MM#337--Revisiting Landmark Elections in American History: The Pivotal Tuesdays Series

0:07 Welcome to the Theory to Action podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time, to help you take action immediately and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life. Now here's your host, david Kaiser flourishing life. Now here's your host, david Kaiser. Hello, I am David, and welcome back to another Mojo Minute. We are in election year and because I'm a political junkie, this book's title caught my eye Pivotal Tuesdays for elections that shaped the 20th century by Margaret O'Mara.

0:49 I immediately was excited and began to check out the free sample on Kindle, only to be disappointed as I read through the table of contents and actually let me bring you along with my thoughts as I scanned that the table of contents, and actually let me bring you along with my thoughts as I scanned that very table of contents. I read this Part one the election of 1912. Ah, okay, she's going to cover the Wilson election, which sounds right. I thought about Teddy Roosevelt and the internal war and the GOP at that time coming out of the Gilded Age, and so I could understand the 1912 election being a pivotal election.

1:35 Okay, cool. Next, margaret covers part two, the election of 1932. The election of 1932. And I thought, yep, okay, anticipated this one the election of FDR. Big changes were coming for the United States in the beginning of the Depression and for roughly the next 15 years until 1945 and the end of World War II. So, okay, good deal, so far, so good. I like where this is going. Next we have part three, the election of 1968. Ah, yep, it was a big one, pivotal for sure. The country in the throes of Vietnam and Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy killed earlier in the year Student protests, peace protests going on all over the place, plus, you know, riots oh, there were so many riots, from 66 and 67 and 68.

2:33 And then Nixon is elected. So, okay, totally understand that one. Sure, it is pivotal. And then we get to part four. Part four the election of 1992. Huh, what, please, margaret? I think you missed one. How about the election of 1980? You know the conservative counter-revolution election from the past 60 years of liberalism at that time. Did you forget that one?

3:13 It was monumental, 1980. So I stopped reading and had to do some checking. Now about the author, margaret O'Mara. She also wrote a book about the Silicon Valley and the remaking of America which got some good reviews and, to her credit, some folks have said she is one of our most consequential historians, mostly, especially, especially in the digital age. So I found it funny in this book, pivotal Tuesdays, that O'Meara completely leaves out the 1980 election, which certainly was and is a pivotal election, most especially in the 20th century.

3:59 In fact I would offer that the 1980 election and the 1932 election were the two most pivotal elections in the 20th century, with 1912 coming a close third Now, certainly more than the 1992 election. So I was curious and I began to dig further into Margaret's history and now it was all making sense. Margaret O'Mara had worked in the White House from 1994 to 1996 as policy analyst on the staff of vice president Al Gore during the Clinton administration. So it all makes sense now.

4:44 And you see, folks, the more I read over these past 15 years of in which the way history is taught and learned and even, in this case, of how people read their history, the lens of their worldview, so to speak and we've talked about this before from this microphone. And one prime example is, if you're a conservative or even, let's just say, a middle-of-the-road Republican let's just say a middle-of-the-road Republican you have been taught history written from liberals, by liberals and dare I say, even sometimes radical historians.

5:35 Just two come to mind Howard Zinn's, people's History of the United States, which we have covered here on how radical Howard Zinn was, but it is the most popular textbook in American history in our high schools. Howard Zinn was a Marxist and a radical's radical, plain and simple period. I mean he even self-identified as something of a quote anarchist and something of a socialist end quote. Those are his words, not mine. And then we have Doris Kearns Goodwin, prominent historian, but a far left liberal.

6:18 Not a radical, but a far left liberal for sure. So that's like learning your family history from a crazy uncle who most likely was always on a bender at the family reunions. Don't you think you would get a very distorted view of your family history. If your crazy uncle was the only source of your family history and where you came from, I think so, and would you be ashamed of your family roots? Perhaps because your crazy uncle wasn't even anywhere close to the truth of what the history was, its authenticity?

7:04 So that is the propaganda that we are teaching in our schools nowadays, dare I say, for the last 20-plus years for sure, and even for those 20-plus years I would go as far as saying indoctrinating our young people. We've covered this in the past with Pete Hegseth's book the Battle for the American Mind, which makes a compelling argument that the students, we've all been indoctrinated since the early part of the 20th century. So there's that.

7:46 But we are going to review this book with a skeptical eye because clearly Margaret O'Meara has a blind spot in her listing of the top elections of the 20th century. She missed the most pivotal and consequential election in the 20th century, one of the top two, I believe the 1980 election. Ronald Reagan is elected in a landslide. The conservative counter-revolution election happened Even more so just because most people might think it was a flash in the pan. He was re-elected in 1984 by winning 49 states. So it certainly wasn't a flash in the pan. So, again, we will review this book with a skeptical eye towards Margaret's book and Margaret's worldview.

