How History Will View the 2020 Election

interact with one another. Amidst all these challenges, Americans held a national election, casting their ballots and record numbers, and a presidential election that has been a bedrock of our constitutional democracy from the beginning. It's taken place every four years amidst wars, depression, and the pandemic, from virtual conventions to expanded vote by mail and early voting so that

people could cast their ballots safely and reliably. Election often had a different look and field than those of the past. In the scope of America's challenges and the widely divergent ways the two candidates and parties approached them raise the stakes even higher. Our future and our very democracy were

on the line. That became even more apparent in the weeks after election day, as Donald Trump and his most ardent enablers tried to overturn the results of a free and fair election that he lost and undermine the public's faith in our entire system, eventually leading to the disgraceful and deadly assault on the Capitol on January six. So

why am I telling you this? Because with every new development in the campaign and its aftermath, it was clear we were living through one of the most consequential moments in our history, one that would be intensely examined and debated for years to come. Against the backdrop of our own lives. We were also living history in real time, never sure what each new day would bring, and we

still are. I've been thinking about this a lot lately, wondering what future generations will make of all of it, and what we as a country and as individuals will or will not do to keep us moving forward. It's clear to me that President Biden and Vice President Harris are doing everything they can to serve everyone and working to bring us all back together. But the damage of the last four plus years of poison politics is very real.

That's why I'm so glad to have a friend with me today who's one of America's most distinguished historians, the person I've learned to turn to when I'm trying to make sense of these kinds of questions. Douglas Brinkley is a professor of history at Rice University, an amazingly prolific author, commentator, and a walking encyclopedia of American history, politics, and culture. I'm glad he's here, and glad we're going to have this conversation. Thanks for being here, Doug. Thank you for

having me, Mr President. Why did you decide to become a historian? Well, I was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and my mother and father were teachers, high school teachers. My dad did social studies and my mother was an English teacher, which meant we didn't have much money. Um, so we had a small house. But what we did have was time and time in our summer, and so we got a trailer, a twenty four ft Coachman trailer, and my mom and dad would take my sister and I all

over America. I got to visit the lower forty eight states by the time I graduated from high school, and in particular, they took us to history sites. So I would go to Independence, Missouri and see Harry Truman's house, where we'd go to Nebraska and and discover the landscape of the novelist Willa Cather, or we would go to California and look at John Steinbeck's house. On and on.

The national parks were built into this a lot, you know, whether from the Everglades to the Grand Canyon, from North Cascades National Park to you know, the the Lake Shores in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We went all over and I just fell in love with the history sites. I would take pictures of myself at the homes of former presidents, at at graves of Paul Revere or or you know, Abraham Lincoln's tomb, and I just kind of

became a history nerd. So by the time I was going to college, Um, I was debating law or history, and eventually I chose to make my profession to be a historian. Well, historian, how do you think history will review this election? Boy, Um is gonna live for a long time. I mean, first and foremost people are going to remember, Um, this was the year of the pandemic,

one of the giant moments in all of US history. Um. You know, we've had tragedies of you know, John F. Kennedy's assassination in nineteen sixty three, or the Oklahoma City bombing, which you led us through UM so admirably, or nine eleven with UM George W. Bush. But those the disaster, if you like, tragedy happened in a localized way. COVID hit everybody, every state, every community, and everybody was asked

to participate. So it's interesting to me that Joe Biden in the end developed the mask as his version of UM. The make America Great red caps of Trump meaning a symbol of twenty will be Biden's mask because early on he decided to lay low in Delaware, only do a limited amount of events and make sure he's social distance and try to educate the public on the public health

pandemic that we were suffering through by by example. And so I think Biden will be remembered as the mass president who did the right thing through the pandemic, where Donald Trump was quite reckless. I think history will also

look at as a record number of voter participation. I find that to be heartening UM, that we really were able to run a free and fair election without UM foreign interference, and we had record voter turnout which means our people in America showed up during a pandemic to vote, and so I find that upbeat. But in the end, the oddity of um Donald Trump, his strange behavior um throughout the pandemic, a holding of rally and Tulsa with no mask, and then his botching of of how to

communicate to the public about the pandemic, really stays. You know it's there, and there's the excitement at the end of the year. I remember Mr President of ninety eight, after Nixon and Humphrey and Wallace and the assassinations of King and and Bobby Kennedy, the astronauts were on the cover of Time magazine in December of nine looking at planet Earth and are gearing up for going to the moon.

