President Archives - Public Seminar

History

Can You Smile and Say “Land of the Free”?

An excerpt from American Confidential

November 6, 2023 • by Deanne Stillman

Can you smile and say ‘Land of the free’? Of course you can. There . . . that looks perfect. Did you know that this is where the West begins?” And then she would drive off and her mood instantly soured and she would wonder why her son Lee hardly ever ...

History

We Lionize Abraham Lincoln – But John Wilkes Booth Still Embodies a Part of America’s Soul

How the insurrection on January 6th brought a legendary assassin back to life

March 18, 2021 • by Bennett Parten

"But if January 6 should tell us anything, it’s that his cause is far from lost. Like Lincoln, the ghost of John Wilkes Booth still haunts us from the grave." - Bennett Parten ...

We Lionize Abraham Lincoln – But John Wilkes Booth Still Embodies a Part of America’s Soul

Democracy

Donald Trump’s Lies

Why presidential falsehoods are part of United States political history

December 8, 2020 • by Eric Alterman and Claire Potter

Do Americans think presidential lying no longer matters? Perhaps a better question, journalist and historian Eric Alterman asks in his new book, Lying in State: Why Presidents Lie—and Why Trump is Worse (Basic Books, 2020), is whether it ever mattered to voters. Following in the tradition of Isadore F. “Izzy” ...

North America

The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election

Past Present Podcast, Episode 254

November 10, 2020 • by Nicole Hemmer, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela and Neil J. Young

Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. is the President-Elect of the United States. Natalia mentioned this New York Times interview with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in reference to possible challenges within the Democratic coalition. In our regular closing feature, What’s Making ...

Democracy

A Political Paradox

Power, fallibility, and the Twenty-Fifth Amendment

October 7, 2020 • by Rebecca Lubot

The Twenty-Fifth Amendment was ratified on February 10, 1967, in the wake of the Kennedy assassination and a period of great anxiety about nuclear weapons. The first section deals with a vacancy in the presidency, the second section with a vacancy in the vice presidency. But it is Sections 3 ...

Politics

COVID-19 Snaps Donald Trump’s Spell

There’s no going back now

October 5, 2020 • by John Stoehr

But a presumption lurked behind the question: that Donald Trump would be shooting live ammunition. What if he was shooting harmless blanks, though? What if his victims were paid to pretend to be dead? What if the whole thing was staged so a “billionaire outsider” only looked like he could break the rules, deny consequences and get ...