Annotations for Speakers: Jeremi Suri

Welcome to our new episode of This Is Democracy. Today's episode. We're going to focus upon young John F. Kennedy and the lessons and insights from his early career for our somewhat difficult and partisan political moment today. What can we learn? And what do we take away from John F. Kennedy's early career? We have with us his biographer, who is a very distinguished historian and good friend and someone who's written quite a lot about American foreign policy, American politics and the lessons of history for contemporary affairs. This is Fred Logevall. Fred. Good morning.

It's our pleasure to have you. Fred is the author of 10 books. He's the author and editor of 10 books on American politics and foreign policy. Among my favorites and those which I know everyone has read, uh, Choosing War: The Lost Chance for Peace and the Escalation of War in Vietnam, which really transformed our understanding of Lyndon Johnson's choices for war in 1964-1965. America's Cold War: The Politics of Insecurity, which Fred co-wrote with Campbell Craig, another historian, which looks at the influence of domestic politics on American Cold War foreign policy. Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire in the Making of America's Vietnam, which is really about early French and American activities in Vietnam before we would, we traditionally called the Vietnam War in the United States. Embers of War won the Pulitzer Prize as well as many other rewards and then his most recent book, which I hope all of our listeners will read and I know you'll be reading a lot about soon as well. And then his most recent book, which I hope all of our listeners will read and I know you'll be reading a lot about soon as well, JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century.

When Fred is not busy scribbling, he is the Lawrence D. Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and Professor of History at Harvard University. And as I said, Fred is a longtime friend and really a major figure, not just in historical circles, but in scholarly and public intellectual circles in the United States. So before we turn to our discussion of JFK and this really fantastic and fun new book, I really found it fun to read this new book that Fred has just published.

We're going to turn to Mr. Zachary, as we always do each week, for his scene-setting poem. Zachary, what's the title of your poem?

Oh, I'm a little scared now. Let's hear about The Ghost of JFK.

I love the arc of that poem, Zachary, really taking us all the way to the tragic end of JFK's life. What is your poem about?

Well, that is the perfect spot to turn to President Kennedy's biographer. Fred, we live in such a cynical age. Your book, as I read it, is in some ways a wonderful antidote to that cynicism. I think the place to start is why did John F. Kennedy, this person born to such privilege, such wealth, why did he get involved in the dirty world of politics?

Well, each week, each week, he opens every poem, every episode, Fred

Well, and let's turn to his wartime service. Much of your book actually covers that. And I have to say, it's a really riveting part of the book and an area where I think you have a lot of new, many new things to say about both his wartime service and his travels. I was really taken with the many quotations you have from his travel diary, Fred. So tell us more about how the travels and the World War II experience contributed to his development as a political animal.

And it's worth underlining the fact, and this is a point you make, that really most of the leadership of American society for the next 50 years would have come out of this experience of World War II. Figures like, obviously, Richard Nixon, George H. W. Bush. Although it does seem Kennedy's different from them.

That's another point you're making, that he's of his context and time, but he's also exceptional. What do you see as his exceptional qualities, Fred?

I think this is really one of the stunning parts of your book, Fred. Unlike most of the other authors and commentators that I've encountered, at least, you give a lot less attention and influence to the father figure. Here we've gone almost 10 minutes into this discussion. It's the first time Joseph Kennedy has come up. What can you tell us about that relationship between father and son?

And let's talk a little bit about JFK's distinctiveness from his father, his critique of appeasement, his critique of the isolationism, and even somewhat pro-Nazi tendencies of his father. How would you characterize his emerging, shall we say, Cold War viewpoint?

So it's fascinating to me, Fred, how that lesson for John F. Kennedy and so many others, and this is something many of us have written about you in particular, how those lessons of appeasement carry forward. And of course, one of the things both you and I teach and write about are the dangers of an analogy from one historical time being brought into another context.

This is something I thought you were playing around with in very thoughtful ways in the last part of the book. Can you say more about what Kennedy takes from what you just described so well, his emerging internationalist outlook? You called it earlier a liberal internationalist outlook to some extent, tempered with realism. How does that affect his emerging views of international affairs when he's a member of the House of Representatives and then a senator after World War II?

It's so crucial, Fred, and it's one of our key themes week in and week out over more than 100 episodes. We've seen, I think, in such a range of figures, how important those precise qualities that you just highlighted so brilliantly, that those qualities of compromise and attention to evidence and deliberative policymaking, how crucial they are to a democracy.

How did Lyndon Johnson interact with John F. Kennedy? Because one of the issues that comes up quite often in some of our prior discussions and in a lot of the scholarship, as you know better than anyone, is this rivalry between Lyndon Johnson and the Kennedy family. We could also talk about Joe McCarthy, but I thought we'd focus on Lyndon Johnson. How did JFK handle that differently from politicians today, and what can we learn from that?

Well, what I love about this first volume is I can see how you're laying the seedbed for where you're going to go with these issues forward. I want us to close as we always do by looking toward our listeners today, particularly young listeners, and what they can take away from your book in this fraught political moment we're in today. But before I do that, Fred, I can't let us get to that concluding point without asking the question I know everyone is going to ask you. What should we make of Kennedy's extramarital affairs that you discuss a bit in the book and the question of morality and political leadership?

If Kennedy is perhaps a model of political compromise, and as you say, working with adversaries without making them enemies, his personal behavior is probably not something that we would put up as a model for others. How does that affect your judgment of him as an early politician?

Well, we will all look forward to that. It strikes me that you're approaching it exactly as you should as a historian, which is different from a journalist in this element, insofar as his personal behavior matters to us, it seems to me, as it relates to his role as a politician. Your book is Young JFK, his own man, but politician.

And so, you know, if people are interested in the lurid details of his affairs, that's not what you're writing about. You are writing about how those affected him as an individual insofar as he becomes a politician. And I think that's the right way to approach it.

I think it's actually refreshing in a certain way without in any way diminishing the enormity of this issue, as you just pointed out so well. So, Fred, we like to finish every one of our episodes by really, really speaking directly to our audience, which includes a lot of young people, and I'll include you and I as still young people, who are concerned about our world today, concerned about democracy.

We started this podcast a year and a half ago. We do it every week because we're trying to bring historical knowledge and at least maybe some historical inspiration to thinking about reforming and improving our democracy in a nonpartisan way. And I know you and I agree, we've talked about this many times, that history has a lot to offer us, but it doesn't offer us a roadmap. It offers us thoughts and knowledge and wisdom, we hope, for moving forward.

You've spent a good part of your life now writing about John F. Kennedy. You're going to continue doing that. What do you want young people, people who are concerned about our politics today, people who want to change our politics today, what do you want them to take away from the work you've done and from this wonderful volume?

So Zachary, your wonderful poem this morning was the ghost of JFK. And one of the early reviewers of Fred's book, a mutual friend of ours, David Kennedy, talks about how John F. Kennedy still beguiles us and that in some ways Fred's book is a wonderful analysis of that. Zachary, does John F. Kennedy still inspire young people like yourself? And what inspiration do you take from this? And from our conversation with Fred?

Well, I think that's a perfect spot for us to come on. Fred, did you wanna make the last comment on that?

That's so well said. And I think what your book displays really in wonderful ways, in entertaining ways too, Fred is that we have that capacity within us. It's John F. Kennedy is his own man. But John F. Kennedy as such a quintessential product of American society, product of the mixing of different groups and our politics, which produces this messiness but also this capacity for compromise and evidence based creativity. So, Fred, thank you for joining us today. I know you're very busy out and around, or at least virtually on your book tour. Thank you for stopping. Stopping in with us virtually. I hope all of our readers and listeners will read Fred's exciting new book, John F. Kennedy. It's available on Amazon. It's available at all of your local independent bookstores. Just look up Logevall, JFK, and it will come right up. Zachary, thank you, as always for your poem and most of all, thank you to our listeners for joining us for this episode of This Is Democracy

[Music] Welcome to our new episode of This is Democracy. Today's episode is going to focus on a topic that's been in the news quite a bit, and a topic that's ever present in American national security and foreign policy, but a topic we don't talk enough about, the role of dissent. What role dissenters within the policy establishment play.

These dissenters are often known as whistleblowers. We'll discuss that topic as well. But our real focus is on the role of individuals who are intimately involved with national security and intelligence, defense, the State Department, elsewhere, and their role in bringing to the public attention about misdeeds and deviations from constitutional authority and the appropriate uses of power.

We have with us two historians who have done more to elucidate and write about these issues than anyone else, Hannah Gurman and Kaetan Mistry. Hannah teaches U.S. history and American studies at NYU's Gallatin School of Individualized Study. She's the author of The Dissent Papers, The Voices of Diplomats, and The Cold War and Beyond, which is a book I learned a lot from, an editor of A People's History of Counterinsurgency, and the co-editor of this new wonderful book called Whistleblowing Nation.

Hannah, thank you for joining us today.

We have also, Kaetan Mistry, who is a historian of the U.S. and the world and teaches at the University of East Anglia in England. He has authored Waging Political Warfare, The United States, Italy, and the Origins of the Cold War, which is really quite a fascinating story. I encourage people to read Kaetan''s wonderful work on this early important moment in the Cold War. He's edited Reforms, Reflection, and Reappraisals, the CIA and U.S. Foreign Policy since 1947, and he's the co-editor with Hannah, of again, this wonderful book, Whistleblowing Nation.

Kaetan, thank you for joining us.

Before we turn to our discussion of dissent and national security, we have, of course, our scene-setting poem from Mr. Zachary Suri. What's the title of your poem, Zachary?

Wow, I didn't know we'd have William Jennings Bryan joining us today. Okay, Zachary, let's hear it.

Wow, Zachary, that covers quite a lot there, and I love the movement from Aristotle to moderation and the truth. What is your poem about?

Right, except at home, right? No dissent at home? I think there's actually too much dissent at home, and that's a good thing. Hannah, let's start with you if we could. This incredible book that you and Kaetan have edited with so many authors looking at dissent and the search for truth in national security.

Echoing Zachary's poem, how do we understand this relationship between secrecy and dissent, and why is there such an almost ever-present tension in American national security?

That gives us really a powerful way of thinking about this and particularly the ways in which the growth of the national security state after World War II, the necessities of that also create sometimes these excesses and a tension between the public's right to know and an individual's right to speak, and what are at least perceived as the needs of maintaining secrecy in certain areas.

Kaetan, one of the topics that you cover in the book, you and Hannah and your authors, is the Espionage Act, which goes back, of course, a little earlier than the Cold War. I thought it'd be helpful maybe to begin with a discussion of that as well. What is the Espionage Act and how does it relate to this tension that Hannah described so well?

And it's fascinating, Kaetan, that it goes back, as you said, to World War I, but emerges as a larger presence in our legal structure and our policy structure and our democracy after World War II. That's an interesting example of a decision in one era influencing events in another era. One of the strengths of your book, Hannah and Kaetan, is that you walk us through the many cases of the different ways in which this plays out.

We've seen this in front of us in recent years, with the impeachment hearings and related matters, but the book walks us through so many of these cases. Hannah, how does it work when an individual, let's say in the Pentagon, comes forward with evidence of wrongdoing?

Why is there a complicated structure around that and how does it work? Why isn't it just a matter of that individual releasing the information and the public responding? Your book shows there's obviously much more to this involving inspector generals and others.

Could you walk us through that process?

That's really helpful in framing this and understanding the complexities of it, which your book brings out so well. Hannah, one of the other points that comes out so powerfully in the book, is that there was an effort in the 1970s in the United States.

Particularly following Daniel Ellsberg, who you mentioned before in his release of the Pentagon Papers, the internal history of the Vietnam War, which was very critical and exposed the lying of American political leaders about the war. Following that, in the late 1960s, early 1970s, there was a very strong effort within Congress to create legislation to protect whistleblowers and dissenters, and to manage this process and deal with many of the difficulties and paradoxes that Kaetan and you have pointed to.

Why didn't that process of reform work? Why are we still, as you say in the book, stuck in this liminal space on this issue?

Right. And it does seem in your book for very good reasons that, Hannah, you and Kaetan sympathize very strongly with the Chelsea Mannings, the Edward Snowdens, the Vindman brothers, who recently were responsible for releasing information about misuses, abuses of power regarding Ukraine by the Trump administration. You're sympathetic to them.

You don't treat them as heroes, but you're sympathetic to them for seeing the risks they take, the career costs they pay, and particularly their efforts to inform the public. Is that a fair assessment?

It's quite extraordinary. As I was reading that chapter, I was thinking, of course, of John Bolton, whose recent memoir has been surrounded by controversy over the pre-publication review, which the Trump administration claims he didn't fully satisfy and he claims he did. And to have John Bolton in the same book in a certain sense as Daniel Ellsberg and Edward Snowden is quite a range of actors, and it makes your point very well.

I did want to focus a bit on Snowden, just for one minute, because he's probably the most famous and controversial recent whistleblower. How should we think about him?

He blurbs your book also, and in many ways he embodies what you're talking about, someone who comes forward and informs the public about illegal uses of surveillance within our democracy, a topic that certainly threatens many of our core democratic values.

But he also potentially shares information with an American adversary, Russia. So how should we think about this? How do you think about this, Hannah?

Right. And it's likely that not just those of us who are historians, but many people concerned about democracy will be debating and discussing Snowden for many years, as we're debating and discussing Ellsberg, here we are 50 years later.

I wanted to turn, as we always do at the close of our sessions, to a forward-looking question and a hopeful question, I hope.

One of the real lessons from your book, particularly, as you mentioned, some of the case studies. I loved, Kaetan, in your chapter on the 1970s and the anti-imperial, as you call them, dissidents and whistleblowers.

What should citizens today, especially younger listeners who are going into policy positions or going into institutions like universities, where all of us work, where oftentimes one does see things that are not right, sometimes even crossing the line of legality, what should we take as lessons from this?

If we believe that in a democracy, citizens should speak up when they see wrongdoing, but we also recognize, as you point out so well in this book, the other pressures, the professional pressures, but also the pressures of organizational purpose and policy that get in the way sometimes.

What are some of the lessons that readers should take away for their own activities in these settings? Kaetan, any thoughts on that?

It's a great point that we need to be attentive to our institutional structures and strengthen the structures and build upon them that protect this work. And as you say, the declassification process for secrecy, which is indeed something every administration promises to work on, but very few make progress on because it's either not a priority or something that they turn against, in fact. That's a really important point.

Hannah, you teach at an institution, the Gallatin School, which has a social mission attached to it, as all of our universities do, but particularly the Gallatin School. And I know you think about this, as Kaetan and I do, as a personal issue as well as a historical issue.

What advice do you give to students who will be entering work environments where these issues will come up, whether it's a public institution or a private institution?

What should they take away from this, from your book?

Right. That's very well said. And one of the points I often try to make to students is that, and to other people who are new to the national security world or other settings like that, is that whistleblowing or speaking truth to power seems obvious and easy from the outside.

But when you're inside, it's very hard and you have to have a true sense of your duty and professional ethic to remember your role, because the pressures against dissent, as you point out in this book, are so powerful.

Zachary, as a young person who thinks about these issues and talks about these issues a lot, do you feel that we're preparing young people, or what could we do better to prepare young people for both the professional ethic and responsibility that Hannah articulated, but also the difficulties and challenges in living up to that professional ethic on a day-to-day basis?

Well, that's very well said, and it comes back to your poem on the pressures and difficulties of moderation.

I really enjoyed this conversation. I think, Hannah and Kaetan, I think your book offers such an important historical perspective on issues that, as you both said, are now ever-present with us, and issues that are actually only going to grow in importance in coming years as we try to figure out what's happened in the last few years in American society, and as we try to move forward as an international community from this moment.

