their impact on American governance, American economics, American culture, American religion and the trajectory of American society from independence onward.

But John also deals with the many shortcomings and foibles of both men. John explains why he is more “Team Hamilton” than “Team Jefferson” because...

In this episode, John explores the mass religious movement in the United States referred to as The Second Great Awakening. John discusses the origin of this explosion of religious growth and diversification and why it was that it occurred in the aftermath of the American Revolution. John talks about how the movement defied expectations of the Founding Fathers, who anticipated a more secular society after the Revolution, and how it demonstrated another dichotomy between the elites and the “middling sort”, in much the same way the divergence between Federalists and Democratic Republicans did.

John also goes through some...

In this episode, John focuses on slavery in the United States in the years after the American Revolution. John investigates why it is that slavery did not die out, as most of the Founding Fathers expected it would in the 1780s and 1790s. John talks about the reasons why so many Americans believed that slavery was on its way out in America, not the least of which was the fact that slavery absolutely did not comport with the ideals on which the United States was founded as an independent country.

John explores the social, economic and political...

In this episode, John discusses the important events and decisions of Thomas Jefferson’s second term as the third U.S. President. John begins by talking about the Sally Hemings affair, which was actually brought to public attention in a very direct way for the first time about halfway through Jefferson’s first term. John explains how and why it was that Jefferson’s decades-long relationship with one of his slaves became a national story, why it matters when considering Jefferson’s legacy and how it was that Jefferson dealt with it all when it became a public scandal.

Joh...

In this episode, John reviews through what he has learned so far doing the show. John covers a variety of topics that he has gone into detail on in previous episodes, stretching all the way back to the very first How the Hell Did We Get Here. John starts out by talking about the Pre-Columbian period and the years between Columbus and the settlement of Jamestown, before discussing all the things he learned about the colonial period that he did not know before he started researching for the show, including the plantation of Ireland, how it affected English settlement...

In this episode, John does a deep dive into the early years of the Judicial Branch of the federal government. John begins by explaining how courts, judges and lawyers were perceived by the colonists in the decades before the American Revolution and what role it was in society and in the colonial governments that these elements played. John then discusses the changes that Americans wanted to see in the judicial system upon achieving independence from Great Britain and how the rapid evolution of democracy in the various states led to a push for a more uniform legal system in...

In this episode, John discusses the circumstances that allowed the Jefferson administration to complete the Louisiana Purchase from France. John explains how it was that France came to acquire Louisiana again and what it was that drove Napoleon to sell the territory to the U.S. less than five years after acquiring it. John also talks about the Lewis and Clark expedition and its importance to the foundation of an American presence in the middle of North America.

John also goes through the Jefferson administration’s decision to go to war with the Barbary Pirates in 1801. John co...

In this episode, John dives into the presidency of Thomas Jefferson, focusing specifically on his most important ideas and priorities as he took over from the Federalists as America’s third president. John discusses why Jefferson was such a monumental figure in American history, how he and his ideas came to dominate the first quarter century of the 1800s and how he saw his role in America’s “Empire of Liberty”. John talks about the Jeffersonians’ goals to shrink the size of the federal government, pay off the national debt, demilitarize the U.S. from the brink of war with Franc...

In this episode, John discusses the conditions leading up to the presidential election of 1800. He breaks down who the main candidates were, how both the Federalist and Democratic Republican parties campaigned in this very early era of party politics and what the strengths and weaknesses of both sides were as the election approached. John also explains the division within the Federalist Party between Alexander Hamilton and John Adams and how this internal rift made winning the election very difficult for the party in general and John Adams in particular.

John also examines how the structure of the...

In this episode, John discusses the John Adams administration and the most significant events and developments of the period in which he presided as the second President of the United States. John begins by going over the factors that led to further political polarization, as the Federalists and the Democratic Republicans grew further and further apart on the issues. John explains the importance of the growing political press in the United States during the 1790s and the increasing demand for a more participatory democracy from Americans all over the country. 

John goes on to discuss the very s...

In this episode, John discusses the circumstances surrounding the presidential election of 1796. John explains how the Democratic Republican Party and the Federalist Party had become more or less fully formed partisan organizations by the time the election was to take place and what the issues were that divided the two of them. John goes into detail about how each party viewed itself, its place in American Politics and each party’s vision for the future of the United States as the election approached.

