Continues. Host we are back. For our spotlight on podcasts segment, we are joined by Bruce Carlson, producer, creator, and host of the my history can beat up your politics podcast. He is here to talk to us about his podcast in the political news of the day. Good morning. Guest good morning. Great to be on. Host first, lets talk about where you got the name from. What are we trying to say with the title . Guest it is a long name. It does not always fit on internet directories and things i have to fill out. I was told when i started the podcast to pick two things that you like. I really like history and continuously read history books and biographies of president s and other people and the like. And i also like to watch and follow politics. I started the program in 2006. I came up with that name, a little snappy and a little tongueincheek to be honest, i history can beat up your politics. I still believe history, the reading books and the knowledge about president s and what happened in the past maybe can get people to think less rigidly about their politics. I do not think it changes peoples persuasion. It does not turn republicans into democrats or democrats into republicans, but maybe it gets people to reconsider things if they think about the past. In a lot of cases, we have been through these things before. Things that we think our novel have happened before. Host you have been doing this podcast since 2006 which would make you one of the earliest adopters of that platform. Guest you know, you certainly had others. Dan garland is a big one. This weekend is big. At the time, it was novel. I dont want to say it was two cups and a string, but it was newer. There were a number of podcasts. Not many of them have stayed so you have some ghost town podcasts that were around in 2006 that have gone away. We were one of the few history podcasts. I would say we were one of the few that would actually talk about history but not just in the way of a history professor and just talk about it in isolation, but also bring in, if we are talking about this president ial election of 1796 and adams and jeffersons fans are going at it like wolverines, that has something to do with todays politics. We also bring in the politics. That was rare and is still a little rare. There are a few more folks doing it now. Host that was going to be my question exactly. With all of the podcasts today, where do you fit in the ecosystem now . Guest it is harder, but i think this is a great thing. It answers one of the questions when people address cancel culture and if we have freedom of speech today. We just had a professor from syracuse talking about free speech. It is a hard thing, but we do well describing some of the rules of it. When you think about the number of podcasts, maybe hundreds of thousands of people speaking, there is incredible free speech going on. That has only increased over time. There might have been a few thousand podcasts when i started or maybe just a few hundred. And now, i know my former podcast host said Something Like they have 40,000 alone. And that was a few years ago. There are lots of history podcasts. I still believe most podcasts fit in one box or the other. They will either talk about history and say this battle occurred here or lees army was chased over here or the russians fought the germans, or they are going to discuss politics in a very spearheaded way of taking one position and trying to make their argument. We are doing something a little different, which is talking about politics, what is going on today, we have inflation, how did gerald ford deal with inflation during his presidency . How did carter deal with it . How did reagan deal with that . His first term, that was a problem for him as well. For gerald ford, it was mailing seeds to people and telling america to create inflation gardens. I dont know if we will see that again. Maybe it is a good idea to grow tomatoes to cut down the cost of groceries. You see different approaches to the problem. Maybe after studying some of those things, some of the heat around our political thoughts might reduce. We can hope, anyway. Host how do you choose the topics you cover . Do you follow the daily news and base it off of that or do you have longterm ideas that you are getting to one at a time . Guest great question. Initially, i was very much like, what happened this week . I still do some of that. But it takes time to research history. For anyone, particularly me, you have to go to books. Always secondary books. I should say at the outset im history podcaster and not an historian. I read hundreds of books over the time of doing the podcasts. For any topic, i will try to read both books, journals, and other articles from the past. It takes time to delve into that. I find i am doing both. There might be a hot topic like inflation i can catch ahead of the curve. I was talking about inflation when it was only 6 or 7 it just looked a little high and said this is what might happen. During inflation, the American People get punished. The president starts telling us what to do like producer oil use and grow a garden. Look out for that. Have not seen as much of it this round, but we will see. For instance, i am doing one on Congressional Committees. I am still researching that now. It will take a few weeks to get it out. On other issues, i just find a big topic that i know will hit sooner or later. Give you a perfect example. We talked about the spanish flu and 2017. I had a guest on with the influence of 1918 and the protective measures and the fast you have mask wearing in San Francisco and an antimass committee that was against the mayor and regulations and things like that in 1918. We also talked about things like i looked back and found we used social distancing in 2017. You find some topics that may not be relevant today but i end up having to rerun those. And i can do that because i have about a 500episode archive at this point. A lot of it just comes to me. Also, i am very grateful to have a nice listener base that have followed me for many years. They