I want to thank you both for joining us today.

And I want to encourage all of our listeners to read their wonderful book, Whistleblowing Nation, the History of National Security Disclosures and the Cult of State Secrecy. It's available in paperback, and it has really wonderful case studies as well as an overview chapter and a concluding chapter, that I think allow listeners to learn more about the subject, and also dig into topics and figures like Ralph Nader, like Edward Snowden, like Judith Miller, the journalist who was in prison for protecting her sources, and many other cases that I think will be really interesting for our listeners.

I want to thank Zachary for his poem as always, and most of all, thank you to our listeners for joining us for this episode of This Is Democracy.

Welcome to our new episode of This Is Democracy. This week we have with us one of the foremost scholars, philosophers, and public intellectuals in the world, writing about a topic that's very close to us. I think every day, where history matters for us every day, which is how we think about memory and the ways in which memories of the past, particularly memories of a traumatic, guilt ridden, difficult past, the ways those memories are used or not used to improve or limit our democracy. In other words, what is the role for historical memory in addressing past injustices?

Susan Neiman, who is our guest today. Susan has written some of the most important work on this. She is the director of the Einstein Forum in Berlin. She was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and that's central to a lot of her work. But she studied philosophy at Harvard and the Freie Universität in Berlin, was a professor of philosophy at Yale and Tel Aviv University before moving to Berlin, moving back to Berlin for the Einstein Forum. She is the author of numerous books of contemporary philosophy and political philosophy as well, a number that I just like to mention, Evil and Modern Thought, particularly relevant, perhaps to our world today. Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists, I'm not sure that I'm a grown-up idealist, but at least give one a try. [Laughter]

[Laughter] Thank you, Susan, that makes me feel a lot better. And her most recent book, the book that's really going to be at the center of our discussion today, which is really a phenomenal book. Both Zachary and I have read it: Learning from the Germans' Race and the Memory of Evil. It has just come out, in paperback, with a brand new final section, at least for now, on the Black Lives Matter movement, and how it relates to Susan's really in depth discussion of historical memory in Germany and the United States over the last century.

Susan, thank you for joining us today. It's a pleasure. Before we turn to our discussion, as always, we have our scene-setting poem from Mr. Zachary Suri and today's poem is actually a bilingual poem from Zachary. This is the first of your bilingual poems in one hundred and twenty or so [episodes], I think. Zachary, what is the title of your poem?

That was really powerful. Very powerful. I think you should translate that last section for us and tell us what your poem's about.

It evokes a little bit of T.S. Eliot, right? Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

It is. You know, I'm glad you mentioned that, Susan. I read it years ago. I'm going to go back and find it when we're done and maybe put it up on the website with the link to your book. That's really, really wonderful. Susan, building on Zachary's poem and the sort of haunting elements of memory, maybe you can take us through a little bit about why you wrote this book, Learning from the Germans. It's a deep, thoughtful, intellectual book, but it's also a very personal book, which I loved.

Yes.

Well, and I have to say, I first became aware of your book [when] it had just come out and I think I had read a review of it, but I was at a meeting of the World War Two Museum, the National World War Two Museum in New Orleans, where I'm on the board. And we were talking about memories of World War Two.

And it was, it became so evident to me as we were planning a conference on World War Two memory, how little Americans have thought critically about our own war experience. And that's in no way to trash the experience of the United States in World War Two, but how much more advanced German thinking was on this. And this is a theme that resonates, I think, in your book.

Why is it that around many of these issues, the Germans have seemingly done more thinking about this, more of the work of addressing the dark and embarrassing and traumatic parts of their history than Americans? Why is that?

Well, there's several, several reasons for, you know, we can give several reasons. One is, I don't know if it's OK to swear on your podcast or not. [Laughter] Go ahead.

Yes.

Yep.

I can imagine. Yes.

I agree.

Of course. [Inaudible] Well, there is for a long time it wasn't even in our scholarship. I mean, you could be a scholar of American history without addressing these issues until, you know, 30 years ago.

I mean, I just made that up as a counterpart to Johnny Reb. Yes. What there are are thousands of memorials to both victims and the few resistance heroes that there were. All of that is part of Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung.

So Susan, this is such a powerful narrative that you put together here, and it is so compelling because it's thoughtful and you draw out interviews with major figures. You've mentioned Brian Stevenson and many others on the German side and the American side. We always like to close our podcast episode, Susan, with a forward looking, hopeful denouement.

What do you take from this about the possibilities going forward? I think Americans are maybe at least a younger generation. It seems to me, and I find this certainly with my students, are much more open to talking about a lot of these issues than my students were even 10 years ago.

So what do you see as the positive pathway forward for us taking into account your analysis of historical memory and the uses and misuses of it?

Right.

That's so powerful. Susan, I loved how you closed the book in what you called, "in place of conclusions." Because there is no conclusion to this story, where you talk about how in your words, "I gave tribalism a try," right? But then you say it surprised me. I had a little whiplash at the end. I didn't expect that from you. And then you said, this book itself is offered as an exercise in universalism in the hope that understanding difference will help us to find shared souls.

Zachary, this book obviously moved you. We read a lot together, but I think you really were moved by this. Why did it move you? And do you think that Susan's plea for universalism will resonate with your generation?

And reading your books, Susan, it certainly felt not just like reading an exploration in memory and history, but also an exploration and redemption. What you're talking about is the most hopeful thing, right?

How democratic societies offer the possibility for redemption because this is a theme of our podcast. Weekend and week out. Democracy is about no finality. Democracy denies that there's an end to history. There's no perfect template, and we're not looking to create the perfect man and woman, we're looking to constantly remake ourselves for our times to come.

It's a constant rebuilding or in the Jewish tradition, Ledor Vador, from generation to generation. And, I think your book really captures that so well.

Thank you for joining us from Berlin today for this discussion.

I hope you will.

And Zachary, thank you, as always for a moving poem in two languages this time. You keep outdoing yourself every week and most of all, thank you to our listeners. And I do want to encourage everyone to pick up a copy of Susan's book. It's now in paperback, Learning from the Germans. The title, very easy to remember.

[Music] Welcome to our new episode of This is Democracy. This week we're going to discuss the topic of participatory democracy.

How have and how can people be more involved in our democracy, not just when it comes to voting, but to day-to-day activities to make our democracy more full, more rich, and more real for people. We're going to focus on a particular moment in our history when a young group of citizens came forward with a statement about the importance of participatory democracy, a statement that inspired hundreds of thousands of people and continues to inspire many people. This is the Port Huron Statement of 1962, written by Students for a Democratic Society.

And we have with us one of the foremost scholars of participatory democracy and Students for a Democratic Society and the Port Huron Statement, Dr. Vanessa Cook. Dr. Cook received her PhD in U.S. history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2015. She wrote a fantastic dissertation that I in part supervised and had the opportunity to learn from.

It's a dissertation that's been published as a really wonderful book that I encourage everyone to read. The book is titled Spiritual Socialists, Religion and the American Left, and it's about those issues and much, much more with some fascinating figures who contributed to our democracy in all kinds of ways. She's written articles in the Washington Post, Dissent Magazine, Religion and Politics, and she's currently the Defense POW MIA Accounting Agency Historian, in residence, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Missing in Action Project.

Vanessa, thank you for joining us this morning.

Before we turn to our discussion of participatory democracy and the Port Huron Statement, we have, of course, Mr. Zachary Suri's scene-setting poem. Zachary, what is the title of your poem this morning?

Let's hear it.

I love all the imagery there, Zachary, from the parking lots to the Statue of Liberty. What is your poem about?

I love the intergenerational element of that, Zachary. Our podcast is designed to be intergenerational.

Well said.

Vanessa, can you give us some background on this Port Huron statement of 1962? Who wrote it and what was the message that they were trying to promote?

Why at this moment in 1962, Vanessa, what led to this moment producing this document?

It sounds in many ways like an echo or a precursor to a number of issues we contend with today. One being the non-representativeness of the Democratic Party in some ways and other parties.

Members of SDS criticized the Southern Democrats, the so-called Dixiecrats, for resisting civil rights actions and resisting a response to the large numbers of citizens who felt disempowered within the political structure. And then also the concerns about inequality, economic inequality, both of which you mentioned so well.

What were their solutions? What were they proposing in place of what they saw as a stagnant political process that was non-representative and problems of inequality? What were they proposing?

You raised a really important issue about culture and social relations. One of the criticisms that was thrown at the Port Huron statement, and that's often thrown at leftist politics, as you described them so well, Vaneessa, is the criticism of being socialist. And many would argue then and have argued now that some of these ideas are un-American because they're socialist.

How do you respond to that?

But socialism really comes down to equality. And I think Students for Democratic Society, they were advocating for a recognition of more equal treatment of everyone in the country. And that ties into democracy because everyone needs to be seen as equal if they're going to have an equal voice in the political process.

And do you think that this argument and the case that was made so eloquently in the Port Huron statement, did it contribute to the civil rights movement?

Vanessa, as you're describing these issues so well with regard to civil rights and anti-war, anti-militarist activities, one can't help but think that these issues haven't gone away. Why do you think that's the case?

Do you think that in some ways that we forgotten about these issues, that these issues that were put out so eloquently and in such an influential way in the early 1960s and structured many of the debates of that time, that we've sort of forgotten this history? And if so, what do you think is a good way to bring these issues back into our discussions today and to bring young people back into these discussions around these issues?

I love what you've said there, Vanessa. I mean, it does seem to me that we use the word democracy, but we too often mean legalistic elements of our society and institutional elements, all of which are important. But the, as you put it, the culture and the personal part of democracy, what it is that brings people together to work together, to participate and address common concerns. That seems strangely to be absent from a lot of our discussions.

And strangely, it seems that that is actually undermined by social media, which often encourages us to yell at each other, not to actually have these deliberative moments where we participate in conversation, bringing our various points of view together. How practically do you think we can build on the SDS and the Port Huron model today to maybe get past these limitations in our current democratic culture?

And of course they could read your book on many activists who valued and stretched and opened the concept of democracy in our society, that these are your spiritual socialists in many ways and they're as spiritual and as democratic as they are inspired by socialist ideas.

Zachary, I wanted to ask you, do you see this work that Vanessa is describing, this work of opening, discussing democracy, bringing more people in, putting ideology perhaps aside and encouraging participation among different kinds of people, do you see this germinating among young people today and do you see a possibility for more of this among your generation of young people who care so deeply about these issues? Where do you see this going?

It's very well said, Zachary. It's like Vanessa pointed out earlier, we use the word democracy in our education, but we don't really talk about what it means and as Vanessa put it, how one practices democracy. And maybe a focus on that and a focus on bringing young people together to write and think about it, as Vanessa described, is something we should do more of in our communities and in our educational institutions among other places.

Vanessa, are you hopeful that this work will happen and that it will be done?

It's such a perfect title, Vanessa.

In many ways, our podcast is designed to be a nationwide course in problems and opportunities of democracy. And one of the really fascinating parts of democracy as a concept is that it encompasses so many different issues and it can encompass so many different people and produce new kinds of ideas, new kinds of solutions to problems.

It's the ever experimental element of democracy that inspires our podcast. It inspired Franklin Roosevelt, in many ways, the historical mentor for our podcast and it is so well embodied. This notion of historical experimentation among diverse groups, it's so well embodied by your work, Vanessa, and what you shared with us today.

Looking back on the Port Huron Statement in 1962, as you've done, really provides us a lesson and inspiration, not to rewrite the statement per se but to think about what an agenda for a new generation and what a more expansive democracy would look like in the 21st century. We need that conversation now more than ever. Vanessa, thank you so much for the work you've done to help ground and inspire this conversation.

You've really shared so much with us today. Thank you.

It's so true. Zachary and his generation are a new greatest generation in the making. We're fortunate to have them as part of our podcast.

We're particularly fortunate to have Zachary's poems every week. Thank you for your Port Huron revisited reflections, Zachary. Most of all, thank you to our audience for working hard to improve and expand our democracy every day.

Welcome to our new episode of This is Democracy. Today, we're going to discuss the history of the Republican Party. Where did the Republican Party come from, particularly in the mid-20th century? It, of course, has an earlier history, but we're going to talk about the mid-20th century history of the Republican Party and its development, its evolution, and devolution from the mid-20th century to today. We'll also talk about how the history of the Republican Party can inform us about where the party might be going. We're joined by the foremost scholar of the history of the Republican Party, the person who's written the most important work on the history of the Republican Party in the 20th and 21st centuries, my friend Geoffrey Kabaservice. Geoff is the Director of Political Studies at the Niskanen Center in Washington, D.C. He's the author of several books, including The Guardians: Kingman, Brewster, His Circle, and The Rise of the Liberal Establishment, which is a really terrific book about one of the key figures in establishment Republican Party politics in the mid-20th century through the 1960s. Then he wrote an even more important book, Rule and Ruin: the Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party from Eisenhower to the Tea Party. Geoff most recently published another piece, he publishes all over the place, he published a most recent piece in the Washington Post called "The Forever Grievance" on the recent years of the Republican Party and where the Republican Party might be going from where it is today. Geoff, thank you for joining us today.

That's right. Geoff and I got to know each other very well when we spent long days working through musty old papers in the Yale University archives. Glory days, Geoff, yes? (Oh, yeah.) Before we turn to our discussion of the history of the Republican Party, we have, of course, our scene setting poem from Mr. Zachary Suri. What is the title of your poem today, Zachary? (It's a long one. It's titled "For Joseph McCarthy and His Brethren in Moral Promiscuity.") Wow. McCarthy and Moral Promiscuity. I'm a little concerned about where we're going. Let's hear it.

That closing note on the Titanic, Zachary, that really sneaks up upon you. What is your poem about?

Well, that's a great place to start, Zachary. Geoff, the Republican Party in the mid-20th century during the Great Depression and World War II and thereafter, it was very different from the party of Lincoln, of course, and the party that we see today. Can you describe what the party was about and how one thinks about the positions and leadership of the Republican Party mid-20th century?

It's a really important point that you raised, Geoff. I often remind students that Jackie Robinson was a Republican, right? I mean, and it was very natural for someone like Jackie Robinson to think that way. (Mm-hm) When did that begin to change though? When do we see the party that you're describing, the party of Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, and to some extent Herbert Hoover and other figures like a John Lindsay and a Nelson Rockefeller, when do we begin to see a split toward figures like Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan? And what does that split really mean within the party?

And Geoff, why did that happen? I mean, I think what you've described has been well documented by you and a number of other historians. But why did that happen? Why did these progressive Republicans and other Republicans, why did they switch parties in this way?

And it brings us back to a point you raised earlier when you brought up William F. Buckley as well. I mean, one of the real struggles the Republican Party had in the 50s, and to some extent the 60s that you've written about, Geoff, was to purge itself of McCarthyism to some extent, and even more in more extreme forms, to purge itself of the John Birch Society and other white supremacist groups. And to make it clear that although the party was critical of certain civil rights legislation, it was not the party of white supremacy. How did they do that? How did they walk that balance in that period?

Do you see that changing, becoming more pronounced with Ronald Reagan? I mean, there are different schools of thought on this. Some point to, of course, Reagan's use of dog whistles, the Neshoba speech in 1980 when he goes near the site of the murder of three civil rights workers and makes a case for states' rights. Others see Reagan, as you said, as a big tent figure, someone who was open to people from different backgrounds. How do we understand that moment in the evolution of the Republican Party?

Oh, I was just following on those comments, Geoff, which are so insightful. I mean, really, to what extent can we see the party becoming, the Republican Party, more of a white civil rights backlash party from Nixon to Reagan forward, or is that unfair?

