My History Can Beat Up Your Politics
By Bruce Carlson
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Podcast Description
TV pundits discuss politics in a vacuum. Cable news tells you everything is 'breaking news' but in most cases, events have long roots in history. In this podcast, we smash and bash the politics of today with a healthy dose of history - bringing you a better understanding of politics.
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1 |
The Moped and the Maseratis | John Anderson's independent run for the Presidency is largely forgotten, and certainly given his popular vote score that's not surprising. Could such a run happen in this election? and could an Anderson-like person ever win the White House? Does it hurt or help the incumbent? We look at these questions. | 2/23/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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2 |
The Blogs of the Cobblestone Era | How does today's partisanship and polarization stack up to the early days? In this hodge-podcast we look at attacks on early American politicians. Based on listener's questions, we also look at slavery in Delaware and approval rating movements. | 2/11/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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3 |
Coattails, With No One in the Coat? | From Grover Cleveland to Barack Obama e discuss that concept of 'coattails' - the impact of a Presidential win on his party's hopes for Congress. Each Presidential election it is asked, can downticket races grab on to the President's 'coat'? - this one goes back to the days you might see the POTUS in a coat - can they get in on his win. What if he doesn't win? Will the Presdient have them? It's a complex subject as its only in modern times that all states conduct congressional and Presidential elections at the same time. Will the President even win and if he doesn't win - can his party take the House anyway, can the parties 'switcheroo?' Or: Can you have coattails with no one in the coat? | 2/5/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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4 |
Can 'Rottenboroughs' Save Romney? | Should Hawaii and Vermont choose a GOP nominee? Should Alabama and South Carolina pick the Democratic nominee? Can a candidate like Romney rack up delegates from states likely to vote for President Obama to get a primary win over his new arch rival? It might be a question today. It's been on the minds of partisan since at least the 1860 convention. | 1/25/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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5 |
When We Help Ronnie, We Help Ourselves... | How a plan to help then Governor Ronald Reagan led to the creation ofthe Firewall, the First in the South primary in South Carolina. It's joined the early states of IA, NH in the role of nomination decider. We look at its origins and a couple of other times South Carolina has changed the politics of the nation. | 1/14/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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6 |
Historic (2008) | This election is clearly historic. In this podcast we talk of course about the most obvious way: the first African American President. And how that achievement might have happened a long time ago but not for a turning point in history. But we also talk about the myriad ways this election is historic: the major event of a serious female contender for President, the 2nd female VP candidate and first Republican, an election during a war, an election during a recession, an election with no incumbent or veep, a high turnout election, a non 'anti-Washington' election, an election with incumbent party candidates who (once again in history) tried without success to run against the President, an election where money was king but not fatcat money as much as little money, an election where the polls were right, an election where a losing VP candidate (edwards) and a NYC mayor didn't win..but a man unknown to most four years ago, became President - elect, something it appears Americans may like to do. So many ways 2008 is historic, and a great data point for future elections to be judged by. For historical political observers, it's like a nice piece of steak to dive into. | 1/8/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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7 |
The Civil War and The Beatles (2010) | Celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. we look why the war started at all, especially where there were many reasons why it did not need to happen. And as strange as it sounds, the anniversary of the breakup of the Beatles may actually shed some light. | 1/8/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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8 |
Is Healthcare Constitutional? | Are you allowed to sell your wheat wherever you want? Refuse vaccination? Carry a firearm? Have an abortion? These questions are all connected, it appears.We don't answer the question but speculate based on Supreme Court rulings in other cases and the early history of American Federal Power. | 1/8/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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9 |
Oracle No More? New Hampshire, History and Today. | New Hampshire's first in the nation primary has been a decider and an oracle for a long time. It's been a quirky American tradition surprising to outsiders. In recent decades, though, in today's light-speed politics, it has suffered some setbacks as a selector of the President. We look at NH's history and what it means for today's battle between Romney, Santorum, Paul and Gingrich | 1/5/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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10 |