suggest topics and ask me questions. Among them are history teachers which i am just over the moon about. Host let me take a break here to remind our viewers they can take part in this conversation. We are going to open up regional lines. If you are in the eastern or central time zones, you can call 2027488000. You can always text questions and comments at 2027488003. We are always reading on social media. Lets Start Talking about the political issues of the day. First, a more general question. Has our country ever been as divided politically as we are now . Guest i have been getting that question since 2006. My show started during the Bush Administration and that tells you a little bit about where i might answer. As a person that looks at the long slot of history, i am not as enamored by arguments this is the worst time ever for politics and that people are more partisan now than ever. I recognize that there has been more immediate change in which social media allows people to express themselves, directly to one another, sometimes in a very negative fashion. There are certain political actors on stage who are using that aggressively. That might have changed, but really, over the long swath of american history, the american presidency has never not been contested. It has never not been something that one party or the other wanted. What has happened is one party or the other was beating the tail off the other. Things are at parity and they have been since the 2004 election. You just do not see as many blowouts. Maybe you can say 2008. But things have been a bit tighter between the two parties which increases. But, i mean, i am thinking about 1858, a speaker election in the house leads to a melee. The future speaker of the house, the congressman from pennsylvania and a southern congressman had it. The one says i will not be with you, you slave driver and that is enough to set them off in blows in the house. We know about the story about charles under who was beat in the senate by a man whose uncle, he felt he had insulted in his speech. Where he just used shakespeare to make fun of him, beat him senseless. Not only that, the senators never held back anyone from stopping the beating from taking place. This is one or 405 instances in the 1850s of violence in the capitol. Sometimes they get broken up. In the veil it the melee, i refer the fighting continues until one mans to pay toupee is pulled off their head and the humor of that moment stops everyone fighting. But we were not always that lucky. That same man, who was toupee was removed will end up being a colonel in gettysburg and would lose his life. We always have to remember that when we think about the 1850s and all of that, extremely partisan. Look at the beginning foundings of the republican and federalist newspaper wars where you have newspaper sponsored by jefferson, outright sponsored, taking some of the state budget and funding a newspaper and hamilton. They had their favorite newspapers attacking each other. The recipients of this is none other than the hero, George Washington, who described the things as being he was being described as a common pickpocket or emperor nero. It really let him to want to quit after four years, he was convinced to stay on. He asked them to stop this fighting. They do not. Key is sure to he is sure to retire in 19 which it sets up one of the most underrated partisan president ial elections of the time. Gosh, you can go to so many areas of history. A lot of people think that maybe the 19th century after the civil war is a calm time because mostly republicans were winning the president ial elections. The garfield, grants, harrisons, and all of that. But when you start thinking about intrapolitics, intraparty politics they were as nasty as anything. James blaine and roscoe going at it in the senate. Then spending their lives beating the heck out of each other, get involved in the middle of that was garfield. And his assassination which brings about where people if anyone knows about the two factions of the Republican Party were fighting through the 19th century, they know that incident. But, those battles to me resemble anything you can see today. The more you enlarge your view, the more you see things. That is not to say, it is pretty choppy out there, i will admit. Host lets go to our phone lines, and get our viewers involved in the segment. Start with keith. Caller good morning. I love this conversation. Im not familiar with your podcast. But i will follow you now. Because i am a history buff. Also you mentioned suri cruise, i am a graduate. My question, i dont think we have too many battles over the 19th century history. Because we are far enough removed. I think temporary history is what sullies our politics. It is not taught. Im 63 years old. I have lived a portion of history. I hate when people tell me that my Life Experiences are false. Because we have people that can testify and speak to it with her oral history. An example, can you speak to people that deny that the southern strategy existed in the parties relined . Guest absolutely. So, so much there. One is the Life Experience question, with the caveat that even our own Life Experience, for me i like the 80s, i did the 12 part reagan series. The reason i did that was just to be sure that we are not just like, i hate when people talk about history and it goes from 2022 to boom, just to the founding fathers. I refer to them as the framers. As if Nothing Happened in between them. There were adjustments in the year of 1812 that changed america in dramatic ways and the next generation after that. We have to be careful to look at contemporary and modern history. Maybe modern might be 40 years. I look at nixon a lot. I look at i did the reagan series. When you talk about the southern strategy, what do you meet what he means is a lot of people will point out about democrats that this was a racist party, why would you want to be part of a racist party . You have to go really far back, for that is a significant chunk of the party and it changes dramatically during the time