That makes a lot of sense. Before we talk about Trump, who's of course the elephant or the orange blimp in the room, before we get to that, what about evangelicals? One of the other striking phenomena is the rise of the evangelical movement in the United States and its increasing attachment through the 1980s in particular and thereupon to the Republican Party. How do we understand that connection?

Hmm. That's a very insightful analysis. And of course, it's particularly ironic that a number of the presidents the evangelicals have supported, particularly Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump, are individuals who do not, by any stretch of the imagination, live the lifestyle that an evangelical would espouse for one's own followers, right? (Right. All too true.) So how then do we explain the capture of the party, if that's the right word for it, and I think you've written about it that way, by Donald Trump? I mean, you've laid out, Geoff, a very sophisticated and detailed history of the Republican Party that emerges out of at least three or four traditions, a party that's gone through many changes over time with a serious intellectual core and a set of political aspirations. I mean, it sounds like a normal party, something that would be recognizable to people in other societies. How did it become so bizarre in the last four or five years?

We had Julian on. I'm sorry. Sorry, Geoff. I apologize for interrupting you. We had Julian on the podcast, I don't know, I think a couple of months ago. So our listeners should be familiar with his work. I apologize for interrupting you, please go ahead.

What I don't understand, Geoff, is what happened to all those figures who were establishment Republicans, if we can call them that? Where did they go? I mean, many of them remain in the party. I mean, these are the Mitch McConnell's, the John Cornyn's, the George W. Bush's. Where did they go? And how were they silenced? Or how were they coerced into these, what seem antithetical positions that they've been forced to adopt?

I guess I struggle with that. And I know a lot of people I talk to struggle with that, because on the one hand, that's obvious in the rhetoric that they use. On the other hand, if you take someone like, let's take Chuck Schumer, senator from New York, who might be the next majority leader or minority leader in the Senate, and someone like John Cornyn from the great state of Texas, senior senator, who is still the Republican whip in the Senate, they actually agree on a lot of things. They believe in free trade. They're ardent capitalists. They believe in a system that provides more social security benefits to older people. They believe in internal investments in infrastructure. How is it that they look so different on these graphs, but yet seem to those who are really critical of American capitalism, they look like they're pretty much the same on many issues?

And do you see these local Republicans, and these include, of course, governors and secretaries of state in Georgia and Arizona and elsewhere, as well as election officials at the local level in various places, do you see them offering an alternative path for the Republican party, or how do you understand their motivations?

Right, that's the scary part of it. It also seems to me that a lot of these local officials, they're in a situation where they have to actually choose, they can't stay silent, and, and what, what most Republicans have done, particularly in Congress, is they've just stayed silent, right? It's what Eli Wiesel called the "complicity of silence," rather than the act of commission on behalf of illegal activities, or so it seems to me.

Yeah. No, I've been struck by the image of many members of the Senate running away from reporters who are trying to ask them what seems like a very basic question as to who won the election. Geoff, looking forward, and this builds on the excellent piece you wrote in the Washington Post, we need, as you've argued, and others have argued, we need a healthy two-party system. Our system doesn't function well when one party, either Left or Right, is just committed to tearing things down. What are the things that, particularly, our young listeners can do if they care about these issues, and they feel drawn to, as I think many do, to some of the core positions of the Republican Party, as it once was, to fiscal conservatism, to a belief in more respect for religion and society, many issues of that sort. What are the productive things that people can do to help move the Republican Party in that hopeful direction that you laid out?

That makes a lot of sense. My final question, Geoff, along those lines is why, why do you think that's a better strategy than then forming a third party, because that's that's another thing I often hear, right? Shouldn't, shouldn't we have a third party to replace the Republican party? Why do you think the long march through the institutions will work better than creating a new set of institutions?

Right, and this follows perfectly from the history you've documented, better than anyone else, which shows that this is how the Republican party changed it to where it is now. It was those working within the party who moved it in this direction. There's no reason to believe that there can't be an equal and opposite reaction pulling it out of where it is into another new direction.

That's a very powerful message. Zachary, as a young political junkie who cares a lot about these issues, and I know I've heard you debating with your friends about the legitimacy or wisdom of a third party, what do you think has this history that Geoff has laid out so well give you a better sense of how your generation can help rebuild a viable and reasonable two-party system in our society?

Right, that makes a lot of sense, whether we actually need more institutional reform in addition to party reform. And, of course, we need some of both. Geoff, you've given us such a strong and firm foundation for understanding these issues, and I want to encourage all of our listeners to read your books and read your articles, we've listed your books on our on our website, and to follow you on what the Niskanen Center is doing. There's so much important work to be done in this area, and it's a case where history matters so much, that's the focus of our podcast each week, using history to better understand our world, and Richard Hofstadter comes up all the time, and so does your point, Geoff, about about hope. Hope is something that is made from using our history to find reasons to build optimism. Optimism doesn't just happen, we have to pursue optimistic paths, and Geoff, you've given us so much to build on here. Thank you so much for joining us this week, Geoff.

We won't let him. Zachary, thank you for your hope, for your poetry, which I think helps to feed our hope. And most of all, thank you to our listeners for joining us on this episode of This Is Democracy.

[Music] This is Democracy, a podcast about the people of the United States, a podcast about citizenship, about engaging with politics, and the world around you. A podcast about educating yourself on today's important issues and how to have a voice in what happens next. Welcome to our new episode of This Is Democracy.

This week we are going to discuss a perennial topic of congressional politics and a perennial debate within our democracy, one that's becoming perhaps more important than it's been in a long time. The question of whether the U.S. Senate should continue to have a rule for a filibuster, which allows a minority, a small minority, in the Senate to prevent legislation and other matters from moving forward.

This is, as I said, an age-old question. It's central to American legislation in American politics, and we're very fortunate to have with us one of the leading scholars of Congress in general, and this topic, among many others.

My friend and colleague, Sean Theriault. Good morning, Sean. Good morning, Jeremi.

Sean is a professor in the Department of Government here at the University of Texas at Austin. As I said, he is an internationally recognized, widely published author and speaker on the various pathologies of the U. S. Congress. Sean has written five outstanding books, many of which have won awards.

He began his illustrious career with the book The Power of the People, appropriately titled for a Scholar of Congress. I guess that's the aspiration of Congress more than the reality. He then published a really prescient book in 2008: Party Polarization in Congress, then another book that I really enjoyed reading. I read this book on the prize committee years ago–The Gingrich Senators–really, one of the best books at explaining how Newt Gingrich and his generation transformed the U. S. Congress.

And then more recently, The Great Broadening. And just this last year, a really important book for educating all of us about these topics, Congress: The First Branch. Sean also writes widely in every major newspaper. He appears on all kinds of news shows.

We could call you, Sean, Mr. Congress. How does that sound?

[Laughter] Yeah, well, I think it's safe to say, Sean, you are more popular than Congress.

Before our conversation with Sean, as always, we have our scene setting poem from Mr. Zachary Suri.

Zachary, what is the title of your poem today?

With a single speech.

Zachary, that's lovely. What is your poem about?

You're not the first guest to say that. So you should listen to your guests, Jeremi. How dare you sucker punch us off! [laughter]

And Sean, before we talk about how this filibuster actually works, why is it there?

It's not mentioned in the Constitution, of course. So how did we get this archaic institution?

Yeah, so right. I'll give you a common person's understanding of how it came to exist, and I'm a storyteller, Jeremi. This is the reason I think my students pay attention—You're a great storyteller—on occasion.

So like Lin Manuel Miranda's play. I mean, Aaron Burr is the villain, in a sense here, right?

Right. It's extraordinary, though, Sean, isn't it? That as vice president, he had that much enduring power on the way the Senate operates.

Right, and this is actually a really good lesson for the Senate. Right? So this is a precedent that is set early, and the Senate really cares about precedent. And so, a decision that they make kind of just because they never used this thing, ends up having these huge ramifications that we continue to feel throughout the next two-hundred plus years of history. It's a really important lesson in path dependence, how a decision made early has enduring effects, as you say.

How does the filibuster work, Sean?

Sean, as a scholar of Congress who studied this, I think, closer than pretty much anyone else, what have been the moments when the filibuster has actually built consensus?

That's the argument it seems to me you're making. At certain moments. It forces a party with fifty-two to actually reach out and find those on the other side, at least eight of them to go along with things. And one could see, in theory, the value in that.

So what moments do you see as the moments when this has been a source of consensus building?

It's a great point. And you can see that certainly, with the civil rights legislation that you mentioned going back to the ‘57 [Civil Rights] Act, that Lyndon Johnson, as Senate majority leader, muscles his way through. And then, of course, the ‘64 Civil Rights Act and the ‘65 Voting Rights Act. What's striking about those examples, Sean, which are terrific examples, is that, you're right, the legislation gains more permanence from having to go through the filibuster threshold.

But historians, I think, would argue, [it] took much longer to get that legislation. And Jim Crow, and of course, before that, slavery, last a lot longer than they might have otherwise because of the filibuster, so you can see both sides. Would you agree with that?

How does an effective majority leader do this?

I mean, what do we learn from someone like Lyndon Johnson?

We certainly learned that the majority leader, we learned this from Mitch McConnell too, is incredibly powerful in the Senate.

But it just seems today, when the majority leader's main role is whipping his or her own party, how have they, in the past, been able to get through this threshold? What have they done?

So I guess, Sean, this is what puzzles me because it seems that over time in most periods, these gangs that are formed, as you say, to control getting through cloture, getting the sixty votes that are necessary. They've generally had a moderating influence on legislation because they usually are a mix of Democrats and Republicans close to the middle.

Someone like the Senator Joe Manchin today from West Virginia, who is probably closer to the middle than many other Democrats would be in the Senate or Susan Collins, I guess on the Republican side for Maine. And they've had an enormous amount of influence on legislation over time, but it seems in the last decade that hasn't happened.

And it seems as if, the filibuster is being invoked, more often than not, just to stop any deliberation, for example, on gun control, to stop deliberation on voting rights.

Is that a newer phenomenon and if so, why?

So over time, Sean, I think, as a consequence of a closely split Senate for quite a while and the difficulty of getting major legislation through there has been a chipping away of the filibuster. The budget reconciliation itself, I think, is one example of that.

Certainly, as I recall, the Democratic Party under President Obama eliminated the filibuster for judicial appointments short of the Supreme Court. And then, of course, the Republican Party under Donald Trump eliminated the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees, which is how Trump was able to nominate and appoint three different members of the court.

Do you foresee a continued chipping away of the filibuster?

Do you foresee an elimination of it or just leaving it as it is?

Or Sean, and this would be a road toward the end you're describing, is it likely that we will see more significant chipping away of it just in the coming months, for example, with Democrats wanting to be able to pass voting rights legislation?

And I guess this is my last question. Sean, do you foresee the Senate moving to what Joe Manchin himself has mentioned, which is the possibility of at least making those who want to invoke the filibuster make them work harder, make them actually stand up and speak right now?

Oftentimes, right, those who are willing to filibuster simply threatened to do it, and the Senate moves on. But do you foresee them at least raising the pain threshold for filibusterers, as Manchin has suggested?

And so, right, it's a good talking point, but I just can't see it playing out, except and perhaps in very limited cases. It's a great insight, Sean, that there is a trade off in terms of time for the Senate and the majority has very limited time to get things done, especially when you look at the electoral clock with a 2022 election coming up.

Zachary as we close here, what are your thoughts on this?

There's a younger generation like yours. First of all, do you pay attention to this?

Is this something that can motivate people?

I mean one thing Sean is saying is that the filibuster's days are numbered. That certainly means that this is an issue people should pay attention to, do you think that's that's the case?

Great point. Is that accurate, Sean, do you think?

And there we have the reason the filibuster has survived as long as it has.

Sean, this was fantastic. You offer such detailed and insightful knowledge on Congress and related political matters. And you're so good at explaining things and also making it fun and interesting, so thank you, Sean, for joining us today.

Oh, thank you for having me on, Jeremi. It's a pleasure talking to you and Zachary today. And Zachary, thank you for your poem, as always, and most of all, thank you to our listeners for joining us for this episode of This is Democracy.

Welcome to our new episode of This is Democracy. "This week we're going to examine a question that's at the forefront of our news in the future of our society and draws on a long history. Economic stimulus packages in American history. How have they been used in the past by the federal government? What have we learned? And how will that history inform the experience of the most recent economic stimulus package, the 1.9 trillion dollar package passed by President Biden and the Democrats in the House and the Senate."

We're joined today by a good friend and one of the foremost historians of precisely these issues, Julian Zelizer. Good morning, Julian. How are you today?

It's wonderful to have you on, Julian.

Julian Zelizer is one of the leading experts of modern American political history, particularly the influence and role of Congress in American history. He's the Malcolm Stevenson Forbes, class of 1941, professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He's the author and editor of 19 books on American political history. Whenever I say that, I feel like I'm woefully insufficient. Among his many important books that I recommend to everyone, still one of my favorites, his first book, Taxing America: Wilbur D. Mills, Congress and the State, 1945 to 1975, explains how Congress does appropriations, which is very relevant to what we're talking about today. The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress and the Battle for the Great Society. We'll discuss this a little bit today. Lyndon Johnson's congressional programs, and particularly his efforts to alleviate poverty and inequality in American society. Fault Lines: A History of the United States since 1974, which was co-authored with historian Kevin Cruz. And most recently, a book I encourage everyone to read, Burning Down the House: Newt Gingrich, the Fall of a Speaker, and the Rise of the New Republican Party. Julian discussed that book with us on this podcast a few months ago.

Julian, we're gonna get right into it, beginning with Zachary's scene-setting poem, of course. Zachary, what's the title of your poem today?

Well, let's see.

I love the imagery, Zachary. What is your poem about?

Well, that's great. I think that's a perfect spot to turn to Julian. Julian, everyone has watched how difficult it was to get this economic stimulus package passed. Historically, why are these so difficult? I mean, the United States is a prosperous society. The federal government prints the money. Why is it so difficult to get a stimulus package during a time of difficulty?

And historically, have those objections proven accurate? Is there a reason for business groups and others to appropriately fear that a stimulus package will hurt them in the long term?

I want us to come back to the Obama package soon. But I think it's good to start with the New Deal, which you mentioned. What have we learned about the positive effects that came out of the New Deal? And maybe you want to take us also into the Great Society as well. What have we learned historically that we should know today when we discuss these issues?

And so what, what were the elements of FDR and Lyndon Johnson's efforts that allowed them to succeed against the opposition that you described so well before? This is one of the things you've written about in such detail, Julian, how did these two men get through what you defined as the traditional opposition to these kinds of programs?

And obviously, Julian, in the Obama administration knew this history. And so it would be it seems to me it's a good idea to turn to their program at this point. When when President Obama came into office in 2008, 2009, during the Great Recession, how did he use that history to define and pursue his stimulus package?

So let's talk about that a little bit. The stimulus package that the Congress passed and President Obama signed in 2009, which, as you said, is foremost on President Biden's mind these days, because President Biden was, in a sense, the person put in charge of implementing this package. It's an $800 billion package in comparison to $1.9 trillion for the current package. So it's much smaller, less than half the size. Was the size, the smaller size, was that a function of the effort to build bipartisanship by President Obama?

It seems, Julian, we have enough of a historical record, especially the last 20 years with the Reagan tax cuts, the Obama stimulus, the tax cuts of George W. Bush before Obama and the tax cuts of Donald Trump to assess, does direct spending work better to stimulate the economy or tax cuts work better?

And so with that context, do you see the Biden plan targeting direct spending in the right places, right places defined as places that will contribute to economic recovery for communities and for areas of the economy that have suffered, particularly during the COVID crisis?