When I saw Joe Biden and Kamala Harris first woman Vice president uh UM on the cover of Time, I thought, Wow, even through this weird, ugly year, we're breaking a first in America with Kamala Harris becoming vice president. So I'm trying to feel upbeat about our democracy, even though I do recognize we're we've got a lot of corrosive issues we're having to grapple with. Well, I guess Douglas Brinkley

after this. I want to welcome Doug Brinkley back and say that when we originally talked, it was before the attack on the Capitol along January six, and I think that it's important to put that into some sort of historical context as well as thinking about what it means today and going forward. Um So, first of all, let's do just the TATA history. Doug, uh, can you tell us about some other examples of insurrection in the country's

history and violence against institutions. What happened? What can we learn from it? Well, it is unprecedented what happened on January six. I mean, it's going to live in infamy. It's going to be one of those moments where the video footage is played over and over again, like the Kennedy assassination or the planes going into the World Trade Center.

But when you look back in American history, and we've had plenty of insurrections, I think the energy of the Trump insurrection you could see parallels with the No Nothing Party of the eighteen forties. In eighteen fifties, the know Nothings were vehemently anti Catholic. They had conspiracy theories, about how the pope was going to run America. They wanted

America to stay a white Christian Protestant country. So German and Irish immigrants coming to America, we're getting killed, stoned, hazed, um. And it really grew in power the know nothing things. I mean, former President Millard Fillmore was drafted as ex president to lead the No Nothing Party. People like John Wilkes Booth considered himself a know nothing. The leading congress

people in Massachusetts, in Maryland became know nothings um. And of course that led that tension of that anti immigration view kind of fizzled out once we got into the Buchanan presidency and we are on the doorstep of the Great Civil War. And nothing talks insurrection more than the

Civil War. I mean the fact that Abraham Lincoln had to take a train ride from Springfield to Washington, d C. With the assassin's lurking, going into an executive mansion that wasn't protected, and the thought that when the Fort Sumner happened in the Southern States broke, Lincoln was just surrounded by basically insurgents. Uh. And incidentally, the no nothings I see having very similar attributes and people that joined the Tea Party movement for example, or Q and od uh.

There's a feeling in America about conspiracy, ease that elites were Masons, and there be used to be a great anti Mason movement that somehow these elites were had a secret cabal in society. So the other Americans formed their own sort of secret cults to try to beat up on the elites. And so I see a lot of

currents I recognize. However, with social media added into the mix, which has never before happened in American history, I really worry about the continuation of other January six, if not an attack on our capitol, but you know the need to secure federal and state buildings. There is a real anti government movement alive and will in our country right now. And do you think there's going to be a long

term impact. You know, I think that where this whole year will be getting more puzzle pieces for January six, it's going to be its own realm of study. There will be universities that have January six scholars um and it's going to It's why Nancy Pelosi correctly in my mind, called for a nine eleven commission like report we just need to gather more and more data, um, not just for the sake of helping the FBI or law enforcement find perpetrators of the capital raid, but just to start

let us understand what happened. And so that's gonna work itself through for a couple of years here, this neo civil war we're in right now. You and know better than I, but I think it's going to go on for a while. I don't see uh Joe Biden, who is doing an incredibly great job as president and calming our country and showing leadership and statesman like qualities, But it's going to take us a while. Uh. The great poet Robert Frost used to say, the only way out

is through. Only we're going to get out of this this mess we're in politically is to kind of go through all the steps that it could take a few years. We're gonna have a hard time that. Already. They're literally a hundred bills introduced in the state legislatures by Republicans to make it harder to vote. One in Georgia says you can't have vote my mail anymore unless you've got a good reason not to vote on election day and you have to have an affidavit swearing to that, putting

yourself at legal risk. And it's chilling stuff like this everywhere. There are amendments and offered in my state legislature of my native state Arkansas, basically trying to control what what the courts can do and what cases they can hear and things like that. I mean, this is all over the country. So they're just as active as they were before. They're energized, and they believe that they nearly won. And

so we're just gonna have to keep fighting this. And for the President his administration, the most important thing to do is produce just produced results people can feel. Where were you on January six, Mr President, you were in Chappa Claw and you started watching all of this unfold? What what did you think? What was your your fears? And did it ring your Oklahoma City bell or it did? But I have to say, if you look at what we saw on six, I knew that Trump said I

you'll have a peaceful march. I heard him say that, but he was encouraging them to do what they did. You know, he used to do the same thing in with his rallies. You know when he said, uh, he'd say, beat the hell out of the protesters at his rallies? Are you know, maybe his second amendment? People could take care of Hillary? And no one took him seriously. I mean not no one. I took him seriously, but but

I think a lot of people didn't. What I saw that day was profoundly troubling, but I did not realize myself until later in the day, and then as the days unfolded how much actual danger members of Congress were under at the time. That they could have been viewed as just a crazy mob having fun, you know, trashing the capital, which was terrible, but you can repair things.