John then goes on to discuss what actually happened in the presidential election of 1796 an...

In this episode, John discusses the origins of the United States’ first political parties: the Federalist Party and the Democratic Republican Party. John goes over the various factors that created enough political division to account for political parties coming into existence, despite the fact that this was not anticipated at the Constitutional Convention or during the ratification process. John breaks down the issues that created opposing constituencies for two political parties, including the interpretation of the constitution, Alexander Hamilton’s financial program and whether the United States should more closely align itself with Britain or with France in the earl...

In this episode, John dives into the details of westward expansion after the Revolutionary War and the ways that both the movement of the United States and white Americans west affected Native Americans. John begins with a brief recap of how Native Americans and European-descended white settlers had interacted prior to the Revolution and then explains how the Revolution affected the relationship between Native Americans and whites in some general and specific ways. John talks about the motivations for those on either side of the divide and how the existence of an independent United States, various state governments and...

In this episode, John gets into the first ever United States Congress and the beginnings of the first Washington Administration as they begin to govern under the recently ratified Constitution. John discusses the realization of the founding fathers that they will not be able to govern as they had envisioned and, instead, will have to embrace a governing system of democratic advocacy. John talks about how the Congress set up the basic structures for both the Executive and the Judicial branches as well as determining some of the ways in which the legislature would work with the new President.<...

In this episode, John sets up the circumstances the Washington Administration and the first Congress inherited as it formed the new national government under the Constitution. John talks about the expanding democratic rights Americans during and after the Revolution and how this dynamic affected the evolution of American government at the local, state and national levels in the 1770s, 80s and 90s. John also discusses the demands that newly empowered citizens were making of the their governments and how these demands made the governing and economic elite nervous, which resulted in the “conservative backlash” of the Constitution.

Fina...

In this episode, John discusses the religious beliefs of some of the most prominent and impactful of the founding fathers. John begins by briefly reviewing over the broad strokes of the religious history of the British North American colonies from the early 1600s to 1770, discussing the religious diversity of the colonies, the most common denominations and the Great Awakening. John then explains the fundamentals of one of the most important belief systems embraced by a number of the founding fathers he covers later in the episode: Deism.

John spends a few minutes on the religious beliefs of...

In this episode, John finishes his discussion of the Constitutional Convention and the ratification of the document that created the current United States government. John briefly recaps the major accomplishments of the first two months of the Constitutional Convention and then discusses the Committee on Postponed Parts and how it proposed to resolve some of the major debates still taking place among the delegates. John profiles the presidency, as envisioned by the delegates, and explains what it was about the office, its powers and the concerns for how the person who filled the position would be selected that made...

In this episode, John does a deep dive into the Constitutional Convention. He goes into detail about how the debate over the Virginia Resolves shaped the direction of the convention, how it was that the "nationalists" like James Madison and James Wilson seized control of the debate with the Virginia Resolves to achieve their goals of reform and the way these proposals were received by delegates to the convention who did not participate in the process of shaping the resolves. John explains how the Virginia Plan, as the resolves came to be called, represented a revolution in the government...

In this episode, John gets into the details of how the Constitutional Convention came together and what the agenda was for those most responsible for putting it together. John reviews through the weaknesses of the government under the Articles of Confederation that pushed the likes of James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and Robert Morris to call for a much stronger central government. He then explains how those men, thinking of themselves as "nationalists", recruited George Washington to their cause in order to bring legitimacy and popular support to their arguments.

Finally, John discusses the days leading up to...

In this episode, John gives a broad strokes rundown of both how the Constitution was created and the process by which it was ratified. John discusses the major controversies at the convention that needed to be resolved and explains very generally what the interests and motivations of the delegates at the convention were. John then breaks down the ratification process in the various states, briefly discussing how difficult or not it was from one state to the next.

In this episode, John explains how the Constitutional Convention was actually created and put into motion in 1787. John discusses the dire situation in which the young United States found itself, with threats from foreign adversaries and all sorts of domestic disputes and disorder, and how the government created by the Articles of Confederation was unable to resolve any of these major problems. John talks about the push by the "nationalists", as they came to be called, like James Madison, Robert Morris and Alexander Hamilton, to form a much stronger central government than the one that existed under the Articles...