And what about the argument that's made that it's just too much money?

That's exactly where my mind was going, my hopes were going, Julian. And I think that's an appropriate place for us to ask our closing question. Roosevelt, in particular, and to some extent Lyndon Johnson, if we take the Vietnam War out of things, which of course we really can't do, but certainly Franklin Roosevelt establishes a new consensus in American politics, to the point where Republicans have to start supporting New Deal policies because they're so popular. Is that a possibility?

Can we see Biden playing that kind of role, not necessarily as a Roosevelt, but as a shepherd for a new consensus around some of these policies aimed at addressing economic inequality, aimed at addressing communities that have been left behind, aimed at addressing our healthcare deficiencies in our country?

It’s a very persuasive argument you make Julian, but as you and I know as historians, also, we do go through these cycles, and at some point the cycle does have to turn back. But when it does, who knows? Who knows? It does seem as if this might be a moment for that. Zachary, as as a young person watching all of this, do you do you share the hope that I have and that I think Julian has, Julian’s cautious hope, about the role of government being rebuilt in the minds of many citizens? Or where do you see things going?

Well, that’s I think, a crucial point. And I’m sure Julian would agree that that voting rights are at the center of any effort to rebuild any kind of consensus in American politics. We discussed this, of course, in a prior episode with Sean Theriault on the filibuster. Which is, of course, a key element in Congress restricting voting rights legislation right now. Julian, thank you so much for joining us today. You’ve given us the kind of historical context only you can, and we really appreciate you taking the time.

And Zachary. Thank you for your poem, as always and for your insights and most of all, thank you to our listeners. Thank you for joining us for this week of This Is Democracy.

Welcome to our new episode of This is Democracy. Today we're going to discuss a topic that's front and center in everyday newspaper and every discussion in our society about foreign policy, the past and future of the U.S.-China relationship. And we're very fortunate to be joined by, I think, the person who's writing some of the most sensible, historically informed, and creative work on the topic, a good friend, Dr. Charles Edel.

Charlie was on our podcast before a little more about a year ago, a year and a half ago, and we're delighted to have him back on. Welcome, Charlie.

Charlie is a global fellow at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., and he's also a senior fellow at the U.S. Studies Center in Sydney, at the University of Sydney. His research and policy expertise is actually truly vast and deep at the same time. He has particular expertise in politics and security in the Indo-Pacific and U.S. strategy toward that region, as well as American foreign policy, grand strategy, and American political history. So he really covers the U.S. side of the story as well as the Asia, Indo-Pacific side of the story.

He wrote a fantastic first book, a book I assign to students all the time, on John Quincy Adams, who was probably America's greatest secretary of state. The book is called Nation Builder, John Quincy Adams and the Grand Strategy of the Republic. And then he co-wrote a book that we had him on the podcast to discuss, co-written with Hal Brands, The Lessons of Tragedy, Statecraft and World Order. Currently, Charlie is writing a book on a fascinating topic on dealing with authoritarian regimes. I imagine China will be one of the regimes in your book. Is that correct, Charlie?

Charlie, in addition to his extensive academic and scholarly work, he writes frequently for major newspapers and magazines and journals. He's frequently on television and the radio, and he has extensive policy experience as well. From 2015 to 2017, he served under the U.S. Secretary of State's policy planning staff, playing a pivotal role in Asia-Pacific issues at the time. And he's also worked extensively in the region. He was a Henry Luce scholar at Peking University and spent an extensive amount of time in Australia, in East Asia, and of course, in the United States. Charlie, we're delighted to have you with us today.

Before we turn to our discussion with Charlie, we have, of course, Mr. Zachary Suri's scene-setting poem. What is your poem about today, Zachary?

A Good Fight. A Good Fight. Okay. I hope you're not referring to our altercations. No. Certainly not. All right. Let's hear it.

It's a wonderful reflection, Zachary, on I guess the empty glamour of conflict and war. Why did you write that poem for a discussion of US-China relations?

Charlie, is that part of the dynamic as we look back, you as a historian bring a real thoughtful perspective to the current issues. As we go back to 1949, right, to the beginnings of the Chinese Communist Party regime and its difficult relations with the United States from that period up to the present, does Zachary capture an important dynamic here or is that not accurate?

And I really like how you use the poem as a springboard to understand not just the US side of this dynamic, but the Chinese side as well. And both sides, you could argue, have a tendency toward forward action and maybe even sometime aggression. I wanted to pick up on so many good points. I wanted to pick up in particular, Charlie, on this point about American interests and American action on behalf of others in the region. I think this has been a mainstay of US-China policy since the end of World War II, that the United States policy towards China is not just about China, but about the wider East Asian and one could even argue Indo-Pacific region with regard to our interests in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and elsewhere. Is that the correct framing? Is that the way to think about it in regional terms rather than bilateral terms?

And what are America's main interests in the region? What are the things we have historically cared about, which ostensibly we would still care about today?

Does it matter, Charlie, that China is still, at least in the way it refers to itself, its government, still a communist government ruled by a communist party? Does that matter?

Well, and I will highlight, Charlie, a wonderful piece you recently wrote that emphasizes how the Australians, despite this trade dependence on China, have actually moved their trade relations in response to Chinese bullying and Chinese coercion. And so it does show that this is possible, and that's part of what managing relationships are about. Do you think that the Biden administration is moving in that direction? Are they moving in a direction of working, as you and Hal Brands in another article write, toward building a sort of alliance of democratic solidarity with other democratic societies like Australia and Germany to not only push back against China, but to enforce certain rules of behavior?

Is there a danger, Charlie, and this stems in part from historical experience, that although this can be very productive, both at an international and at a domestic level in disciplining people at home, it's one of the issues where Democrats and Republicans can agree in many respects. Nonetheless, does it not create a bifurcated world? Does it not create an adversarial relationship and reinforce certain adversarial assumptions which then make cooperation, where possible, more difficult?

On the domestic side of this, because we did a podcast episode a few weeks ago with Madeline Hsu, and we talked about the history of anti-Asian sentiment in the United States, which as you know well, has a long history, including Chinese exclusion, Japanese internment, just a number out of a long history of this. What are some of the concrete things we can do at home? Because there's no doubt we've seen in the last four to eight years, as the international competition has increased between the US and China, that we have seen more incidents of anti-Asian violence in the United States. And for a time, we had an American leader who was blaming and deriding China and many of its people for many of our health issues related to the pandemic in the US. So how do we reverse that dynamic at home? What are some of the concrete things we can do while competing internationally?

This is a very important point, and we've seen evidence of this at many of our universities. It's been more evident, of course, in Australia. And you're one of the leading commentators and analysts of this, Charlie, right? Which is the ways in which the Chinese government organizes groups in other countries to try to intimidate other citizens of the United States or Australia or elsewhere of Chinese descent who might be critical of the Chinese Communist Party. And tries to intimidate them.

Charlie, you've put so many interesting issues on the table in a historical perspective, allowing us to see that the competition is real, but it's more complex than just saying we're competitors, and we're going to mobilize all the resources we have. It's a much more delicate game of balancing different interests and different communities abroad and at home. For our listeners who are concerned about this conflict, either leading us to chase our tail, as you put it, in places where we don't want to expend our resources, that's one of the lessons of the Cold War, that competing against a legitimate adversary can lead us to do things that we regret, in retrospect, and get into conflicts we regret. But also, what are the things we can do to avoid the conflict getting out of control? What are the positive steps that we can take and that our listeners can think about encouraging in their political leaders?

It makes a lot of sense. Zachary, as a young person who follows these issues pretty closely and is concerned, do you see a pathway forward that Charlie's outlined here with his insightful comments about how the United States can compete without recreating perhaps some of the excesses of the Cold War or without going too far in certain areas in dangerous ways?

It's interesting, Charlie. Zachary brought up a point that reminds me of one of, I think, the great insights that our mutual advisor, John Lewis made years ago, that one of the striking things about the US-Soviet relationship was how distant these societies were, how little the United States needed the Soviet Union, in fact. And it's the opposite with China. And Zachary's commenting, I think, on how that could be a positive element. That could be something that prevents some of the, let's say, mistakes and excesses of the past. Sort of as a final thought, do you agree with that? Is proximity and closeness a strength here?

Charlie, you have really treated us today to a tour de force, understanding, I think, first of all, how intertwined so many of these interpersonal and geostrategic and domestic and international issues are, how relevant our history is as both an explanation for how we've come to where we are, but also as laying out a set of alternatives and lessons that can at least frame the way we think about these issues. But most of all, allowing us to see that the pathway forward is not going to be a simple one. And although slogans are attractive, it strikes me that what you're laying out is actually the real work of diplomacy and marrying power to idealism, democracy and security hand in hand. And that's at the center of what I think democratic policy is always about. So, Charlie, thank you for sharing your wisdom and insights with us today.

I have such high regard, Charlie, for your understanding of that point so well that it is about democracy, but that doesn't mean it's about imposing democracy upon China, but it certainly is about protecting democratic values that we believe in that are at the core of our society. And again, I think your insights and your writing and your policy work really, really capture that.

Zachary, thank you for your poem, which warned us about competition, and for your questions along these lines. And most of all, thank you, as always, to our listeners. Thank you for joining us for this episode of This Is Democracy.

Welcome to our new episode of This Is Democracy. This week we're going to discuss the transatlantic alliance and in particular NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, an organization that I think historians agree is one of the most, if not the most successful alliance in the history of the world.

And today we're going to discuss why this alliance exists and what role it's played and how we should think about the future of this alliance, if it has a future, and its relationship to democratic relations across societies and alliances on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. A very important issue for politics and international diplomacy.

We're joined by two friends and scholars and teachers who have written some of the most important work on NATO, two people who have taught me much of what I know about this alliance, Joshua Shifrinson and James Goldgeier. Hello gentlemen.

Josh Shifrinson is an associate professor of international relations in the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. His first book, which is a wonderful book with a bright yellow cover, I can see it on my bookshelf now, it always stands out on your bookshelf because of the bright yellow color and the brilliance of what's inside of it, Rising Titans, Falling Giants, How Great Powers Exploit Power Shifts, a really thoughtful explanation of how countries, big countries deal with shifts in international power. Related to this, Josh has written numerous articles, particularly on NATO, on the durability of NATO, on its expansion at the end of the Cold War, and various related issues.

James Goldgeier is a professor of international relations and the former dean of the School of International Service at American University, and he survived his deanship and remained an active scholar. I think no one has ever done that before. Jim, you're the only one who's managed that. He's also the Robert Bosch Senior Visiting Fellow at the Center for the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institute, and he serves as chair of a committee that I have great reverence for, the State Department Historical Advisory Committee, which helps us to get documents that we as historians can use for our research. Jim has written numerous books. I think still the best book on the period from the end of the Cold War to 9-11, America Between the Wars, that he co-wrote with Derek Chollet, also Power and Purpose: U.S. Policy Toward Russia After the Cold War, that he co-wrote with now-former Russian Ambassador Michael McFaul. And particularly for our subject today, Jim wrote the first, and I still think the best book on NATO expansion, Not Whether But When: The U.S. Decision to Enlarge NATO.

So we have two scholars and public intellectuals who clearly know more about this topic than anyone else and a lot to share with us.

Before we turn to our conversation with Josh and Jim, we have, of course, Mr. Zachary Suri's poem. What's the title of your poem, Zachary?

Transatlantic Elegy. Okay, let's hear it.

Interesting.

This is why we have the podcast. We have Zachary's poetry to open up our eyes.

No, no J.D. Vance is here for us.

Zachary, clearly your poem had impact already. What is your poem about?

We'll come back to that, of course, but I think your poem also implies that there was a golden moment. There was something there. Maybe Jim, how should we start our history of NATO? What is NATO about? Why was it founded and what did it do well in its time?

It's amazing. You're certainly right, Jim. As a historian, I always remind my students that the United States, after the revolution, when we had an alliance with the French, we never formed another alliance again until World War II. So, our tradition, as you said, was not to have alliances like this.

Josh, it's often said, and the quote is apocryphal from Lord Ismay as far as we can tell, but it's often taken as an apocryphal statement that NATO was created to keep the US in, the Soviets out and the Germans down. Is that accurate?

And how did this actually work in practice, Jim? You've written a lot about this. NATO was actually a relatively consultative structure and still is, right? It wasn't just the United States getting its way all the time, correct?

And Jim, just following on that really interesting point, and thanks for mentioning that dissertation. I haven't read it. I need to read it myself. Would you say that NATO spread or encouraged democracy in Europe?

And Josh, on this point of the strategic purpose, which I think Jim is obviously correct about, was at the core of NATO, would you say, before we talk about the end of the Cold War, during the Cold War, did NATO succeed in containing Soviet aggression and did it succeed in, as you discussed before, bringing Germany into the Western alliance in a way that was comfortable and effective for the countries of Europe and for the United States and Canada?

Jim?

Right. And yet they managed to stay together. That's a that's a perfect segue to to to Josh and your work on NATO expansion. And of course, Jim's written about this as well. So we'll get both of you in on this. What happened at the end of the Cold War, if ostensibly the most obvious reason for NATO to exist was the Soviet threat when the Soviet Union no longer existed after December 25th, 1991. Why did NATO not only continue to exist, but actually expand into places like Poland and the Czech Republic, places that had been part of the Warsaw Pact that Jim just just discussed? Josh, give us give us your understanding of expansion.

Jim, you have written what I still think is the best book on this, not whether, but when. Why was Bill Clinton so committed or why did he become so committed to NATO expansion?

And your compelling account, Jim, belies the notion that domestic politics are separate from foreign policy. Clearly, they're integrated even in something that is sometimes a more archaic issue like foreign alliances, right?

Josh, you've written quite a bit about how the story that Jim is telling ran against, as you show, commitments the United States had made or at least commitments the Soviet Union and the Russian leadership believed the United States had made not to expand NATO. Tell us about that.

So is Vladimir Putin, though, correct when he says this was a double cross by the United States, Josh?

And Jim, there were efforts that again, you've written about by the United States to to bring this Russia in somehow, right? Not necessarily as a member of NATO, but to make this palatable to them. And of course, that carried forward well beyond the period of expansion. What what was accomplished, if anything, by those efforts, the partnership for peace and things of that sort?

And, Jim, is that...

Please, please Josh.

Right, right. And it's a common issue in international politics, as the dog is indicating as well, right, that different perspectives are brought. Jim, is this difference of viewpoints and interpretation what we need when we try to understand what happened in Ukraine that ended up, of course, with Russia invading and taking control of Crimea after Ukraine sought to become part of NATO? Is that part of the story?

We will certainly have our work cut out for us, whether it'll be a field day or not, I don't know. But we'll definitely have our work cut out for us, understanding Trump. Jim, that brings us up to the President right into Afghanistan. What has Afghanistan done to the NATO alliance?

Well, and that really very, very thoughtfully, Jim, takes us into where we always like to close, which is bringing all this history that you and Josh have shared with us to the present and thinking through not how we predict the future, but how we think about possible pathways for the future. Josh, let me turn to you first. You know, what do you think from this history that you know so well, and have shared a bit of with us? What do you think are some lessons going forward? How should we think about the transatlantic alliance going forward? What should it look like? And what are the possibilities as you see them?

That's really helpful, Josh. Jim, to come to you, it seems to me that it's a question of path dependence, right? NATO has been part of this very successful set of developments that Josh describes. But what do we know about the role it should play going forward?

So Zachary, I want to come back to you at the end here, because you got us started with your wonderful poem. How do you and your generation of younger people who think about international affairs, think about climate change and topics like that, that have not been traditionally topics for NATO, how do you see an alliance like that fitting into those issues, if at all?

