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Full-Text Articles in History
Monuments Ought To Be Considered Case By Case, Michael J. Birkner
Monuments Ought To Be Considered Case By Case, Michael J. Birkner
History Faculty Publications
In a press conference last week President Donald Trump made this contribution to the escalating debate about monuments and memorials to American heroes who, by today’s reckoning, failed a moral test.
The statue debate is inherently emotional and when it comes to keeping certain statues up or pulling them down, it riles people up —including Donald Trump. However, it is important to separate President Trump’s intemperate and often factually inaccurate remarks at Tuesday’s press conference from the statue controversy as it is currently playing out. (excerpt)
How Hard Is It To Drain A Swamp?, Allen C. Guelzo
How Hard Is It To Drain A Swamp?, Allen C. Guelzo
Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications
Some humid, summer evening, go out and listen to the swamp. It chirps, it keens, it hoots, it chitters. It is both quiet and restless, serene and ominous. It is alive, full of bats’ wings, copperheads, and clouds of insects. Imagine how it will respond when it learns you plan to drain it.
That thought has some political parallels as Donald Trump finds himself at odds with the bureaucracy of the federal government in an effort to “drain the swamp” of the so-called Deep State. Thomas Jefferson did a good deal of swamp-draining after his victory over Federalist John Adams …
Commentary: Will The Courts Make Trump's Presidency Less Imperial?, Allen C. Guelzo, James H. Hulme
Commentary: Will The Courts Make Trump's Presidency Less Imperial?, Allen C. Guelzo, James H. Hulme
Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications
Nearly three months ago, Donald Trump assumed a presidency that, for more than a century, had grown seemingly endless discretionary powers. And he did so in company with Republican majorities in Congress and in 32 state legislatures -- all of which should have made his decisions unassailable.
Instead, he has been stymied and embarrassed by resistance from a federal judiciary that has twice halted executive orders on the most prominent issue of his presidential campaign. So, will the federal judiciary become the wall against which Trump bleeds away the power not just of his own presidency but of the “imperial …
Ike's Leadership Lessons For New President, Michael J. Birkner
Ike's Leadership Lessons For New President, Michael J. Birkner
History Faculty Publications
Just days into his presidency in the winter of 1953, Dwight Eisenhower met with his advisers and discussed a challenge from within the majority Republican caucus. If mishandled, it could have endangered his program for a stronger America.
The issue, as he later related, was the demand of conservative Republican legislative leaders that Eisenhower "balance the budget immediately and cut taxes no matter what the result." [excerpt]