of the new deal. Theres a time in the 19th century with a democrat parties associated with people and ideas the most americans now one not want to be would not want to be and that is true. Their part not just in 1960 by 1928, they were there was something to say about it. The republican origin stories a beautiful one. It is an idealistic party that started in wisconsin in a schoolhouse on noble ideas. But it has associations, directly or indirectly with people like know nothings and anticatholic groups. Everyone has their political origin stories that have issues. That is a long way around the question. Nixon engages in a southern strategy when he runs for president in 1968. It is so clear, that he sees what is happening in the election before 1964. Barry goldwater runs. It is a landslide that we have not seen much of sense. He wins his home state, arizona, and some southern states, which were with kennedy and a half pulled away from Lyndon Johnson, even though he is a southerner. Nixon sees, in 68, an opportunity. You have to remember George Wallace is in the picture. That is a key, here. George wallace is a segregationist governor from alabama. He starts as a liberal but we dont have time for that. Nixon tries to appeal to people who might have segregation, or people who are mad about the brown versus board decision. He changes his politics and who he is courting to adjust that. So, since then, republicans have been interested, there are a lot of votes there. Nixon would have been wiped out if he didnt try to appeal to the south because of the wallace situation. Jimmy carter in the same way, has to do things like adjusting his view, because he doesnt want to anger the previous wallace voters. He wants to keep wallace out of the 76 election, so he doesnt get a three way, which he things might be trouble thinks might be trouble. That is a very negative side of the republican strategy in the late 60s, nixon appealing to the worst ideas. Using coded language and then changing the courts and trying to adjust the court so it wasnt the warren court that had authored the brown decision. The positive thing you can say about the republican is right before that, Everett Dirksen worked closely with Lyndon Johnson and against some of his more conservative members to help pass the civil rights act. That vote is often, his work on that, is often not given the credit it is due. Whether dirksen would be a republican today, we dont know. Maybe, maybe not. Host lets go to martin, who was calling from dayton, ohio. Good morning. Caller hello. Thanks for having me on. I love history as well. I left the check out your podcast. I will have to check out your podcast. The question, we have been of the most split we have ever been in the society, most of us in the center we hear the Fringe Groups a lot and they get all of the noise and the pr. I think most people are somewhere in the middle. That is where i am. I call myself a centrist. I would not, self anything else. I had an argument with a friend or debate. He is a protrump. He did not even realize, the 2000 election, he does not remember it. He is my age, 52 and he had no clue about it. I said, there are elections that are closed, gore conceded, there was one of the best things he ever did and he never understood it. There is a huge illiteracy in history. I sent him the picture of an old button that was a reagan button that said, lets make America Great again. A lot of the pro trump people think this maga was an original slogan he came up with, when i had a button with reagan and bush, with make America Great again. Theres a lot of illiteracy of history. The question i have, who your favorite historians . I love met gordon reed, i love hwb ran. He is such an entertaining historian. I also love david mccullough. Those are my favorite. Who are some of yours . Guest i would add to that because i read a lot of older books as well. I need to include ellen evans in their and his biographies. He is a great one of Grover Cleveland that enabled me to penetrate that president , was often unknown. This odd mixture of a democrat, also fiscally conservative, but on certain issues, say consumer prices, very, almost liberal in that sense. Somebody who just had a normas enormous fortitude. He was a president we would respect today. There were partisan battles then too. We had a people naming their kids after Grover Cleveland in democratic states and you have other people think he ruined the country in the economic recession of 1893. Theres fights over all of those things. You mentioned hw brand. A big source for me for the reagan series. I did that 12 parter. The constitutional encyclopedia, a through z, which is great for going to the actual constitutional convention. What were people speaking out about when they were making this constitution . Being careful, not to go too far. Doris Kearns Goodwin is another one. All of the Lyndon Johnson i focus on, how could you not . Those are just some. I end up reading like a grad student. I read indexes and parts of books that i need. But those are some authors that i find myself going back to. Hw brands, just to give one book plug, heirs of the founders is a great one to learn about. Webster, clay and calhoun in one book. Host now, how far do things have to go back in history before people start forgetting them . For example, theres always this conversation about the southern strategy and whether democrats actually changed to republicans. But i am like, you dont remember the longtime democrat who became a republican . How far back in the past to do things have to get before people start claiming, i dont remember that happened. Guest i want to be careful. The term literacy was used. I want to be careful of not being a smartypants. Podcasting, we are not a college. You want to keep it by its nature, we have to talk to people, just like cspan. Ive been watching it for very long time. But, you have to engage. So, we dont have the history knowledge in this country to the level that it should be. Think then carlin alone and podcasting might be helping change