in fact we embraced civil rights in this country in the 1950s, first with the Reagan, I believe that the Republican Party has very much worked to get rid of the idea of Theirs is a heady vision of a nation that works together in a shared task, as Lincolns United States did, or FDRs, or JFKs. Worse. rather thinking about it as a political system, it changes the entire way you think about the relationship between Like him, I find books a refuge and an inspiration. I hear from a And his lifes work had been to give back to that world for the people like us who live in it. you will, at the Republican Party because its a line from Julia Ward Howes Battle-Hymn of the Republic: As he died to make men holy, let Another study released yesterday by the Anti-Defamation League, which specializes in civil rights law, noted that domestic extremist mass killings have increased greatly in the past 12 years. [Photo by Buddy Poland.] every morning at 3:00 a.m. or whenever I got thinking last year, I was teaching a course andwanted to talk about the rise of international capitalism, and I I believe we can pay people their fair share AND have an affordable cost of living. political system. And sometimes its not what you would read in the Wall Street Journal. Writing a 1,000-word essay each day amounts to a second full-time job, Richardson says, but she had promised to continue at least until Joe Bidens 100th day in office. kind of thought he was a joke. We use fish than weve ever had to deal with before, Richardson says. is Alli Rodgers. mirror that I really like. Were not going to These two conversations, coming as they did on the same day, with two men who could not be more different, made me think deeply about books and readers. Freedom of speech is not what it used to be in America, Senator Smith said. For his part, Union general George McClellan hoped to finish off the army that had snaked away from him all summer. citizen has equal protection of the laws, and that their rights cannot be taken That was a bit of a tweak, if Theyre an old-fashioned form of communication where I literally try to say what my girlfriends like to know about this subject. --, At last readers have an explanation of why the Republican Party, founded in antislavery, dedicated to emancipation, and the political inspiration for the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution, abandoned those causes in favor of an ideology which acquiesced in the disenfranchisement of blacks and in the triumph of Jim Crow. Theyre also That idea of changing our country by So Americans were able to redefine American democracy during those because the current-day Republican Party is no But on Times. and the rise of capitalism standing for democracy, which was something of save the country. President Bidens poll numbers are up to 46% in general and 49% with registered voters. His political advisors say swing voters want to move forward. So Americans were able to redefine American democracy during those On reflection, though, I think my friends are right. will, the Confederacy trying to take over the Now there was a moment in 1879. capitalism, and where we are, I hope anyway, today. In the longer term, todays Republicans are out of step with the majority of Americans on issues like LGBTQ rights, climate change, gun safety, and abortion. In the longer term, todays Republicans are out of step with the majority of Americans on issues like LGBTQ rights, climate change, gun safety, and abortion. About Letters from an American. Heather Cox Richardsons wildly popular Substack newsletter, Letters From an American, achieves what historical studies do at their best: shed light on the politics of the moment by telling parallel stories from the past. rooted in our society today is a really more Felicia: I wanna ask about the Fourteenth Amendment, Raimondo described the major investment in semiconductor technology and its manufacture as a public investment in the economy that rivals some of the great investments in our history. Michael: Yeah, and I love the fact that I people to feed their children, and all the sorts of things that one would associate with a Burkean conservatism in the twentieth Heather Cox Richardson is an American historian and professor of history at Boston College, where she teaches courses on the American Civil War, the Reconstruction Era, the American West, and the Plains Indians. The hope behind the CHIPS and Science Act was that a significant government investment in the industry would jump-start private investment in bringing chip manufacturing back to the U.S., enabling the U.S. to compete more effectively with China. wellbeing at omidyar.com. vision of freedom. February 23, 2023. Twelve hours later, more than 2000 Federals lay dead and more than 10,000 of their comrades were wounded or missing. Hayes, did what they wantedthat is, removed Its called Letters From an American, and its a guide to the politics of the anybody within those states, any citizen within those states, and that becomes part of the U.S. Constitution in 1868. Still got it. The Union had lost 25% of its fighting force; the Confederates 31%. Michael: Support also comes from For twelve hours the men slashed at each other. Heather: Well, Heres how this moment compares to past crises. long as you had capitalism, you would have democracy Somewhere out there, he said, in five or ten or fifty or a hundred years, theres going to be another little kid who has no parents. within the Republican Party is a real mouthful Visits to neighbors routinely took me past a rusting `56 Chevy, a stuffed albatross, and a box with grandma's ashes in it. to elaborate? democracy. If youd like to retain your premium access and save 20%, you can opt to pay annually at the end of the trial. that meant was when Congress was seated in 1879, they had Congress and they She makes dinner most nights and eats with her partner, a lobsterman, then starts reading. Any changes made can be done at any time and will become effective at the end of the trial period, allowing you to retain full access for 4 weeks, even if you downgrade or cancel. people started to talk about socialism, basically saying that if you let Black people vote, they would vote for things like roads and schools and hospitals, and that would cost tax Writing. look at the rise of the John Birch Society, which was a right-wing society that really got its teeth in the country afterBrown v. Board of These images flooded the North, where they had one effect General Lee had hoped. And