Just Like Dear Old Dad? | We look at one GOP candidate's father, his race for the Presidency because it is both an interesting look at early campaign dynamics in an election of American's past, and because it may provide insights into one candidate's drive to run today. The fact that there are only two candidates who can trace their name into 20th century national politics at all is also discussed. | 11/12/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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11 |
The Whole World is Watching | The whole world was watching Chicago in 1968 and it seems, the whole political world may be watching the protests now in New York and other areas. Chicago '68 ruined the incumbent Democratic Party's chances for reelection and didn't stop the war immediately as organizers wanted. Yet it certainly had an impact on public opinion. We see a large group of protests now, albeit smaller in number than in the late sixties. We look at Occupy protests in comparison to Chicago and the cities. | 10/27/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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12 |
Brief Read of "Decision Points" | A look at former President George W. Bush's memoir "Decision Points" with a bit of historical context. As in several aspects of his Presidency, President Bush took a different path from his own father's reticence about memoirs. George H.W. Bush didn't write a memoir, though he did publish a book of letters. George W. Bush went immediately to writing his memoir days after his Presidency ended. While little in the book is a surprise, it does add some perspective that will be part of the discussion as current voices and historians look at his Presidency. | 3/18/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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13 |
The Declaration of Independence | In time for the holiday, the Declaration..what it says, the purpose behind the document, who signed it and what it still means today. We'll discuss the reasons we don't celebrate our national holiday on August 2nd, June 7th, or July 2nd, though one could make a case for anyone of those dates. | 7/3/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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14 |
Iraq in the Context of American Wars | The Iraq War is longer than American action in World War II, World War I and the Civil War. Only the Revolutionary War and Vietnam were longer. In this podcast we look at Iraq in comparison to other wars in US history. Blood and treasure are the common ways one judges a wars impact on society at an given time We look at several different ways to look at this. In many ways the Iraq War's impact on our society is much less than other wars. But in one way it is suprisingly more impactful. | 5/10/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
| Total: 14 Episodes |
Customer Reviews
Interesting, balanced and well-spoken
A friend of mine who is -- let's say slightly right of center -- recommended this podcast to me, so I expected a fairly conservative bent to it. To my surprise, it appears to be that most rare of specimens: the intellectually sharp but politically neutral commentator. Add a pleasent speaking voice and some apparently well-prepared subject matter and you have an overall winner.
Stodgy Old-School History, In the Worst Way.
I used to subscribe to and love this podcast. Despite the sloppy presentation and poor editing, I felt Bruce was doing a great job. And then, in a recent podcast, he ended by saying that people should go out and read History books. As a PhD student in history, my heart rose. And then it plummeted when he went on to say that, essentially, if a history book wasn't written 30-50 year ago or more, it's not real history. Not only did I take this personally, as someone writing a history book myself, but it suddenly pointed to some real problems in the podcast-- Bruce's overstating the import of Political and Diplomatic History, his ignorance of a lot of the historical work of the last forty years-- Social History, Cultural History, Labor History, Black History, Women's History... This podcast, despite its self-styled liberalsim, is about rich white men making all the decisions and having all the power. And when he steps outside those bounds, he often gets stuff wrong. I used to forgive it, thinking that he has his own interests, like anyone else. Now that I know it's a willful ignorance, I'm personally unsubscribing.
This is a Great Podcast
From beginning to end. I learn something new with every episode. The grounding of modern day political situations in a historical context is great for anyone, whether a studen of history or a studen of politics. I've subscribed (and unsubscribed) from a number of historical podcasts, but I've never left (and will never leave) this one: Bruce Carlson knows his stuff. More importantly, he knows how to communicate what he knows. Anyone who is a fan of British documentarian James Burke's "The Day The Universe Change" style of linking one historical event to another across the decades and even the centuries, providing a context for those events you had never had before, will appreciate Bruce Carlson. He brings that sort of sensibility to American history, and can deftly explain how Thomas Jefferson's campaign against John Adams is playing out in campaigns even today, or how Harry Truman is connected to the war in Iraq. Carlson is brilliant. The episodes of the podcast would make for a great political history book, with each episode being a chapter. Yet, here it is, all for free: some of the best historical analysis of world politics I've ever encountered. If you haven't subscribed yet, do yourself a favor. There may be bigger names in political podcasts out there, but there is no better podcast out for giving you political history, in context, and showing the connections from one era to another.
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