Very well said. And it's been a theme for our podcast week after week, right, that democracy implies a certain amount of multilateralism.

And NATO has been fundamental to American international multilateralism, as Josh and Jim have made so clear today. And it certainly in some form will probably be part of that future, but it will be in a different form. What I hear Jim and Josh saying is that NATO will continue to exist, but it won't look the same. Institutions have a history as well. They have an arc of change. And I think your generation, Zachary, will play a major role in reforming NATO as we go forward and building other alliances as well.

Jim and Josh, thank you so much for sharing your insights with us today. You've given us a bookshelf worth of history in about 40 minutes, which is really extraordinary. So thank you so much.

And Zachary, thank you for your poem.

And thank you most of all, or equally as much, thank you to our audience for joining us for this week of This Is Democracy.

Welcome to our new episode of This is Democracy. This week we're going to discuss the Vietnam War and its legacies, its continuing legacies in American society, in global policy, and particularly in light of a recent set of conflicts that produced similarly controversial outcomes for American society and global policy, the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. We are very fortunate to be joined by a friend, colleague, distinguished author, and distinguished scholar, Mark Lawrence.

Mark is the director of the LBJ Presidential Library and Museum here in Austin, Texas, which is the best presidential library, and I say that without any bias at all. Mark is also a professor in the UT Department of History, and he has taught courses on American and international history and various other topics. He's written three fantastic books.

His first book, Assuming the Burden: Europe and the American Commitment to War in Vietnam. His second book is a wonderful narrative history of the Vietnam War as a whole, The Vietnam War: A Concise International History, and it's the only history of the Vietnam War I've seen that is truly concise. It's very hard to write a concise history of the Vietnam War.

And Mark's most recent book, the book that has just come out that we're going to talk about today, is on the Vietnam War and its legacies. It's called The End of Ambition: The United States and the Third World in the Vietnam Era. Mark, congratulations on your book, and thanks for joining us.

Before we turn to our discussion with Mark, of course, we have Zachary's scene-setting poem. What is your poem titled today, Zachary?

Let's hear it.

Very moving, Zachary. What is your poem about?

That's a perfect gateway into our discussion with Mark Lawrence. Mark, these are issues you've grappled with in your scholarship for decades.

It's always downhill after Zachary's poem, Mark. But Mark, you have, especially in this recent book, you've really delved into the ways in which the effort to build utopia, or a Great Society as Lyndon Johnson called it abroad in Vietnam, really distorted American thinking and American society. First of all, why was the United States trying to do this in Vietnam? Why were we looking to build this utopia, as Zachary put it, in a place so far away that so few Americans could even identify?

And why were our failures there? And of course, you and others have written in depth on the sources of our shortcomings in these activities. But why was it so disruptive? Why did it have such a deep effect at home, as Zachary refers to in his poem? And also,as your new book really narrates in such depth and in such compelling detail, why did it have such an effect on American foreign policy in so many other areas?

And Mark, I think your book is really brilliant on that point because it shows, especially in your country-specific chapters, and I hope all of our listeners will go ahead and buy and read the book. Mark has chapters on Brazil, India, Iran, Indonesia, and Southern Africa. In each of these chapters, there's kind of a similar narrative arc, it seems to me, where the United States is initially pursuing self-interested goals, but also goals that are merged to some sense of democratic hope, some sense of positive change. And then in almost every one of these chapters, Mark, to my reading, the effects of the Vietnam War to push the United States toward more support for authoritarianism and often more militaristic behavior or supportive militaristic behavior on the ground. Is that a fair reading? And if so, why does that happen?

And Mark, why this arc? Why in each case does it seem not only that the United States is less ambitious as you put it so well in your title, but also that the United States becomes, I don't know if this is fair, but it seems to me more cynical in its policies.

And just to build on that, Mark, another thing that struck me in your book was how often LBJ, the President of the United States, was willing to work with people he wouldn't work with otherwise if they were willing to support him in Vietnam. So in a strange way, the Vietnam War became a driver of American policy rather than American interests and ideals. Again, is that fair? And what are your thoughts on that?

So Mark, could you just say a little more about why that happens though? I mean, your book narrates that so well. And I was particularly struck by the Brazilian generals as well, because to me, you couldn't get farther from Vietnam than Brazil, right? But why is, I mean, this is the most powerful person in the world, President Lyndon Johnson. He's got so much experience also dealing with political failure as well as political success. Why does this small, as he says, this small country far away, why does it come to dominate everything this way?

Right. You and I have talked about this before. I mean, even his views of students in the United States become defined by where they stand on the Vietnam War, which is extraordinary if you think about that. Zachary.

Yeah, I thought, Mark, your book did really a wonderful job of taking that story that some of us have focused on and really connecting it to the story of what was called the third world and how this impacted not simply detente policy, a search for stability between the US and the Soviet Union and a search for law and order at home. Lyndon Johnson's the first to really use that phrase, law and order. But as you show in this book, as I think no one has before, how this really comes to define, again, American policy in Brazil and Indonesia, which to me was, again, startling. I had seen hints of this, but my gosh, the depth of it, I think we have not appreciated until reading your book.

I wonder, Mark, what you think about the legacies. I guess I'm asking you in this question sort of for your extended conclusion. You have an excellent conclusion to the book, but how would you extend it on for where this takes us, not just in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but in the last decades of the Cold War?

Sure. And the Middle East, you talk about and write about Iran, and that certainly would be a major element of what you're talking about here. Mark, how then should we explain, taking in all that you've shared with us in elucidating these changes in American policy and the implications for American democracy and for international affairs, how then do we situate that in relationship to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which have an eerie echo of the period you're writing about?

I think that's super helpful, but then it opens up another question, right? If so many American leaders who were making policy and American voters who were voting for those leaders had the experience of Vietnam in mind in one way or another, and here I'm thinking about people like recently passed Secretary of State Colin Powell, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, former Vice President Richard Cheney, Obama himself, who was reading about Vietnam at the start of his presidency. How could they make mistakes of excessive ambition, if that's what happened in Afghanistan and Iraq, if, as you point out, the lesson was so clearly to limit ambition?

Mark, we always like to close with a focus on how history can provide us some optimistic, positive steps forward. And that's an article of faith for our podcast. As you know, it's an article of faith for me.

I have to believe this. And your book is so rich in its recounting of this period. What are the lessons that you hope, especially in the context of Afghanistan and Iraq now, what are the lessons you hope that readers take as they think about American foreign policy and American democracy going forward?

I think that's wonderful, Mark. Another way I think of thinking about that and, and you've, you've really provided such a strong foundation for this is to recognize that trying to win unwinnable wars is not what we should be doing. That there are many other opportunities for the use of America's vast resources, right.

I had to find some optimism, Zachary, as, as we close. Uh, I know you and your friends have been talking a lot about what's happened in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, war in Afghanistan and Iraq, obviously the Vietnam. Do you see lessons for your generation in this story?

I think there's a lot to that. And there's a lot between cynicism and the utopia. You talked about it in your poem, right? I think, I think Mark's book shows that there actually are. There's a lot that can be done in between maybe that's, what's abandoned because of the obsession with Vietnam. Mark, this has been a really insightful conversation. I encourage everyone to go out and read and read your book and buy it and give it away as gifts as well. The End of Ambition: The United States and the Third World in the Vietnam era. Mark, thank you so much for joining us.

Zachary, Zachary. Thank you for your poem and thank you. Most of all, to our listeners for joining us for this episode of This is Democracy.

Welcome to our new episode of This is Democracy. This week we're going to focus on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, he most successful alliance in modern history, probably the most successful alliance in most of human history. And that's a big thing to say, but probably true. Successful in the sense that it has, for more than half a century, brought together countries on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean to collectively act for their defense as a group and it has generally worked to the defense of its members. That does not mean there have not been crises and problems. But NATO has had remarkable resilience. And lest one thinks that NATO is archaic, it is now at the center of debates and concerns about the future of security in Europe. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has raised concerns about further Russian aggression into territories that are part of NATO. It's also raised questions as to whether NATO should expand further east to countries like Ukraine and provide them with the protection that they've long wanted.

We are fortunate today to be joined by someone who I think knows more about NATO now than almost anyone else. He certainly knows more than me, which is the best thing a graduate advisor can say about one of his graduate students. This is Bryan Frizzelle, who is both a distinguished military officer and a distinguished scholar. Bryan is a colonel in the U.S. Army with 20 years of active duty service. He's commanded at every level, from platoon through battalion. And he served three combat tours in Iraq, which is extraordinary. From 2014 to 2016, Bryan served as a squadron and regimental operations officer for the 2nd Cavalry Regiment in Germany, participating in and planning NATO exercises in 12 East European countries as NATO adapted to Russia's annexation of Crimea and various Russian attacks in the Donbas region. So Bryan has extensive experience in NATO and extensive experience dealing with Russian aggression. Bryan holds a bachelor's of science degree in international strategic history from West Point, the U.S. Military Academy, a master's in policy management from Georgetown, and he's finishing his Ph.D. at the LBJ School of Public Affairs here at UT. And Bryan's Ph.D. is on the history of NATO and how NATO has dealt with internal crises and differences among its members and how it has been able to produce and encourage cooperation among its members despite these crises. Bryan, thank you for joining us. You're the right man for this moment, I think.

We're excited to have you on, Bryan, and thanks for taking the time. We know how busy you are with both your military and your scholarly duties and your family duties right now. So we feel fortunate to have you on. Before we go to our conversation with Bryan, we, of course, have Mr. Zachary Suri's scene-setting poem. What is your poem titled today, Zachary? ("Ode to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.") An ode to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. We're moving into new territory here. I love it. Let's hear it.

I love it, Zachary, and I love the mix of very serious analysis and also some humor. What is your poem about?

Sure, sure. And there are those who think NATO has expanded too far. And then there are those, you're implying this, who think NATO has not expanded far enough. (Right.) So, Bryan, I think that's a perfect place to start. Why does NATO look the way it does? Why are countries like Poland a part of NATO? It's obviously a late entrant into NATO. Why are countries like that a part of NATO and not countries like Ukraine? How did NATO come into being?

That makes a lot of sense. It's a very helpful way of thinking about the different motivations that have underpinned the development of NATO, including its expansion after the Cold War. Bryan, before we move on to that topic, which you've laid out so well, just give us a sense, both as a scholar and as a military leader. How does NATO function? Most people can at least identify it, but very few people know how it works. Some people think it's just a U.S.-led operation. Others have argued, including the last president, that it's a mess and that people are taking advantage of others. How does it really work?

And just to build on that, Bryan, one of the points you make so well in your dissertation that I think is so relevant for today is that, first of all, the different states have a say in what NATO does, the United States doesn't just get to call the shots, but also that the institutional leaders of NATO, those who have, in a sense, left their own government services and been seconded over to NATO, either in a political role or a military role, that they operate and have great influence on the decisions NATO makes. Is that true? And could you explain to us how that works? Because I don't think most people understand that.

That makes a lot of sense. And that's a great example to see that at work, even in a controversial setting, as in the war in Iraq. Bryan, do you see merit or not in Vladimir Putin's claim that this transnational network and this alliance is inherently threatening to Russia?

And so do you see ways in which NATO could have worked more effectively with Russia that were not pursued recently? And why were they not pursued?

Do you think that Putin's obvious obsession with Ukraine, as well as Georgia, and his anger at NATO expansion, were there things we could have done in retrospect, even if it's predominantly driven by his own desires and his own preferences, nonetheless, are there things we could have done? Some have argued that we expanded NATO too fast. Some have argued we could have done more to build peaceful bridges between NATO and Russia. You've lived through this as an officer and you've studied it. What's your take on the decade before where we are right now?

Bryan, I want to be attentive to your assets that you cannot necessarily share in our discussion. With that said, what can you tell us about how NATO is responding to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in the last six days?

Right, right. Why do you think he's invaded now?

Right. So in many ways, this does echo certain elements of the history of World War I and other periods when a particular power sees itself in its maximum moment of leverage and sees trends working against it. This is an old argument among many historians, which is that countries concerned about their decline are actually some of the most dangerous countries. That said, Bryan, what is NATO doing? How are we responding to Russia's invasion of Ukraine?

And many are saying, including the President of the United States, that this moment has strengthened NATO. German Bundeskanzler Olaf Scholz, in announcing a major new German contribution to NATO, transformative contribution also made that point. Do you think NATO will be stronger now as a consequence of Putin's terrible actions?

So our closing question here, Bryan, we always like to close on an optimistic note. You have given us so much inside, thoughtful information on the historical trajectory, the organizational roles, and the various adaptations of NATO before and during this war. Are you optimistic about the future of NATO? What are the contributions beyond Ukraine that you look for in a post-Ukraine War moment for NATO. What will NATO do to help make democracies and security more common in Europe and elsewhere?

That's that's so compelling and important to hear, Zachary, as a young person who's been deeply moved by the plight of Ukrainians and shaken by the evidence of Russian aggression, we talked about this last week on the podcast, do you share this optimism about NATO? And even more important, really, is NATO an institution that you and other young people think about and look to when you think about the future of security and democracy in the world?

and so you think NATO should be more involved in Ukraine?

Final word for you, Bryan. Any comments on that?

It's such a great point, Bryan and Zachary, and I think there's another historical insight here, you know, moments of crisis, moments of horror and nightmare, they reveal a lot of things about an institution and a set of actors, and we've learned a lot about Vladimir Putin. Not necessarily new things, but we've learned a lot about him in the last few days. We've learned a lot about Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the leader of Ukraine. We've learned a lot about NATO also, and it is, I think heartening and optimistic to see that in a time of challenge some institutions are able to respond effectively and turn those challenges, as horrible as they are, into opportunities, and it does seem that NATO, at least right now, is doing that, and we're fortunate to have institutions like this. A core point of your research, Bryan, and your career is that these institutions matter. It's not just the policies they pursue, it's the quality of institutions, and it's a central theme in our podcast, week after week. Democracy is not just about democratic actors, it's about democratic institutions that need to be nurtured and protected and respected, and we're fortunate to have NATO, as imperfect as it is, nonetheless there as an institution, as you say, that can defend and promote these values that we care so much about now, and I think that's really central to our discussion. Bryan, you have shared history and contemporary understanding and analysis with us, you've given us a better sense of what NATO is, how it works, and where it's going, and we're very grateful for you sharing your time and insights with us today, Bryan. Thank you so much.

Well, as you said before, I think it's more from Zachary than from Jeremi, but that's okay. And Zachary, thank you for your poem, and your question, and your insights. And thank you most of all to our loyal listeners. We hope you all are following the news and finding reasons for productive, optimistic historical thinking to move our world forward in this important time. Thank you for joining us for this episode of This Is Democracy.

Welcome to our new episode of This is Democracy. This week we're going to talk about a topic that is not only a major news story today, it has been a major news story throughout the last 50 years of American history, but particularly the last decade. And it's the story about the rise of China. Not simply the rise of the Chinese economy, but the rise of China as a military power, and the ways in which that rise has changed American calculations about security, stability, and democracy in Asia, and the ways in which recent events have perhaps shaken some of our historical assumptions about the relationship between the United States, China, Taiwan, and the region. We're joined by two scholars who are really experts, not simply on this issue, but have been thinking about the broader strategic environment in Asia for many years, and both of whom have also done groundbreaking scholarly work and policy advising around these issues. We're really fortunate to have them with us, and they have written a brand new book that I've just read and want to recommend to all of our listeners, Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China. The authors and our guests today are Hal Brands and Michael Beckley. Hal and Mike, thank you for joining us.