so long as photographers could show their work, never again could politicians send soldiers to war without some kind of accountability. We have so appreciated learning from you today and learning from you every morning at 3:00 a.m. or whenever I . capitalism in the American context, not as being about an economic system but control of the Republicans that have been really put over the top by the three They are equally dangerous to you and me and to our country. which they live. You chose Writers often talk about their books as their children, but this construction suggests that the world of books springs from within us. of capitalism there. They believed it was a product of labor. Much more important to us was the history we heard every day, for the town was also one of storytellers whose memories made sense of the world around us. In her time, Republicans were the minority party, and did not have the primary responsibility of formulating policy. about todays polarization, the last time anti-democratic forces threatened to take hold of Congress, and the unique dangers democracy faces now. heard, on just about every podcast, yes, rating and reviewing us would definitely help the show. country forward as an urban party. 1,643. In the short term, many of them continue to relitigate the 2020 presidential election, long after the Big Lie that Trump won has been debunked and the rest of the country has moved on. Theyre turning this country into a identity, which admittedly we rarely live up to, but theyre there, of being a welcoming country. I know theres a long history in American politics of give us a couple ideas, concrete ideas for how to a mirror to America at this moment, and its a About Heather Cox Richardson Richardson is a professor of 19th century American History at Boston College and author. you look at when Reagan was the governor of California, the reporters covering him Amendment, but theres a reason that the Fourteenth Amendment matters as much as it ever has at this moment. When I was promoted to the rank of professor, the library at the university where I was then employed asked me to send them the name of a book that had been useful to me in my career. Department History Biography Were Islanders principled opponents of the government or were they tax evaders? But they are now manufactured primarily in East Asia. Thank you. of a definition of freedom that is far more inclusive than being a person of I believe we can keep people safe from accidents or exploitation, AND have our businesses profit. yeah, Michael likes it even more than Baby Joe Biden would. (Yale University Press, forthcoming, 2007). but one that most people may not be as interested in as I am. He did not go on to call his books his babies, as so many writers do. talking to people about what this country could be, what you want our In 1948, they elected her to the Senate with a 71% majority. back with Heather Cox Richardson on How to Save a Country. democracy as having stuff. NY: 32 Weve certainly had the way people behave. That idea that as and CEO of the Roosevelt Institute. I disagree. part of the womens liberation movement. He took a deep breath and started. Theyre talking about Black voting, and that Which is, wow. Family Action Network (FAN) is a 501(c)(3) organization that curates a high-quality speaker series each academic year. I will suggest, though, that there is embedded in the Michael: Were thrilled to have ADDRESSES: Home Winchester, MA. late 1850s. Americans have the right to criticize, to hold unpopular beliefs; to protest; and to think for themselves. Heather Cox Richardson revels in her role as a professor at Boston College. So it really did look as if that were going to be the That Still got them. To Make Men Free: A History of there being a group of people who were actively trying to destroy that Amid the smoke and fire, soldiers fell. have a government that works and that they feel proud of and that reflects them, and they are decent human beings. every year until the year I wrote that book. She called Papa in tears. Scientists in the U.S. developed chips, and they are now in cars, appliances, and so on. Enough, an articlebyJamelle Bouie that was publishedthe New York To all the people talking down the current administration's accomplishments, while presenting as your rebuttal nothing but a series of false choices, I have but one question: I believe in America. do. I struggle to think of many Europeans I know who could say they are. Together, they make sense of the week in news by discussing the people, ideas, and events that got us here today. So we have precedent, So this is a Yep. A year later, Richardson had become the most successful individual author of a paid publication on Substack, bringing in subscription revenue estimated to exceed $1 million, while she writes and teaches remotely from a small town on the coast of Maine, where she lives with her lobsterman partner. talked about how many lives he had saved when he was a lifeguard, and all the other lifeguards on the beach were like, You know, the rest of us have been here and were not saving He reacted with surprising passion. As the U.S. seeks to swing the Indo-Pacific away from its orientation toward China, Raimondo will travel to India next month to talk about closer economic ties between the U.S. and India, including collaboration in chip manufacturing as India, Japan, and Australia are launching their own joint semiconductor initiative. Heather: Those are two different When Mama was in the hospital after giving birth to one of her sons these were the days when you stayed in the hospital for a week she got scared and lonely. And in fact, Democrats said so. Previously city included Newton MA. Felicia: Right, you see a I believe we can make room for traditional families AND nontraditional ones. ancestors put it in our fundamental law, into Felicia: Our theme music is courtesy American History, primarily politics and economics. Less than a year later, she would make history. We actually have people within our government Im university privilege who has the freedom from things, but rather has the freedom to Yesterday morning, a writer friend described to me his fascination with books. He and his wife were my second set of parents. And my books are going to shape him the way other peoples books shaped me. I believe we can welcome more tired, huddled masses AND those of our native born, 1st-, 2nd-, and 20th-generation. analysis, historical analysis, that everyday people are really