How Did We Get Here?: From Theodore Roosevelt to Donald Trump by Robert Dallek
How Did We Get Here?: From Theodore Roosevelt to Donald Trump by Robert Dallek
The struggle to preserve the Republic has never been easy or without perils. The rise of conflicting political parties, which the Founders opposed, and President John Adams's Alien and Sedition Acts, which repressed First Amendment rights, made Benjamin Franklin's observation at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention -- "a republic, if you can keep it" -- seems prescient.
In the twentieth century, America endured numerous struggles" economic depression, World War II, McCarthyism, the Vietnam War, Watergate, the Iran-contra scandal, the war in Iraq -- all of which gave rise to demagogues, as did the growth and reach of mass media. But this wasn't the Founding Fathers' vision for our leadership. The resistance to putting a demagogue in the White House survived the anti-Communist agitation of the 1950s and the Vietnam War in the 1960s. But the latter opened the way for Richard Nixon's election in 1968 and for Watergate, which again tested our democratic institutions and the rule of law. Nixon's resignation in August 1974 moved Vice President Gerald Ford, his successor, to declare, "My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over."
But was it?
Donald Trump's 2016 election has presented a new challenge. How did past politics pave the way for this current assault on American democracy? Our nation's history provides reassurance that we will restore our better angels to government. But we would do well, argues Robert Dallek, to consider just what happened in presidential administrations past that opened the way to our present situation. In How Did We Get Here?, Dallek considers a century of modern administrations, from Teddy Roosevelt's to Donald Trump's, shining a light on the personalities behind the politics and the voters who elected each. His cautionary tale reminds us that the only constant in history is change -- but whether for good ill, the choice is Americans' to make.
Harper, Hardcover, 1st Edition, 1st Printing, 2020
THIS IS A BRAND NEW BOOK. THERE IS A BLACK "CLOSEOUT/REMAINDER" MARK ON THE BOTTOM PAGE EDGES.
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