Hal Brands is the Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He writes frequently for Bloomberg Opinion and for many other publications, often with Mike, often with other authors, often just himself. He's written a number of important books that I've been fortunate enough to read, some I've even imposed on my students, The Twilight Struggle: What the Cold War Teaches Us About Great Power Rivalry Today. Lessons of Tragedy: Statecraft and World Order, he co-wrote that with Charlie Edel, who we've also had on the podcast, and American Grand Strategy in the Age of Trump. Those are just three of his recent books that I particularly like. Michael Beckley is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Tufts University and a non-resident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Hal is also a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. I should have said that. Previously, Mike was an International Security Fellow at the Kennedy School at Harvard, and he worked for the U.S. Department of Defense, the Rand Corporation, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He continues to advise the U.S. intelligence community and the Department of Defense. And Mike's first book, which is an excellent book, I highly recommend, Unrivaled, Why America Will Remain the World's Sole Superpower, that was written in 2018. And Mike and Hal have followed that up, as I said, with this new book, hot off the presses, Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China. Before we turn to our conversation with Hal and Mike about China, Taiwan, and U.S. policy, we have, of course, Mr. Zachary's scene-setting poem. What's your poem title today, Zachary? ("Probably.") Let's hear it.

What's your poem about, Zachary?

Right, the geopolitics still create barriers to cooperation. (Yes, inevitably.) Well, and that's exactly front and center where Hal and Mike's book lands. Hal, maybe we can start with you. I was very taken early on in the book and in your other writings, you and Mike, you talk about the "Chinese dream." And I think it's a way of trying to understand Chinese strategic aims, the way Chinese leadership thinks about its place in the world. How should we understand what you mean by this concept of the "Chinese dream?"

And Mike, if I could follow up on that, because I think it leads right into another key part of your book. You and Hal argue here, and I think it's a really important argument I haven't seen others articulate as clearly, that the Chinese are not just a rising power, you call them a "risen power," which is to say they have increased their potential, they've increased their power, but they've now plateaued and are facing headwinds and sources of decline. And that in this position of having risen and now at their position of maximum opportunity, this makes them particularly belligerent because of their fear of decline. Did I get that right? And can you elaborate on that?

So Hal, just following up on those excellent points, your book, you and Mike argue that again, China's reached a stage as Mike described, where it has had this extraordinary rise, but now it's fearful of its own decline and its own problems internally. And so that encourages a more aggressive behavior and you draw analogies to late 19th century Germany, to Wilhelmine Germany and to Japan in the early 20th century in that part of the book. Why do you think that argument makes more sense than the argument that had been put forth by people like Kurt Campbell, who is now Joe Biden's key advisor on these issues, the argument he had made years ago about China becoming a more responsible stakeholder as it becomes more dependent upon just what you're talking about, Hal, upon international connections, that globalization will in a sense, almost Gulliver-like tie the Chinese into so many parts of the international system that they won't want to destabilize this system because they themselves are now a part of it? Why do you not find that persuasive? Why should we see the revisionist aggression as more of the accurate description for today?

Mike, do you see the current situation in Taiwan as highlighting that point? I mean, your book came out just as Speaker Pelosi visited Taiwan, just as we've seen this extraordinary increase, actually, in Chinese military exercises around Taiwan. How do you fit that into the story?

It's so fascinating and horrifying, I have to say, listening to the two of you and reading your book, because, and I think this is your intention in part, right? Those of us who are historians, it echoes World War I in so many ways, the notion of windows of opportunity, peak power, a sense of a moment when the enemy is more vulnerable than other moments, the desire to go hard, go fast, a sort of early blitzkrieg way of thinking of things. How, in light of this bleak scenario, you and Mike are clearly not determinists. You clearly, as good historians, believe there are choices and contingencies. And the last couple of chapters of your book are about what the United States should do, you see, and I'm guessing, as a Cold War historian like myself, Hal, this is really something you've spent a lot of time thinking about, you see lessons from the Cold War for the United States. What are some of the top lessons that American citizens and policymakers should take from the Cold War for thinking about these issues today?

And you give some very concrete suggestions in the book, which I encourage listeners to look at, and also you quote Dean Acheson quite often, and I think it's always, always beneficial to quote Dean Acheson, in particular on the importance of showing strength sometimes to prevent worse outcomes from from occurring. Mike, on this line of thinking, though, I wanted to ask you, how do we prevent ourselves from over committing in the other direction? One of the criticisms that Hal and myself and others and you have made about American Cold War policymaking is, although we did good work in many places and other places we sometimes overcommitted, went into wars we shouldn't have been in, and there were often domestic costs as well, and so you know the very period Hal is referring to in the late 40s is also the rise of McCarthyism in the United States, and I know, and I'm sure you and Hal know this better than I do, you know, for many Chinese Americans talk of more explicit American containment policy toward China raises worries about anti-Chinese sentiment within the United States, which we saw a lot of evidence of during the pandemic. How do we prevent ourselves from over committing in the other direction?

I really appreciate it in the book how both of you talk about the importance of maintaining diplomatic connections, because I do think one of the lessons of the Cold War is that even in the worst moments of US-Soviet rivalry, talking was important. Diplomatic connections mattered, and the moments when we had least connection were often some of the most dangerous. And I think it's a point you emphasize, and I want to emphasize too, that as one is acting perhaps to strengthen Taiwan's defense, that doesn't mean you stop talking to the Chinese. In fact, it means you talk to the Chinese while you're doing that, and hope that you can make diplomatic progress at that moment. You both make the point in your book that if at some point the Chinese were willing to agree, as the United States did with Cuba, for example, in 1962 to a non-invasion pledge, that might be something the United States would want to talk about as a compromise agreement. I'm correct on this, right, that you, you both see diplomacy as a key part of the story, even as this relationship might become more militarized, yes?

And so I guess that brings us to the last question. We always like to close on an optimistic note. One of our purposes each week is to show that history opens options for thinking about policy and society and democracy, and that history offers us a reason to be optimistic, not the pessimistic image that historians sometimes have. I take from your book a very optimistic point at the end that the issues of surrounding China and Taiwan that we've talked about today are actually issues where there's a lot of agreement in Washington across party lines. Your book is not about Democrats versus Republicans. I know that that was intentional in the way you put it together, and I think it's also accurate. Maybe, Mike, I'll start with you, then we'll go to you, Hal. Where do you see the possibilities for this issue, maybe being one of those places where we can finally return to what might seem like more normal bipartisan discussions about strategy and foreign policy in the United States? How do you see that happening?

And I think Zachary, that's a perfect place to turn to you to close us out here, as as a young person who I know thinks and talks about these issues quite a lot. Do you see issues surrounding China, and I don't just mean strategic issues, broader issues, economic issues, issues related to the COVID. Do you see those issues as some of the issues that are dividing us now, or do you see them as actually, as Hal and Mike are saying, as a potential area where we could come together and find agreement?

Right? And our economies are certainly much more.. this is this is a point John Gaddis made a long time ago, that one of the unique features of the Cold War is that the United States and the Soviet Union actually had very few economic and trade interconnections, that's of course not the case for the US and China right now. I think your point, Zachary, is very well taken, and it echoes what both Mike and Hal said here on the podcast, and say in their wonderful book, which is that we study history, and their book is filled with useful historical analysis. We study history because it shows us that human beings have choices, they're difficult choices to make, and I think our discussion today is about the difficult choices the United States, as a democracy, has to make in order to avoid war, in order to avoid conflict, and hopefully build a more stable international system, where perhaps there's more space, as Mike just said, for a discussion about democracy, as well. I think this book and this discussion open up so many avenues, really, for thinking about current conditions in a useful way, in a way that's not simply about name calling and a kind of determinist assumption about war. And so I really, really appreciate the conversation. I highly recommend the book to all of our listeners. Again, it's called Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China, written by Hal Brands and Michael Beckley, filled with contemporary information, but of course, the part that's always most valuable: historical knowledge and research that's useful in understanding the present. Mike and Hal, thank you so much for joining us today.

And Zachary, thank you for your poem. And thank you most of all to our loyal listeners for joining us for this episode of This Is Democracy.

Welcome to our new episode of This Is Democracy. Today we are talking with a great author, good friend, and really outstanding thinker about a topic that we all confront every day. What is good leadership? How do we understand what it means to be an effective leader, as well as a persuasive and ethical?

In the world of social media, the world of flaming the world of difficult, difficult issues and difficult opposition to getting anything done. Our guest, Mark Updegrove, has written a number of books on presidential leadership. And his most recent book is really an. Excellent elegant study of John F. Kennedy and uses John F. Kennedy in many ways as a window into the possibilities and the limits of leadership in our world. It's a book. I hope you all will pick up and read. It's an eminently readable and deeply researched book. It's called Incomparable Grace: JFK in the Presidency. Mark, thank you for joining us.

It is nice to be able to have a conversation. Mark is a presidential historian. He's the author, as I said, of five books on the presidency; he's also interviewed, I believe, just about every living president, except for Donald Trump. Is that correct Mark?

Whoever that is.

Mark serves now as the president and CEO of the Lyndon B. Johnson Foundation, I get to consider him a neighbor. We don't see each other often enough. And, before that, he was the director of the LBJ Presidential Library.

Mark is also a presidential historian on ABC News. And, earlier in his career, among other things, he was a publisher of Newsweek. And if you read his newest book, you'll find out that he had a very close relationship with Hugh Sidey, who was the, I guess, the editor of Time Magazine. Is that correct, Mark?

He was, you know, he was the Washington bureau chief. Jeremi, but it was such an out, it had such an outsized power. He might as well have been the editor of Time Magazine as John Kennedy, knew as so many other presidents that he just had an incredibly important vantage point on the presidency.

Well, for those of you who buy and read Mark's book, there's some wonderful insights from Hughes Sidey, that Mark shares as well as insights from Scotty Reston, and many other journalists of the time. Before we get into our discussion with Mark, we have, of course, Zachary's scene sitting poem.

What is today's title Zachary?

Let's hear it.

I love it. Zachary, what is your poem about?

I think that's such a wonderful opening mark to discussing your fantastic book. Why did you write this book on John Kennedy? So many other books have been written. What did you have to say that others haven't said?

Well, you absolutely succeeded, at least for this reader, in both of the things you just mentioned. It's a brisk read, as you said, but it's also a moving, cinematic, but more than cinematic, rueful and thoughtful account of his life. You open with one of the low points of his presidency, which might surprise a lot of readers, the Vienna Summit of 1961, when in a certain way, the leader of the Soviet Union embarrasses this young president. Why did you start there?

In your vivid description of this, and it really is vivid, and you bring out Kennedy's words, you bring out his emotions, it does resonate with, I think, the central challenge of contemporary leadership, what President Biden must live with every day, which is the sense that you're in the most powerful office in the world, but you have almost unceasing opposition from external actors of Vladimir Putin or Nikita Khrushchev, internal actors, in Kennedy's case, the military that doesn't trust him.

You're really detailed in your description, Mark, also in former President Eisenhower and others who really don't think this man is up to the job, this man who barely wins the presidency in the closest election, as you say, in the 20th century. How does Kennedy deal with that? How does he move forward in this almost unwinnable situation?

I'm so glad you brought that up, Mark. It's one of the lasting lessons for me from your book, and the quote from Attlee, which is on page 226, I had not actually seen before, and I'm going to use it now and cite you also, obviously. How does one do that?

I want to dig a little deeper, and you have so many nuggets in your book about this, because every president, of course, tries to be eloquent. Kennedy was in some sense trying to be Franklin Roosevelt, and every president since Kennedy tries to mimic Kennedy or mimic Reagan. Why is it that some presidents are able to do this and others aren't? And why was Kennedy able to do this, and even his successor, who interestingly comes on stage late in your book, Lyndon Johnson, why was he unable to do this?

You call it disengaged at one point

And as you show, civil rights leaders who had been, let's say, lukewarm on Kennedy, like Martin Luther King, Roy Wilkins, and others, they themselves see it as a turning point at that time.

I wanted to point out also, Mark, that one of the many things I learned from your book is how effective Kennedy's press conferences were as well, which I think is another version of what you're talking about now, his ability, yes, to use the words that Sorensen and other speechwriters, Richard Goodwin, had put together for him, but his ability to own the words and often to extemporize off the cuff and connect with an audience. You say, it's extraordinary, this is around page 60 in the book, that about 18 million people on average saw his press conferences, 90 percent of Americans, 90 percent of Americans watched at least one of his first three, according to a 1961 poll. That's extraordinary, that's the Twitter of its time, isn't it?

Mark, that's so well said. I think your book lives up to its title. Your story is a story of policy, of course.

It's a story of an individual. It's a biography. It's an analysis of the presidency, but it is really a story of how Kennedy uses his grace to lead.

Of course, it's the oldest story in the world that the great leaders, whatever that means to be a great leader, that they have grace. Franklin Roosevelt had a certain grace about him. I think you capture that.

You describe that as well as anyone I've read on this. I wonder, though, how then you think about that in light of many of the other things you include in the book as the honest historian you are that run against this. I mean, the test of any book is does it capture the complexity of a life and yours certainly does.

In particular, you very honestly and in great detail talk about Kennedy's affairs and it's hard to have a conversation about Kennedy today without talking about that, particularly the story of Mimi Beardsley, which we only learned about, I guess, a decade or two ago, this 19-year-old intern who I think it's fair to say is sexually exploited by the president. Yet there's the image, of course, of Camelot and Kennedy and Jackie and the children. You're also very clear that Kennedy was not the most engaged father.

This is not a book on that. Kennedy is not a model of child rearing. I'm just curious how you think about this. All lives are contradictions in a way. How do you think about this in relationship to the grace that you also describe?

Right, and you certainly show that very well, in a really well-described few chapters, I think, on the Cuban Missile Crisis, and I want readers to read the book. I don't want us to share all that with them. I want them to buy the book to read that, because I think the Cuban Missile Crisis, as you say, is probably the most significant Cold War crisis.

I'd like us to close, Mark, on the natural place to close, the assassination, and not so much what happens. I think everyone knows the story, but more how we should think about it today. Is it really a turning point in our history, and how do you look upon it?

It's one of the things I think you do that's very new in this book. You're looking upon that assassination now, not just about 50 years hence, but also from the perspective of what's happened in the last decade or two, to the nature of American democracy. How do you look upon that moment right now?

I think there's a lot to that. And, our final question, Mark, and it's the one we always ask, and I know it's one you think about deeply. What should we, what should young listeners in particular, take from Kennedy's life? What are the lessons for leadership today?

Absolutely right, and it's one of the central messages of our podcast, the importance of participatory democracy and that means getting involved in all ways that one can, Zachary is Mark's description of Kennedy and this discussion does it open avenues for young people, you think?

I think, Mark that Zachary has given the perfect answer for why people should read your book. What do you think?

We have that conversation quite often. And our listeners often tell me that too. Mark, thank you so much for joining us and for writing this book, I wanna remind our listeners, it's Incomparable Grace by Mark Updegrove, and it's a fantastic book. It's a thoughtful and deep read, but also a quick read.

And I encourage you to, and a quick read in the best sense in that it's a book you don't put down and you begin it, in New York City and you land in Los Angeles and you've finished it, which is the mark of a good book in my mind. Mark. Congratulations.

Thank you, Zachary for your poem, and thank you most of all, to our loyal listeners for joining us for this week's episode of This Is Democracy.

Welcome to our new episode of This is Democracy. Every week is special on our podcast, but this week is really, really special. We're joined by one of my best academic friends, one of my best friends as a whole, and one of the truly great scholars of race and democracy in our society. He's been on our podcast a number of times before. But today we are really privileged and fortunate to have Dr. Peniel Joseph with us to discuss his brand new book, which is just out this week, which I hope every one of our listeners will be reading in the next few days. It's called The Third Reconstruction. Peniel, thank you so much for joining us at such a busy time to talk about your new book.

