The Past, the Promise, the Presidency

Why Norway?! You might be asking yourself this very question as you consider the big questions of diplomacy, war, and alliances during the George W. Bush presidency. Good news - this episode is here to answer that question! This episode sets the stage for us in 2001: A new president in George W. Bush An old multilateral alliance with NATO A longtime alliance with Norway, a founding member of NATO...

Terrorists attacked the people of the United States on September 11, 2011. But those attacks--and their reverberations--were felt by peoples all around the world, including in places like Norway, for years to come. This episode explores how Norway's leaders experienced September 11, and crucially, how they navigated Norway's alliance with U.S. in the years following as American leaders m...

This is the eighth and final episode of Season Three: The Bully Pulpit. This season, we explored many domestic policy issues, such as healthcare, women's suffrage, and land rights. But here in the 21st century, we all know that the president's voice reaches far beyond the borders of the United States. Has it always been this way?  And how does the bully pulpit reach audiences abroad?  We...

In March of 2021, Deb Haaland, a member of New Mexico's Laguna Pueblo, became the first Native American Cabinet Secretary in US history. It was was a truly historic first, as Deb Haaland is part of a long history of Indigenous peoples that predates the United States as a nation. And today, we are going to explore the relationship between Indigenous peoples of America and the United States Gov...

This week, we are going to be exploring the relationship between presidents, the bully pulpit, and environmental protection. When did presidents start thinking about federal use of land? When did that consideration change from an economic one based on maximizing profit and agricultural production for white settlers to something else?  We are going to tackle these questions and more on today's...

In this episode of the Bully Pulpit, we explore presidential power as it relates to prohibition and the War on Drugs.  If you go looking through American history, it's not difficult to find conflict over alcohol and drugs, and the president's role in addressing them. The president of the United States has plenty to say, not just about what goes into our bodies, but about the industries,...

This week, we are exploring women's suffrage, the Equal Rights Amendment, and how presidents have stymied or supported women's rights.  In 1776, Abigail Adams wrote to her husband and urged him to remember the ladies as he worked to craft a government for the new nation. But it wasn't until 1919 that Congress actually passed a constitutional amendment that prohibited denying voting...

Today, we are covering two topics almost guaranteed to make that Thanksgiving dinner more awkward than it already was: religion and politics, or more specifically for this episode: Church and State. If we're going to talk about a bully pulpit, then we've got to talk about the pulpit part of this equation. But we're also going there because the question of the relationship between ch...

This week, we are exploring the history of healthcare policy. Many presidents have tried to pass healthcare reform in America, but time and time again healthcare has tested the limitations and the strengths of the bully pulpit.  In today’s episode, we explored the history of the federal government’s interest in healthcare from the New Deal to Obamacare. We consider, why has healthcare reform been...

To kick off season three, The Bully Pulpit , we are starting with an episode on what we are affectionally calling The Big Speeches™. Moments when the president has used his unparalleled microphone and those words have left a major imprint on history.  We start where it all began, with George Washington. In September 1796, Washington printed an address to the American people and announced he would...

With political gridlock in Washington DC at an all time high, government shutdowns–or the threat of them–have become a routine occurrence. National parks close. Federal paychecks stop going out. The National Institute of Health stops admitting new patients. How did we get to the point where it has become normal for the US Government to halt in its tracks? The history, in this case, is quite recent...

This week on The Past, The Promise, The Presidency , we are exploring a tragic national crisis that hits very close to home in 2021. The crisis of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.  Having lived through two years of a new coronavirus pandemic, we all intimately understand just how confusing and terrifying it can be for patients, doctors, and yes, presidents to confront a new and deadly disease. One of unknow...

This week's crisis could have ended with the world in a giant blaze of nuclear flame, but it didn't. In fact, it's an example of how a crisis can be handled so effectively, that most people don't even remember it as a crisis. This week, we are talking about the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War.  It's November, 1989. Reagan famously delivered his "te...