8:33 So with all that, let's start with an overview to set the stage for what we're going to call the Pivotal Tuesdays series. More to come on that, but for now let's go to the book. This book looks back at four presidential races of the past 100 years to show how this history was made. To show how this history was made, it begins with the rowdy four-way contest in 1912 between Teddy Roosevelt, william Howard Taft, eugene Debs and Woodrow Wilson that resulted in Wilson's victory. It continues with Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal campaign and his win over Herbert Hoover in 1932.

9:16 The third case profiles the eventual, or the eventful and tragic campaign of 1968 in the election of Richard Nixon. And the final story follows the three-way race that led to Bill Clinton's victory in 1992. And here's the important paragraph. Why these four elections? Why not 1948, when Harry S Truman beat Thomas Dewey in perhaps the greatest election upset in American history? Or, wait for it, 1980, when Ronald Reagan's election ushered in a new age of conservative resurgence? Part of the reason is personal, ah, part of the reason is personal, Ah having worked on the 1992 Clinton campaign, I could bring an eyewitness perspective to the election in an era that historians are now beginning to explore.

10:10 Yet there are larger reasons here as well. They use elections as a way of exploring bigger changes in American society, from the industrialization and urbanization to the crisis of the Great Depression and response of the New Deal to the rise of the Sun, beltate the trajectory of the nation's experience through what publisher Henry Luce proclaimed the American century. Ah, okay, so she does recognize that she has a blind spot, and a major one at that.

10:52 Okay, very good, let's go back to the book. While I was writing this book, it became clear that everyone has an opinion about the most important presidential elections in history. Indeed, debating the merits of one's list is part of the fun of being a political junkie. Yes, it is, but there's more to it than personal preference. Many of the former political science major many a former political science major will be familiar with the theory of realigning elections, which argues that certain years have been watersheds in terms of both partisan affiliations and policy innovations.

11:33 Historians, too, once embraced the idea that political history was cyclical and that the nation's mood swung back and forth from left to right in successive eras and the unpredictability of history. Relying heavily on data about voter turnout and preferences, such approaches tend to isolate the policy of politicking and voting as something separate from the broader tapestry of economic, social and cultural change.

12:17 This obscures the intricate and fascinating interrelationship between formal politics and lived experience, between actions and markets I'm sorry, between governments and markets, between the rhetoric of the leaders and the actions of the voters. Okay, so that is a good start as an overview. So what I think we're going to do over the next several Tuesdays and like I said, we're going to call these pivotal Tuesdays we're going to conduct a series, an episode for each election.

13:01 Today we will be the overview and next week we will cover the 1912 election in detail and then after that we will follow that with the 1932, the 1968, and then the 1980 election and then the 1980 election. Now, to make this worth your time, this will not be a conventional liberal reading of history God knows, there's been tons of ink spilled from that side of the aisle about our history but we're going to compare a conventional liberal's take on the election and its after effects and a conservative's take, a conservative historian's take, and for our conservative author.

13:52 We will choose Mr Stephen Hayward's wonderful little book, the Politically Incorrect Book of of the presidents, part two. You might know Hayward from his monumental two-volume biographical history of Ronald Reagan titled the Age of Reagan, part one. Volume one has the subtitle of the Fall of the Old Liberal Order, 1964 to 1980, and volume two is the Conservative Counter-Revolution 1980 to 1989. I read the first volume in just over 15 days and, yes, I did not cheat. Thank you very much.

14:33 Over some 700 pages. Read it in 15 days and, yes, it is that fantastic, it's overwhelmingly fantastic. I would urge all of you, if you want a real history of what actually took place and not the liberals interpretation, not the history you got in your government classrooms, then be prepared to read both volumes of Stephen Hayward's wonderful biography. It's much more than a biography of Reagan. It gives you a lot of context into what was going on at the time.

15:13 He has a wonderful capability of grabbing all statistics and quotes from the time period, from columnists to newscasters to just a whole variety. You really feel like you're being walked through a digital museum and he's pointing out to your left and to your right all these various events with wonderful commentary alongside of it. It's a wonderful, it was a wonderful experience reading that book. So we have the Pivotal Tuesdays we're going to do each week. We're going to deep dive into each of these elections and with that, margaret does include.