Dr. Peniel Joseph is the Barbara Jordan Chair for Ethics at the LBJ School and the History Department at the University of Texas at Austin. He's the author of numerous seminal groundbreaking books that have shaped the way that we think about our history as a society.

He began his career writing some of the cutting-edge scholarship on the Black Power movement, then went on to write about Stokely Carmichael and Barack Obama, and now, of course, this really great book on The Third Reconstruction. I should also mention, I almost forgot, his wonderful and really groundbreaking book on Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, as well as The Sword and the Shield. And now, as I said, we have The Third Reconstruction. Before we go to our discussion with Dr. Peniel Joseph, we have, of course, Zachary Suri's scene- setting poem. What's your poem titled today, Zachary?

You're stealing his title. Come on, man. Shamelessly. Go ahead, Zachary. Let's hear it.

You're going to make me cry again, Zachary. What is your poem about?

So, Peniel, one of the things I love about your new book, and what's unique, I think, to this book from the rest of your work, is this book, you're really quite personal. You talk about your mom, and you talk about what Obama meant to you pretty early on in this book.

You have a really powerful statement. You have a lot of powerful statements in here, but one that jumped out at me pretty early on, around page 23. You say, American history, since the end of the Civil War, has involved a struggle between Reconstructionists and Redemptionists for the nation's very soul. The contrasting approaches of these two perspectives have shaped the nation's entire history, not only on matters connected directly to race, but also in how Americans have defined citizenship, which is a key topic in your book, the national identity and democracy since 1865. What do you mean by that really powerful sentence?

Right, and you see a cycle, right? I mean, in some ways, you're doing your own cycles of American history here, right? You see these cycling through these moments of Reconstructionist promise, the first one after the Civil War, the second one after the Second World War, reaching its pinnacle with the Civil Rights Movement and the third with Obama. And you see also in each case a pushback or a backlash, as you call it, right?

It's a part of your book that I think jumps out, and I have those pages marked up as I mark things up when I enjoy reading them. Right before that section, Peniel, you talk about Barack Obama as the first president to visit a federal prison, right? And I didn't know that, actually. So at some level, he is trying to reach out, right? And part of what I feel is underlying your argument in your book is that there's a certain desire to connect, but yet there's also an exceptionalist narrative that he carries and perhaps a naivete about the pushback, the backlash. And your book is basically reminding us that every moment of progress seems to spark this backlash. What should Obama have been doing that he wasn't doing but that he could have done if he had known the history you outlined so well here?

Right. I agree 100%. I think that opens up another really important question that you raise so well in the book, which is, and it's an issue through each of the three reconstructions. How do you get people who have had power to feel comfortable sharing it with those who have not had power? And you make the point in the book very well that there's a through line, you call it, from Nixon to Reagan to Trump, of those who have had privilege, often racial privilege, but not exclusively, it could be economic privilege that's not always racial, hoarding that privilege, not wanting to share it. How do you craft a narrative along the lines you just described that makes people comfortable sharing their privilege, Peniel?

And Zachary, before Peniel answers, maybe you should also share your struggles at your school over these issues, struggles you've had in diversity council and elsewhere to get people to come together around these issues.

So, Peniel, I want to close by quoting part of your conclusion, and then I want to ask you to reflect, if you would, for a few minutes at our closing on your mom because I think she's sort of the angel hovering over this book in many ways. I've known you for so long, but I've learned so much about you reading this book. There's a wonderful photo of you and your mom. Also, little tiny Peniel with his mom. I love that photo, by the way. Worth the price of the book just for that. But you write at the end beautifully

I believe that the struggle for black dignity and citizenship can be achieved in our lifetime, but it must continue even if it takes several lifetimes. And then at the very end, you say today in the midst of another period of reconstruction, which you've described so well for us here, we have a grave political and moral choice to make. I choose hope. It seems to me a lot of that hope comes from your mom. And I'd like to close, if you're willing, just reflecting on her influence on your analysis and all that you've shared with us today.

Yeah. Well, as you know, Peniel, in the Jewish faith, we, we have a phrase, Lador Vador, which means from generation to generation. And, and I think that captures your book so well, your book is a mitzvah because it, it captures the importance of one generation teaching another.

And we go through different periods of reconstruction because sometimes we forget and to remember and to learn the history and to keep building on that history and improving ourselves and pushing harder in creative and hopeful ways. I think your book is a chronicle and analysis of that, but also an inspiration from your mom for us to do more of that. I encourage all of our listeners to pick up the book, The Third Reconstruction. It's now available and in every bookshop, go pick it up, go find an independent bookstore to buy it from. Peniel, thank you for joining us today.

So did we. Zachary, thank you for your really tear-jerking poem and for your insights and for your bringing these issues every day into the discussions you're having with young people, which is so important. And thank you most of all to our loyal listeners for joining us for this week of This Is Democracy.

Welcome to our new episode of This is Democracy. Today's episode focuses on the John Birch Society, which was quite well known, quite infamous in the 1960s and 70s, sort of fell off the radar screen, but has now become a more important subject of study and political analysis for our understanding of American democracy and the challenges American democracy faces today.

The John Birch Society is a far right wing group. And it's a group that has connections to the world that we deal with today.

We're fortunate to have with us a well known historian who has written what I think is the best book on the John Birch Society and those who were a part of it and those who are connected to it one way or another. The book is titled Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right. And the writer and historian and friend is Matthew Dallek. Matt, thanks for joining us today.

Matt is a historian and professor of political management at George Washington University's College of Professional Studies. He's the author of numerous books that I recommend to all of you. The first book of his that I read, which I think is the first book he wrote, is The Right Moment: Ronald Reagan's First Victory and the Decisive Turning Point in American Politics. This was actually one of the first really serious studies of Reagan's influence on American politics from a historical perspective.

Recently, Matt published about five, six years ago, a really important book on the origins of homeland security, how we think about homeland security in our society. It's called Defenseless Under the Night: The Franklin Roosevelt Years and the Origins of Homeland Security. Really important for those interested in understanding how we conceive of homeland security in our society. And then most recently, as I already said, he's published just a few weeks ago, Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right.

Matt also publishes frequently in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Politico and many, many other publications. So he's not only a scholar of the past, but an observer, a keen observer of the present. And that's, I think, one of the strengths of his book and one of the strengths of what we'll be able to talk with him about today, as we think about who the John Birchers were, where this far-right radical group came from, and what effect it had on and continues to have on our democracy.

Before we turn to our discussion with Matt, though, we have, of course, our scene-setting poem from Mr. Zachary Suri. What's the title of your poem today?

Is that the title of your poem or are you just wishing me well?

Okay, let's hear it.

There's quite a lot you've packed into that poem, Zachary. What is it about?

Yeah, I think that's a great observation, and it's at the center of your book, Matt. Your reaction?

And you use this phrase from the very beginning, radical conservatives, or conservative radicalism. I think you use it both ways. Those seem like contradictory terms, don't they?

For those young listeners of ours, or perhaps older listeners as well, who might have no idea what the John Birch Society is, where did this group come from, and what did they become?

So what was it that attracted people to this new organization founded by a candy manufacturer? And what did they do as they built this organization?

And this is the point actually very early in your book, Matt, where the parallels to today just jump out. Before we get into that in terms of tactics and goals and activism, how many people at the height of the Birch movement, how many people belong to this organization?

I think, Matt, this is one of the real insights in your book. One of the many contributions, but the one that really stuck with me is how they could have so much influence, yet have such a small, relatively small number of core members. And you remind us in the book of a historical episode that we've largely forgotten, even as historians, which is the impeach Earl Warren movement, which I think is one of these moments that encapsulates the influence of a small extreme group. Can you walk us through that?

And I just have to say, I love any time we can bring Kurt Vonnegut into this.

But before we get to that, I want to get at the kind of root issue that you really address so well in the book. And you do it by evoking, of course, a historian that so many of us revere, who was writing at this time, Richard Hofstadter. And he, of course, famously wrote about status anxiety and a paranoid style in American history. Is that what this is? Is this part of a sort of long-term American affiliation or ascription to paranoia, conspiracy, a sense that those who don't feel they're controlling power, that they use conspiracy to delegitimize those who are using power in different ways?

Right. No, it's obviously a cocktail of many things. And of course, and you talk about this in the book, white supremacy is part of that, too. So one of the traditional things historians and before historians, journalists at the time wrote about were the ways in which it appeared that leading Republican Party figures, Goldwater, but certainly also Ronald Reagan, leading party intellectual William F. Buckley, it appeared on the surface that they were separating themselves from the John Birch Society. Most of them, as you describe in the book, at one moment or another, criticize the leaders of the party, particularly Robert Welch. But you argue in the book pretty forcefully that, in fact, they continued these Republican Party leaders to try to bring Birchers into the fold and they tried not to alienate them. Can you say more about that?

Right. But I think what resonated with me, at least, were the ways in which you discuss how members of the party at the leadership level, who were disgusted by a lot of what the Birch Society did, particularly those who were disgusted by their attacks on Dwight Eisenhower, for example, nonetheless, tried to ride that horse, right? Tried to still appeal to them and not renounce them. And I underline this in my book because it resonates so much with what we saw in Charlottesville in recent years and elsewhere. Repeatedly, you have Barry Goldwater, Republican presidential candidate, William F. Buckley, publisher of the National Review, Ronald Reagan, saying that in spite of the problems of the leaders, the Birchers still had some good people. They were still nice people, just as Donald Trump said in Charlottesville that, you know, they were good people on both sides, right? That's very disconcerting to read, I have to say.

Right. So when you say an alternative political tradition, again, this is in some ways a reference to Hofstadter and others who wrote about inherited American traditions. We think of a Jeffersonian tradition, a Hamiltonian tradition. Your argument, and I think it's a powerful one, is that there is this far right tradition in American history and that someone like Donald Trump doesn't have to be well read in it to be able to grab onto it and use words that seem legitimate because they are traditional, correct?

It's stunning. And I just want to lay this out because I didn't understand this till I read your book. And I think it's why people who want to understand today's politics need to read your book, Matt. Just the number of parallels. And they're not parallels because Donald Trump went back, his supporters went back to, you know, look at the 1960s and 70s as you have so carefully in your research, but because these arguments were out there, they were discredited, but at the same time, they were available to be used in other moments when they could be made to seem logical and seem less outrageous.

So you talk, for instance, about the parallels between the criticisms of Tony Fauci and the criticisms of vaccines and the parallels with the Bircher criticism of fluorinated water and all the lies that were told about that. Immigration issues, prayer in schools. You have a number of lines where they, Birchers are arguing for legislation to protect, and in some ways almost require, prayer in schools. And then look at the legislation in my state of Texas right now. It's almost almost word for word, Matt.

So one of the purposes of our podcast, Matt, and I know one of the purposes of your book, one of the things you and I share as historians is that we believe that history is useful. It's not a roadmap for the future, but it gives us a better sense of the right questions to ask, and of some of the things we need to consider in our, you know, approach to policy and our approach to social development. What should we do going forward then, based on this history? This clearly indicates that the challenges to our democracy today are not just about Donald Trump or just about Marjorie Taylor Greene. There's something deeper here. So what are the implications of that knowledge for thinking about protecting democracy today?

Absolutely, and I think just to underline one of the many excellent points you just made, Matt, I think for me one of the big takeaways from your research and your writing is how important organizations that care about democracy, that care about inclusion, grassroots organizations, how important they are. One of the heroic organizations in your book is the Anti-Defamation League, known to many as the ADL. I don't want to give away the whole book, but I encourage those who are interested to read those sections of the book where you talk about a number of measures, including spying undertaken by these organizations to help federal authorities and help state authorities deal with the threats of hatred and violence, and there's a lot to learn from that, I think.

Absolutely. I think about a thousand of them have been prosecuted. Zachary, you've listened to this conversation, you've thought deeply about this, especially since you read Kurt Vonnegut years ago, and your generation, I know, often feels concerned and maybe even despondent about some of these issues that we see around us, especially as we see states like Texas and Florida also passing legislation that looks to, in some ways, bring some of these Birch ideas into law, even. What do you take from this conversation? Do you see optimistic roads forward here?

Right, and that that's possible, right?

Because, you know, Matt covers this so well. There is the infamous General Edwin Walker, and if we want parallels, he's a parallel to Michael Flynn today, a military hero who actually becomes a fascist, and so I think your point, Zachary, is really well taken on this. Matt, are you optimistic that we can learn these lessons?

Well, I think what your research shows, Matt, and this is true actually throughout all three of your books, but particularly your work on the Birchers, which is that American democracy has enormous capacity to learn and react. We don't always see that on a day-to-day basis. But just as the ADL and the FBI and elements of American politics in the 1970s learned to discredit and in some ways eliminate the Birchers as a major political force, that can happen again. And the craziness, the hate that we see in our politics that comes often from small numbers of people who are amplifying their voices, there are things we can do about that. And I think you give us a lot to think about, and you give us a great example of exactly what our podcast is about each week, which is studying the past, learning from the past, not as a recipe for the future, but as an inspiration for new creativity in our politics today. Matt, thank you so much for joining us.

And Zachary, thank you for your inspiring poem, L'Chaim, with a great title also. And thank you most of all to our loyal listeners for joining us for this episode of This Is Democracy.

Welcome to our new episode of This Is Democracy. This week we're going to talk about a topic that is ubiquitous in the news and ubiquitous in our public discourse, but often, rarely interrogated. And we're going to have the chance to interrogate this topic today as we do every week with every topic. This is the topic of evangelical religion. You can't read about American politics without reading about evangelicals and their supposed influence one way or another.

We're joined today by, I think now it's fair to say one of the foremost scholars of evangelical religion in American politics, particularly the role of Dispensationalists, and Dan will talk to us about who they are. This is Dr. Daniel Hummel, who is a major scholar in the field of religion and politics and international affairs. He is the director of University Engagement at Upper House, a Christian study Center serving the wider University of Wisconsin Madison Community. Dan is the author of two books that I highly recommend to everyone. Two books that I know very, very intimately. In fact, Dan's first book, which was his dissertation, I was one of the professors who worked with him on is Covenant Brothers, evangelical Jews and US Israeli relations. I was really very privileged to be one of the professors Dan wrote this dissertation and researched this dissertation with, it really brings out, at least for me, a deeper understanding of the religious connections between Christians in the United States and a certain group of Jews in Israel, and how that relationship is crucial for understanding U.S. Israeli relationship. I've not seen any other book that does this, so I highly recommend that.

And then Dan's most recent book is The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism: How The Evangelical Battle Over the End Times Shaped a Nation, shaped the American Nation. It's a brand new book. I just finished reading it and it's extraordinary the detail at which it explains the ideas and faith claims that underpin so much of religion and politics in American society today. Dan writes, in addition to books, major articles you can find in the Washington Post, Christian Today, Religion News Service, as well as more academic venues, Religion and American culture, Church History, and many, many others. Dan, thank you for joining us today.

Thank you, Dan. It's a kind of reunion also. We haven't talked in a little while, so I'm glad we're doing this. Zachary, of course, you have a poem to start us out? Yes? Yes. What's the title of your poem? A Dispensation for the Dispensationalists. Wow. Wow. I'm wrapping my head around that tongue twister. Okay, let's hear it

You are in the last few weeks, Zachary really becoming quite the satirist, aren't you? Yes. So tell tell us about this poem. What is it about?

Sure, sure. Very well said. Dan, any reactions?

That's really interesting. I didn't know if you, did you intend that, Zachary?