that. We may have to refresh our stats on historical literacy. It has been pretty bad. It is only tied in high schools for some historical knowledge. You do a quick textbook view. Often, those viewpoints are just. Not well developed enough. So, you have to look at the polyhedra of issues. I dont find myself making a lot of broad, quick statements anymore. You start investigating things and find, wow, that is a neat little trick. The other day i found someone called the democrats the grand old party the past. So, just as the brief example of the things you find when you start looking into things. I do believe that unfortunately, if youre looking at newscasts in pollock asked politics, theyre barely looking at 2008 at this point. Then they go all the way back to George Washington and thomas jefferson. So, we have to look a bit at the in between. For me and what i cover in the show, i spent a lot of time in the 80s, the 70s, especially now with inflation and midterms and the cost politics going on. The 70s are in a born period. Host lets talk to michael from beacon, new york. Caller good morning. I wanted to make a comment. I think the republicans of today, like President Biden says, are not anything like the republicans in the past. The republicans today are for higher gas bases, human trafficking, four contraceptives, for taxing families with kids and for nationwide abortion. They are against the police, health care for veterans. They are against baby formulas. They are against defendant ukraine. They are overall against democracy. I think the republicans of today need to study some history, because im a democrat, but in the past i would not worry if a republican was nominated to be president or a governor, because he would think that they would be on the side of america and the side of democracy. The problem today is that i am scared, out of my mind, about who is going to be nominated if trump comes back, we are finished. If republican governors come into power, there is no truth. Truth has to be part of what this nation is about. If the other side a fox news and if they dont tell the truth to people this country cannot ever come together, ever. Guest great comment. I want to say at the outset, that is the line that i draw. Something like the events of january 6 is horrifying. As so many americans, i would hope, on a wide swath of politics that Something Like that that could happen, someone was visited Congress Many times. Those are the things have to be on the lookout. This book, which admires, from afar, or for his readers in france, admires the american democracy, points out several things needed to keep a democracy going, free media, associations, things we may have lost some track of, associations between all of us in advocacy groups. People being free to speak. So, some of it is still present. I talked about the number of podcasts on their. But we also have to watch that we have Fair Elections and democracy. To the point about the changing Republican Party, i think that is clear. I think also you used to have conservative democrats, where there is a lot less of that than there used to be. The democrats control the congress from 1954 to 1994, from television to the world wide web. For both of those technology and being used, that entire time the democrats controlled congress. It was never Democratic Party that was always direct united. They could get united on some vote sometimes. Speakers would force the members to vote a certain way and make it a party issue. But it was always a very divided group. And the republicans are also changing. You have the rockefeller republican. I suspect that rockefeller would be attractive to a lot of modern democrats. It might be a problem, to be more modern moderate or centrist democrats. I will say one thing, people pined for the days when things were a little less partisan. The other thing that we have to remember is that parties have gotten better, at the states that they are in. It has been a long time since my state of new jersey has had elected a republican for senate. It has been a long time since South Carolina elected a democrat for senate. You used to see more of a mix. You have somebody like in el damato in new york taking up what now democrats may not be so happy if republican had that seat. There are times when it republicans could easily win california. You talk about recent history. California up until 1992 was probably more of a republican state. It is the state that made nixon and was reagans electoral base. So, at the same time, we might pine for a time where we were a little less partisan. We have to remember that you have to give up some of your treasured senators and except that he might have a moderate public and in new york and you might have a conservative democrat in South Carolina. That is what has really moved in my opinion. Host two of the last political campaigns are covered before coming to washington was strong sermon in South Carolina and Fritz Holling, a democrat. I think Fritz Holling has been the last democrat in South Carolina, elected to the senate. Lets go back to our phone lines and talk to henry, who was calling from virginia. Good morning. Caller good morning. Thanks for taking my call. I would like to ask the guest, about this Critical Race Theory they want to take all the books and all the stuff from the school. How are kids nowadays going to ever learn about the history, if anything that is offensive to the white folks will not come to light . They cant read books about it and lay school and stuff like that in school and stuff like that. Thats part much all i have to say. Guest i think it is right when people criticize Critical Race Theory, that they are asked, what is it that you mean or where is it happening and be specific about it . Those criticisms are right. If we are getting to a point where were not talking about slavery in a critical way. I think they will always have slavery in the history books. What if were not talking about it, if its just a passing reference. If were not talking about the reconstruction and the