Welcome to The Past, The Promise, The Presidency Season II, Episode VI: The Bonus Army & The 1932 March on Washington. This Veteran’s Day, we are examining the time that World War I veterans organized their own March on Washington. Most Americans associate the Great Depression with Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But it was Herbert Hoover who was in office in 1932 when a group of World War I vetera...

Welcome to The Past, The Promise, The Presidency Season II, Episode V: Teddy Roosevelt & The Great Coal Strike of 1902.  In 1902, miners under the leadership of John Mitchell and the United Mine Workers went on strike to protest long hours, low pay, and unsafe working conditions. Mine operators and owners were determined not to concede to the miners' demands or recognize their right to or...

Welcome to The Past, The Promise, The Presidency Season II, Episode IV: Ulysses S. Grant and the Ku Klux Klan Act. In our previous episode on Bleeding Kansas and the Utah War, we discussed the intense violence and bloodshed that led up to the cataclysmic wrenching of the Union in half during the Civil War.  But what happened after the Union shattered? It's not easy to put the pieces of nation...

This week on The Past, The Promise, The Presidency: Presidential Crises we examine two presidential crises from the 1850s: Bleeding Kansas and the Utah War. So far this season, we've seen the nation solidify under George Washington's leadership. Then, we saw the city named for our first president nearly burned to the ground by British forces little more than a generation later. The Unite...

This week on The Past, The Promise, The Presidency: Presidential Crises we examine how James and Dolley Madison responded to The War of 1812, often referred to by both contemporaries and historians as the "Second War of Independence."   Upon arriving at the White House, British troops thoroughly enjoyed a feast and fine wine before systematically setting fire to the building. They then t...

Our first topic this season is our first president, George Washington, father of the country, general, surveyor, statesman, slave owner, whiskey distiller, debtor, and a man whose dental history every poor kid with braces hears about. Washington was the first man to hold the office, of course, and some still argue that he was the best.  Everyone agrees that he set the standard by which all other p...

After 28 episodes covering the presidents from Abraham Lincoln to Donald Trump, as well as two emergency response episodes, we’ve learned so, so much and we hope you have too. We decided to close out the season with a live season finale so that you, our fantastic listeners, could participate and shape the conversation. On Thursday, April 15, we gathered for this live event and recorded it to share...

Today’s episode is all about Donald John Trump, the 45th president of the United States. So, so much to say. And yet, Trump’s presidency is also so fresh, what could we say in an introduction that you’d not already know? The only president ever impeached twice by the House of Representatives; he was also the first in more than a century to voluntarily refuse to attend his successor’s inauguration....

Today’s episode is all about Barack Hussein Obama, the 44th president of the United States.  Also, the first in more than two centuries who didn’t identify as white. Obama’s tenure remains fresh, yet hard to fully evaluate given the tumult that followed in his wake—and to some minds, the tumult that arose in direct response to his presidency. If we were taping this podcast a decade ago, in 2010 or...

Today’s episode is all about George W. Bush, the 43rd President of the United States.  Full disclosure for those who don’t know, the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum resides on SMU’s campus, about a mile as the crow flies from our offices here at the CPH. Here’s your brief primer on George W. Bush. Perhaps unnecessary to say given that you’ve already met his father, but yes, W was bo...

Today’s episode is all about William Jefferson Clinton, the 42nd President of the United States, the first baby boomer to hold the office, and indeed, the second youngest man ever elected president. Clinton’s legacy is ongoing and a work in progress even now nearly thirty years since he took office. Changing political winds, changes within the democratic party in particular, a changing sensibility...

Today’s episode is all about George Herbert Walker Bush, the 41st President of the United States, and the man who came to the Oval Office arguably with the greatest pre-presidential resume of all. Ok, Eisenhower makes a good bid in this fight, but consider Bush’s credentials: he was a war hero, successful businessman, a congressman, Ambassador to the United Nations, chief envoy to China, head of t...