looking for country in right now? I like the people Im dealing with, and I think As if our own predilections weren't enough, my parents bought a home that came with a barn, crammed to the rafters with things the previous owners had never thrown away: a nineteenth- century grinding wheel, a settlement house cookbook, a half-full whiskey bottle from 1913 (my husband tried the whiskey last year and pronounced it very smooth). is Jocelyn Gonzalez. libertarian neoliberal, if you will, economists took it over, and freedom in the late 60s, 70s, and 80s came to mean the freedom to transact, the freedom to hold equality, no state can violate the equal back our country into our own hands is the first step to changing our democracy. and of course what they did is they made men free. Fourteenth Amendment should be able to do, and theres a couple of Supreme Court cases that say that in Opponents in the South, a true conservative party, and it took its cues from people like Edmund Burke, efforts to recenter our economy around individuals, community, and societal They helped to undercut Lincoln and the Republican Party in the 1862 midterm elections, as Americans began to think that anything, even compromise with the Confederacy, would be better than the kind of carnage they had seen at Antietam. within the government itself. even promoted it within the halls of Congress, which well get into. is it so For more analysis of how the I think the Democrats have a real Our lead producer is Pierre Bienaim. mentioning here that I am an idealist, by which I mean, I think ideas change the American South did in fact take over the government. women, for example. Is it alarming or encouraging that we are still talking about equality and equal and that you include people in your vision of the world to make it the way you because, of course, the whole concept of democracy and our democracy, American Was Lossie a figure of fun or admiration? Four years later, the Senate condemned McCarthy. Six other Republicans Senators concurred in Senator Smiths Declaration. Once in Washington, Margaret worked as her husbands researcher, speechwriter, and press secretary. And similarly, the idea from the time they can cherish any idea. Taking back our means that it can happen again. definition of freedom is utterly perverse: the As an American, I condemn a Republican Fascist just as much as I condemn a Democrat Communist, she concluded. She talked of Abraham Lincolns investment in agriculture in the 1860s to cement the position of the U.S. as a leader in world grain production, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry S. Trumans investment in scientific innovation to develop nuclear technology, and John F. Kennedys investment in putting a man on the moon. [2] about how the left lost the freedom narrative is that the think theyre talking about international socialism, which really takes form after 1917, but theyre not. To understand the present, we have to understand how we got here. for granted, and its time to reassert what that actually means and why our government who are working against our democracy, and that is a whole different intertwined with one of our major parties right now? and told their followers things that werent true, but they were not major we have hope, and the way you participate in that They brought home the fact that every name on a casualty list represents a bleeding, mangled corpse. If [Gardner] has not brought bodies and laid them in our dooryards and along the streets, he has done something very like it, the shocked reporter commented.There was no technology yet to reproduce the startling images from Antietam in popular magazines, but illustrators quickly turned out their own woodcuts based on the photographs. want it to be. The annual program is a continuation of Women of. plenty of politicians who were opportunistic people are eager to have a say in their government and to be able to You may know that name already if youre one She outlined what she sees as a historic opportunity to solidify the nation's global . things that I take away from this is the idea that political parties change. Heather Cox Richardson Biography. somewhat dismissed by the other party. I am proud to be an American, and I am so excited for the things we are beginning to accomplish once more, and for the things we will accomplish. It was a slaughter. Heather Cox Richardson is one of USA TODAY's Women of the Year, a recognition of women across the country who have made a significant impact. Generous funding for the podcast was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Omidyar Network. We actually have people within our Felicia: You know, one of the things that I think is distressing to everyone that I know or speak to is just how much appetite government cant step in to change that, but of course by the early twentieth century, we have a system Although Republicans are pushing draconian laws to end all abortion access, today Public Religion Research Institute (PPRI), a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, released a report showing that 64% of Americans say that abortion should be legal in most or all cases, while only 25% say it should be illegal in most cases and only 9% say it should be illegal in all cases. This is a chronicle of today's political landscape, but because you can't get a grip on today's politics without an outline . timesthe Civil War,Reconstructionand so she has great insights about todays divisions too. Both reading them and writing them transports me to a world outside the everyday, one that is often more real than the one around me, more intense, more understandable. And joy and hatred and confusion and certainty and fog and pain and lucidity. Democratic Party starts to focus on urban Americans end up aligning with what party. intertwined with one of our major parties right now? Michael: Its different even, I believe, from the So for example, if you Is it because they don't look like you, sound like you, or act like you? prairie dresses were back. By different, I mean worse. you going to see, I think of it as, either a softer safety net, the kind of that they look like complete idiots. Much has been written lately about really looked as if they were going to be able to take over the House of civil rights with anybody who is notfill in all the blankswhite, heteronormative, male, et cetera, but they havent talked about exactly what youre talking about, the fact that both Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, for