You made them rhyme. You made them rhyme. So, Dan, I think this is a great place to start because, knowing you as I do, I know that you're someone who's a deep believer, but you're also someone who, who's inclusive in the way you view how different religions and different faiths should work. And you're also someone who believes deeply in academic and scholastic study, that comes through in your book, of course. Can you tell us what Upper House is in that context, just to situate how you enact this in your own life?

And Dan, do you see that as a mainstream approach? Because to some, myself included, it often appears as if, and, I'm not singling out one group or another, but it often seems as if religion is put against learning and against intellectual life in our world today.

And am I reading your new book correctly to say that or to interpret that, much of what you are implicitly critiquing is part of the story of the rise and fall of Dispensationalism for you?

Well, and I think your book really provides a long arc for what you've just described so succinctly. You start with the period right after the Civil War, and that's really where, at least for me, you defined what dispensationalism was or is, what are we talking about here?

One of the really interesting parts of your book for me, and it's interesting because it's a period both you and I have spent a lot of time thinking about, is the period after World War ii. Which in some ways is as interesting as, I think, the period after the Civil War. These might be two of the key fulcrums for so many changes in American politics. And democracy. You write around page 214 about how the dispensational leaders across America, this is just on the eve of Billy Graham's rise, how they do become more politically active in criticizing progressive politics and calling for the United States to remain a dominant world power. What shift is happening after World War ii?

Reading your section on William Bell Reilly, who I must confess, I did not know very much about until your book, now I know a lot more about him. You describe his hand in hand pairing of theology and politics, which is just the opposite of the separation of church and state that Zachary was just talking about. And you also make a lot out of his use of radio shows, back to the Bible, Radio Bible Class Hour, through the Bible. And it reminded me, Dan, of Father Coughlin. Is there a parallel here?

And I have to say, Dan, to me, that was one of the most interesting parts of your book. Before you get to Bush, who you talk about in, I think the last chapter, the second to last chapter, you spend a lot of time on Billy Graham, who, for those who don't know Billy Graham, you can't think of a more influential religious figure, I think in American society post-war than than Billy Graham. I think, on personal relations or close personal relations with every president, prominent figure in all kinds of settings. And then Hal Lindsay, who's largely forgotten to history, but as you point out, probably sold more books, the Late Great Planet Earth, than almost any other author of his time. And he is the person who apparently Ronald Reagan was talking about when he talked about dispensationalism at different times. So, how do we understand these figures and their role and their connection to dispensationalism?

That's where your dad, your dad went to school there too, right?

So, is it fair, Dan, with particular attention to Billy Graham and Hal Lindsay and Jerry Falwell, who you've also mentioned, who was a, obviously a pioneering televangelist? Is it fair to associate these figures and, perhaps Dispensationalist influence, with the rise of what historians call the new right? In the 1970s and eighties, the remaking of the Republican Party post Goldwater as a party that's less elitist and quite frankly, more Christian, more explicitly Christian and evangelical in its tone, and in its issues such as prayer in school, the American flag, and all these issues that it brings forth, is this a fair connection?

Well, and it's fascinating to me too, and I think it's fascinating to our listeners because, in a way, you're saying that the theology loses credibility as its political influence expands considerably right?

Right. And I think that's what makes, among other things this book so important because I think you explain for a reader like me, who's not anywhere nearly as well read in the theology as you are, you explain two phenomena, right? You explain first of all the ways of thinking that seem to transfer over from one domain to another. At one point in the book you have a couple of pages where you show the overlap in dispensationalist thinking and Q-Anon rhetoric. That's not to say that all dispensationalists or most dispensationalists are Q-Anon followers. But I think you make the point that dispensationalist are overrepresented, among some of these groups. So you explain that, as a sort of a classic intellectual history. Right. Habits of mind. But I think you also, as you just said, you explain a kind of cultural phenomenon too, where, I guess, the word you used earlier in this discussion, a flavor. A flavor of behavior, a flavor of seeing the world, becomes transferred over to what, to me, appear to be unlikely repositories of allegiance like Donald Trump.

Right. Right. And so I think that leads to the final question. You've been very generous with your time and very insightful in articulating and elucidating so many of the points that you deal with in depth and detail in your book. The question we ask every week, of course, is how is this historical framework, how is this historical research relevant for thinking about and renewing democracy today? I know, Dan, you care, care deeply about if, I might use the term, rescuing Christianity from its misuses perhaps, and I feel that way about misuses of Judaism. I'm sure within every tradition there are people who feel that way. What should we do? I struggle because, I find if I try to critique some of these, what appear to me to be misuses, or dangerous uses of religion, that it only reinforces the resistance of those ones talking to on the other side. Right? Because it sounds like you're condescending and maybe I am unintentionally. Right. So, how do we do this? How do we get beyond this? Because this is not a happy ending, where your book ends, for democracy.

That's compelling, very compelling, and inspiring. I think, Zachary, in a way, it sounds to me like that resonates with how you and many others of your generation I see approaching this, right? I mean, you care about Judaism, but you don't identify politically with many of the things that the Israeli Right does that the Jewish right does. Right. And so how do you, do you think about a third way? Do you think about a way in which religion and politics can open up space for democracy and inclusion as well as faith in your life?

Dan, any final thoughts?

Well, and I think, among the many insights that we've gained from your book and from this discussion today, and topics that I hope our listeners will interrogate further by reading your book and your related writings. You know, one is certainly that we have to hold a mirror up and see what are the ways of thought, habits of mind, assumptions we're bringing to the table, and how over time have we inherited certain assumptions, certain ways of thinking that maybe you're closing off the very conversations we wanna have. And then second, to really echo what you just said, so well, Dan, that we have to lean into and be intentional about creating spaces for conversation. And part of your book is about, it seems to me, how probably well-intentioned men and women of faith acted in ways that actually closed off conversation, didn't open it up, and I think we can learn from that. This is not to criticize them in any way, but it is to say that what history allows us to do is learn from those who came before us and make our own new mistakes in a new way. I think this kind of discussion of religion and politics is what we need to have in our society. It's so rare. Dan, I'm proud to be your friend, and to know that you're doing this kind of work, and I hope that it offers pathways for all of our listeners to think about how they can do this kind of work in their own community, in their own way. Thank you so much Dan, and congratulations on your book once again. The title is, The rise and fall of Dispensationalism. Dan, thank you for joining us.

Zachary, thank you for your poem and your insights as well. Of course. And thank you, most of all, to our loyal listeners for joining us for this week of this is Democracy.

 Welcome to our new episode of "This Is Democracy." This week we are going to discuss the history of unions in the United States, and we're going to look at the current strike by auto workers, in the United States. These are auto workers who belong to one of the oldest and most important unions, but one of many unions in the history of the United States, the United Auto Workers.

 And we are fortunate to be joined by one of the leading historians of workers' unions and race in the United States. This is our friend, Professor William Jones, who is a professor of history at the University of Minnesota.

 He's the author of, many articles and two really important books. The first, "The Tribe of Black Ulysses: African American Lumber Workers in the Jim Crow South," and then, more recently, "The March on Washington: Jobs, Freedom, and the Forgotten History of Civil Rights," a book that puts the March on Washington, which everyone has heard of, especially because of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech.

 Will's book puts the March on Washington in the context of labor history as well as civil rights history, which is really important. Will, thank you so much for joining us today.

 And of course, we have our scene-setting poem from Mr. Zachary Suri. Uh, Zachary, what's the title of your poem today? "From the UAW Picket Lines." Wow, we're gonna get an on-the-scenes account from you, Zachary? Or at least an imagining of one, yes. Okay, well let's hear it.

 And that's your point about late but still important, right? Exactly.

 Will, this moment we're living in now that Zachary captures, I think, a bit in his poem, is that how you would frame the current labor action against the automakers? Is that really what it is? Is it about automation or what's really at the root of this?

 Will, that's really helpful in framing this, and I wanted to come back to your first point because I think that's one that at least to my reading of the news has received a lot less attention. The fact that the auto workers not only gave up certain benefits to help the automobile companies during the 2008 recession, but also that they actually agreed to create a two-tiered system. Can you just say more about that, how that's worked and what the expectations were when that was negotiated in 2008? Right. Well, I mean the expectations were that this was going to save an industry that was really on the brink of collapse and so that, you know, which, in a sense, that has happened. The way it works though is that you get, you know, something that you hear a lot in interviews with workers on the picket lines is they'll say, you know, like they're standing next to workers who do the same jobs under the same conditions as them who earn, you know, in some cases half of what they earn with no benefits.

 Well, that point, Will, it seems to me leads really to the bigger historical question, which is what role have unions played? Why does the UAW exist? I get this question from my students all the time. Maybe that's just a function of those students being in Texas. I don't know. But, what you're describing seems to me to actually be an anathema to what unions historically have been about. Is that correct?

 Will, your discussion of the election of a new UAW leader brings up an important issue. I often hear people say very derogatory things about unions, and I think some of this comes out of the rhetoric of the 1970s and '80s that unions are corrupt and that unions are run only for the leadership. That's obviously not true, but why do you think that's said so often, and what's your response to that?

 I'm so glad you explained that Will, because it is striking and I think undeniable that moments in our history when unions have been stronger, we have seen less economic inequality in moments such as the 1970s and '80s. When we see unions receding in American history we see more inequality. So there's at least a correlation there, as my economist friends would say. That's right. That's, I mean, if you, one chart that I like to show my students is if you chart the level of income inequality in the United States over the past century, and you chart union representation rates, they're in exact reverse correlation, right? That as unions have declined, we've seen wealth inequality grow.

 Will, there's a lot of talk and you've been part of this discussion too about working class voters. From, you know, the period of Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt's presidency forward, there was a presumption in part because of the connections between the Democratic Party and some of the major unions that working class voters would be Democratic voters. Then the Trump movement seems to have reversed that, at least in some areas, perhaps particularly in the Midwest. How do you see that issue today? Are working class voters MAGA voters? Are they Trump voters? Are they Democratic voters? What would you say?

 Is it fair to say that the white male elements of the working class that we associate also with traditional unionism, the traditional people working in Henry Ford's plants and others, is that a smaller and smaller part of what you'd call the working class today?

 So Will, we always like to close our episodes by bringing together the enormous reservoir of information and knowledge that guests like you are sharing with us, and we're fortunate to be able to participate in that and to benefit from your knowledge. We like to bring together this historical knowledge with a forward-looking perspective. Based on this really deep and complex history of unions and workers in the United States that you have such a strong command of, what would you say to a President Biden, or it could be to a Republican presidential candidate, what would you say to them about how one could be both pro-worker and pro-growth? It seems too often we see these as dichotomous positions in our history, that you have to either be for growth or for unions. Of course, many periods of economic growth have been periods of union growth and union prosperity in our society as well. So how can we bring those two together looking forward today?

 Zachary, you spent the summer in Germany, and of course, Germany's a country with very strong unions. Do you agree with Will that Germany's an example of economic growth and worker protections going hand-in-hand?

 And Zachary, for young observers like yourself, are unions part of that story? Do you feel that your generation is giving more attention to unions than maybe the generation just before yours?

 So Will, that was the last question, the really last question I had for you, which was for our listeners, particularly our younger listeners, if they're interested in learning more about unions as scholars and perhaps as activists, what are the best ways to get involved and to become knowledgeable of this subject matter?

 Its such a great point. Even in a state like Texas, which traditionally doesn't have the same strong unionization as other parts of the country, teachers are part of a union, right? That's right. What I know your next project is on, Will, public service workers, right? That's right.  My wife, who's a city council member, she's actually part of AFSCME, which is the public sector union. And so there are actually a lot of people around who work with or are involved with unions. And, as you say, Will, I think that talking to them and getting a sense, positive and negative, of what their experience is, is important in informing ourselves when we're discussing these issues politically.  Yeah. I mean, it's true that, you know, if you're in high school, the chances are your teacher is a union member.

 Right. Right. Well, Will, thank you so much for sharing this excursion, a necessary excursion today into the history of unions and workers in American society. There's obviously much more you could say. You could fill, I think, 500 podcast episodes on this, but you've given us really a wonderful introduction to the topic, and I hope our listeners will dig in for more. So, thank you Professor Will Jones for joining us today. Thanks for having me on. It was great to talk to both of you. And thank you, Zachary, of course, for your, inspiring and really imaginative poem bringing us to the picket lines where we all could learn a lot. And thank you for doing that, Zachary. Thank you most of all to our loyal listeners for joining us for this episode of This Is Democracy.

Welcome to our new episode of This is Democracy. Every one of our episodes each week is special, but this one I really feel is super special, if I can say that, because we have on not only someone whom Zachary and I deeply respect, but someone who really has now written a book that tells a story that I think is so moving and so relevant and so uplifting for our time. And I can't think of a moment in our recent history when we've needed an uplifting story more than today.

We are going to talk today with Dr. Ruth Simmons, who has just published a fantastic book that I recommend to all of our listeners, Up Home: One Girl's Journey. And it is quite the journey that Dr. Simmons has had. She has been a pioneer in so many ways.

She is the former president of Smith College, then she was president of Brown University, and then after retiring from those two jobs, she came back to her native Texas and was the president at Prairie View A&M University, which is a historically black college and university, Texas's oldest historically black college and university.

And as I was telling Dr. Simmons before we started the recording, I have a few students in Austin now who were students of hers, and they speak with her with a reverence that is rarely heard for university administrators and leaders. It's really quite, quite extraordinary.

As we'll discuss, and as Dr. Simmons describes in beautiful detail in her book, she did not start out in an elite position. She did not start out with privilege. She grew up in Grapeland, Texas, the child of sharecroppers, and Dr. Simmons was the 12th child of her parents and grew up in poverty that most of us have never experienced.

And it's really quite an extraordinary story. Dr. Simmons, thank you for joining us today.

We will start, of course, with our scene-setting poem from Mr. Zachary Suri. Zachary, what's the title of your poem today?

You're just rubbing in the fact that you actually get a beautiful fall in New Haven.

Fair enough, fair enough. Well, let's hear your poem, Zachary.

Wow, Zachary, you're channeling your inner Walt Whitman today.

What's your poem about?

Well, I think that's a perfect place to turn to our distinguished guest, Dr. Simmons.

I was so moved by how you started your book in describing your experiences as a young child in what sound to me as circumstances that were almost impossible to learn and maybe circumstances where there was reason not to have hope. Can you describe for us how you grew up and how you managed to have hope in these difficult circumstances?

That's extraordinary. And one of the many things that moved me in your book that you've just referred to are the heroic women.

You express in your book a lot of affection for your father, but he's clearly a problematic figure, and I'll leave it to the readers to read that. But your mother, your mother's work ethic, and then if I'm remembering correctly, Dr. Simmons, the teachers you single out are mostly all women. And to what, is that significant to the story? How should we think about women in this journey that you're describing?

Where did this hope come from, Dr. Simmons? I mean, why was there not a div[e] into cynicism, which I sense a little bit in your father in some of the ways you describe him at times. How did these women, how did you find hope and keep this hope realistic and make it realistic in what are such difficult circumstances?

And I have to say, your book really describes the character of these teachers and some of them seem to me to be larger than life characters. And it's wonderful. It's one of my favorite parts of the book.

And I also do want to emphasize this was a public school and you're talking about public school teachers.

Zachary?

I could listen to you forever, Dr. Simmons.

That's mana from heaven, what you're describing. It's, I think, the mission of us as educators, and the power of education, opening up opportunities for people of all different kinds of backgrounds. You describe in your book your time at Dillard University, which is a historically black college and university in New Orleans, and then you begin to describe the transition to Harvard, where you did your PhD.