other battles over it there is something wrong. Leaping into it and what is a good book, i like this what he halted this book, liberty is sweet, where you are starting to see a way you can take Disney Research and put it into the story of the american revolution, you can take you can take this history and put it into the story of american revolution. It is a factor. There were attempts in Great Britain to use that, to use the fact that people were enslaved here to assist to their side and things like that. You have to bring this up. Can it be weaved into the story, while still telling what the story is . That i think is what is going on in the real history, the books. But you are saying the fight out of schools. My only answer to the larger point is i still believe that people can be educated as adults, anything the School System is forced not to teach we hope that podcasts and books will make up the difference in adults need to also will need to have responsibility for their historical education, just like they would for business and math education and learn more about their history and be good citizens. It may not all be possible, at the school level. But thats my opinion. Im a little biased. As a history podcaster. Host lets talk to charles was calling from fallbrook, california. Caller good morning. I am calling quickly for bruce because i hope he was still awake on the night of the elections. I was. I was watching john king do the online live at about midnight. At that moment, he was in shock. I carried that shock until now. The trump system was way ahead. All of a sudden i nationally. The count reversed by over 350 votes 350,000 votes from trump to biden. That clip has been removed from the archives of cnn. Have you got a copy of it . Guest no i dont have a copy of it. I think localities do not report all of their votes instantly on election night. It is time to come votes. That is what you saw only 2020. Just as you saw in the primaries in pennsylvania earlier this year. It is pretty common. 2000 was an example where things went the other way. 2004 was an example where you had a few democrats in the house, getting a senator, Barbara Boxer to express an objection to the counting of votes. Of course, that didnt happen in a riot situation. It was quickly dealt with. Al gore, going back to 2000, al gore was the one who quieted down any objections to that election. In 2004, the counting was dealt with without any violence. I point out there was some black box voting and some democratic fringe websites that were talking about the 2004 election being a robbery, where it was about 100,000 vote result in ohio that would have been needed to even carry for an election. Disputed elections have happened. Close elections have happened. Look at 1968, 1876, which is the historical example of a contested election that had to go to a Congressional Committee and almost came to blows. But, like one little gotcha clip is of that much importance. This is why cspan is great. We dont restrict anyone from their opinions. We express it. You have helped educate others on the thing you are concerned about. Host my history can beat up your politics, here in america. Maybe we can let people figure out the whole thing about mailin ballots and how all 50 states have different rules about when they count and when they send in vote tallies. Lets see if we can squeeze. In one more caller. Lets go to doug, from palmer, alaska. Good morning. Are you there . Caller good morning. I was wondering can you hear me . Guest yes. Caller i was just wondering if your guest could comment on the democratic convention. I think it was in chicago, the year johnson decided [inaudible] guest 1968. Yeah. I dont know what specifically to comment on except it was a convention of the worst convention for a party in history. Convention lost the democrats election, no doubt. It wa it had a lot to do, i have a draft Johnson Special podcast where we learned that maybe johnson, even though he said in the beginning of the year he would not run for president , when not accept the nomination, he might have accepted a draft and even took steps to maybe make it happen, including up to the day that humphrey is nominated. That may have put humphrey with one hand behind his back. And having a difficult time to win that election. You had ferocious protest. I was just in chicago. I was staying hilton, where a lot of this happened. What the story, very quickly, there, i dont think people are is aware of it. In my research i did a podcast on that around the time he started the occupied movement in 2011 to talk about protests of the past and how those protesters would protest democrats and protest republicans. They were after humphrey. They threw fake lead on his wife at one point blood on his w ife at one point. What really happened, was mccarthy and some of the other Democratic Candidates told her supporters dont come to chicago, theres a lot of police here. It was a small group of hearty protesters that came, outnumbered, by mayor daleys police force. What you see on the tv cameras is them attempting to go from the park, where they have realized they would have been beaten and slaughtered and trying to get where the cameras are, the whole world is watching, so they can be safer with the cameras on them. He was also taking steps to block the footage from showing up on networks. There was a delay because of a strike that all of a sudden happened under his watch. I think that is a fascinating elections. There been times where a lot of unrest during an election, 1968, the election result came down to the last hour. Host fortunately, we can talk all morning. But we are going to run out of time. I would like to thank Bruce Carlson who was the host of my history can beat up your politics podcast, for being on with us this morning and talking is through history and politics. Bruc app or online at cspan. Org. Experts on reducing food waste, and repurposing and sustainability testified before the House Select Committee on ways to increase the food supply chain. This is about an 1 45