16:02 She has a paragraph which sounds like a disclaimer. So let's hear her disclaimer, then we're going to wrap up with a wonderful story. To be sure, there are many other elections of the past century that served as both hinges of history and windows into a wider landscape of social change. The story of the era's pivotal Tuesdays could cover 25 elections just as easily as only four. My point here is not to pick favorites. In fact I deliberately avoided profiling some of the most familiar races and personalities, for to focus on them alone can keep us in the conventional wisdom comfort zone.

16:47 So there is that disclaimer. When I read it I felt obligated, out of charity for Margaret, to include it in our review. Now again, what I think she does very well sometimes she captures, with very good writing, kind of a mood that we should have as we approach these four elections, because they are hinges on history pivots. I like her title of Pivotal Tuesdays. That's why I got so excited in the very beginning. So to complete this overview.

17:31 We're going to have one more quote and then we're going to have a wonderful story. Ultimately, presidential elections are places where the ordinary and the extraordinary meet. While it is wrong to assert that certain elections changed everything, they are nonetheless singular and significant events in the historical landscape, with effects that resonate far beyond the first Tuesday in November. Elections are driven by giant personalities and increasingly complex and expensive campaign organizations, but for all their bluster and spin and hanging chads, they are instruments of democracy.

18:13 Once every four years, on the first Tuesday in November, american voters make their choices, mark their ballots and determine who wins and who loses. The heat and light of a presidential campaign leaves an indelible mark on all who decide to run and especially those who win. Even the fiercest political rivals ultimately bond together because of the shared experience of being president. Completely agree with all that. That's just wonderful, wonderful writing by Margaret. Wonderful, wonderful writing by Margaret. You know, once every four years, our nation does take to the polls on the first Tuesday in November, and Americans are rightly proud of this tradition.

19:00 We did it through wars, we did it through depressions, through pandemics, and we will keep doing it as long as the republic can ensure free and fair elections. Let's pray God that that keeps happening. I don't agree with a good deal of Margaret's themes in these pages, but one story I would like to share because I do agree with her wholeheartedly on this topic, and that is the story I used to tell while giving tours at the US Capitol building for my member of Congress who I worked for in the late, had the privilege of working for in the late 1990s.

19:42 Let's go to the book to share this wonderful story of Americana. Story of Americana. Once friends Jefferson and Adams became bitterly divided by the election of 1800,. With the passage of time and the mellowing of old age, however, their enmity began to thaw. In 1812, adams finally reached out to Jefferson, writing a letter to which Jefferson quickly and warmly responded. Adams' letter, he wrote, carries me back to the times when we were laborers in the same cause, struggling for what is most valuable to man his right of self-government.

20:28 Thus began a lively and affectionate correspondence between the two old rivals that continued until the end of their lives. On hearing of the election of Adams's son, john Quincy, to the presidency, jefferson wrote I sincerely congratulate you on the high gratification which the issue of the late election must have afforded you. So deeply are the principles of order and of obedience of law impressed upon the minds of our citizens Generally that I am persuaded there will be an immediate and acquiescence in the will of the majority, as if Mr Adams had been the choice of every man.

21:14 Elections come and go, jefferson seemed to say, but the values of democracy endured. Remarkably, jefferson and Adams died on the same day, july 4th 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Politics had consumed most of their lives and torn apart their friendship, but they ultimately found common cause in the democratic ideas that made them revolutionaries. In the decades that followed, many other giant personalities occupied the office of presidency. It was not until the turn of the new century, however, that the great debate that had consumed the early republic big government or small government, a nation of farms or a nation of factories took center stage once more in presidential politics.

22:10 Ah, just love that story of Jefferson and Adams, bitter enemies from the election of 1800. And if you want to read about that election, interestingly enough, and our US history in particular from that period of time, you will do well, you will do very well by reading Gordon Wood's majestic book Empire of Liberty. Just a fantastic, wonderfully written book. You can get it on Audible so you can cheat a little bit because it's a long one, but you'll feel like you're right there in the middle of the debate as history unfolds.

22:53 Fantastic book Empire of Liberty by Gordon Wood. So in today's Mojo Minute we need to pray for our country as we are struggling without effective leadership. Effective leadership, but with that good overview. We are off and running with our Pivotal Tuesdays series Now. Later this week we will offer regularly scheduled programming on how to build a flourishing life. And then next week we will be back at it again on Tuesday to offer part one of the Pivotal Tuesday series the election of 1912.

23:33 And until then, as always, let's keep fighting the good fight and keep on the straight and narrow road towards a flourishing life. Thank you for joining us. We hope you enjoyed this Theory to Action podcast. Be sure to check out our show page at teammojoacademycom, where we have everything we discussed in this podcast, as well as other great resources. Until next time, keep getting your mojo on.