But it's obvious that a lot of them were there under an under a planning program and intended to do what they did and intended to They thought they could intimidate a number of these Congress people and the Vice president into changing their opinions. And because Donald Trump told him that's all it would take, they actually believed him.

We'll be right back. The historian Brinkley, who do you believe is the most consequential person in American history and if you will, in world history that most people don't know much about. Boy, there I have a few that quickly jumped to mind one I know you would agree

with in recent times as Dolora Suerta. UM. You know, she's people are looking for a Latino leader, and there she is in our mist and when you really read her backstory of bravery working with Caesar Chavez in the fields and as an organizer, she's somebody that really deserves

a definitive biography and a lot more attention to. UM. I think Dwight Eisenhower's performance in World War Two, while we all honor it was really quite remarkable the way he dealt with all the egos of British generals and people like Pattent and with the way that Ike's personality was able to kind of keep a steady hand, uh throughout World War Two. We probably owe eyes and how were more gratitude for his leadership during the war than

we then we give him um. And then there's somebody I've why I've kind of might made a hobby out of Mr President named Charles Thompson, who was the Secretary of the Continental Congress when our nation was founded, and he kept all the minutes at Independence Hall, you know, the records, and he'd also have to reimburse Jefferson and Adams for lodging and food and all of this. But he, um, he kind of was our did an amazing job to

fund Washington's army. So when you read George Washington at Valley Forge and the men of the Continental Army are freezing and have dysentery and uh, they're really their toes are falling off, and it's Washington writing Thompson, I need munitions, I need blankets, I need medicine. And his ability to find things that Washington needed during the war. And then Thompson's the one who chose the eagle as their national

symbol when Ben Franklin wanted the wild Turkey. Yeah, and he then designed Thompson the Great Seal of the United States. And he was against slavery. He was an abolitionist and also wanted quality for women, and I was a lawyer defending Native American rights. He ran the Sons of Liberty like Sam Adams ran it in Boston, Charles Thompson ran it in Philadelphia and was the top beer maker brewer, and that period of America. Well, Sam Adams now has

a bottle of beer named after him. Nobody's named the bottle after Charles Thompson, who was actually a more successful brewer than uh Sam Adams. So one day I hope somebody does a book on Charles Thompson. I think you've probably just inspired two or three hundred people to start looking at it. Give us a travel recommendation. You talked about traveling as a child, all these places that my dear love American history. What or two or three places you to want your children to see now to learn

about the pass in the future. That's my favorite question you can ask me. Because I'm a I'm a real road person. I love to go explore America. Underrated UM is back to that upper Midwest. If you go to Minneapolis St. Paul and go to um Lake Minniaca right there near the cities, but then go to the St. Croy River along the Wisconsin border and then north where voyagers Um National Park is and nobody really goes in

northern Minnesota. But then in Michigan if you go to Lake Travis and I'll royal parts, but there's a national lake Shore I recommend to everybody called Leaping Bear National Lakeshore. These giant sand dunes that go into the lake. UH in northern Michigan, and so vacationing up there in the summers in Minnesota, Michigan is um particularly when the weather gets warmer in the summers. That's cool up there and you don't have the crowds of Cape Cod or or

around Seattle or somewhere that that leaps to mind. And then just Utah to go see the canyon lands, arches in Zion and Bryce Canyon, what you did for Grand Escalante and saving that part of the Colorado Plateau which you can go get lost in the Red Rock wilderness and you can find solitude and you can hike, and they're all these little towns there. I'm proud that Utah has become a National park state that you can really

go and travel. And FDR envisioned it is that FDR planned Utah to be a National park state as a way to raise income for the state. And he did the same for Vermont for ski lodging, and he thought recreation dollars coming into those states would help defer some of the mining or types of extraction industries that could be harmful for the land. So there's nothing like Utah parks um if you get a chance to go to them and then in Arizona to the Grand Canyon. Thank

you very much. Um, I can't thank you enough. I take it. I can close by saying that, on balance, you still believe America has better days ahead. Absolutely, and that's what matters most. So thank you Doug Brinkley, and I hope our listeners enjoyed this. If you have any questions, you can contact Doug or figure up some of his books. You'll like them all. Thanks, Thank you, Mr President. That was fun. Why am I telling you? This is a production of My Heart Radio, the Clinton Foundation and at

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