Trump’s First Hundred Days in office have been like no other presidents. There is no deep channel you can follow in trying to write the First Rough Draft of History for this man’s presidency you are constantly going this way and that on jagged currents. This FRDH podcast rambles looking at Trump as an avatar of a new society which emulates what it watches on TV unable to distinguish between reality and reality TV programs. “It’s a Kardashian world and he’s the Kardashian candidate.”
It also analyzes the precedents for Trump and the resistance to him. Ronald Reagan was the first president to gain the presidency following a television career. It looks at what resistance to Reagan was able to achieve.
It also criticizes the current practice of journalism via social networking sites, particularly Twitter. Do you think Woodward and Bernstein would have got to the bottom of Watergate if they had been tweeting every little twist and turn of the story. Give FRDH podcast 17 minutes and forty-five seconds and I will give you something to think about for the next hundred days.

President Trump’s foreign and security policy: What is it? Does the military know? As American war ships steam towards the Korean peninsula and American diplomats argue with Russian leaders about Syria this FRDH podcast is a conversation with historian Robert Batement, Lt. Col (ret) of the US Army. Bateman, a veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq is currently a fellow at the New America think tank and a contributing columnist for Esquire magazine. He gives a nuanced analysis that non-specialists can understand explaining Trump’s doctrine … or lack of it. He also comes up with some surprising historical analogs for the chaos president.

Brexit, Churchill and The United States of Europe

Brexit: An apostate thought: the EU will be better off without UK. Churchill saw it clearly in a speech given on the 19th of September 1946 at the University of Zurich. The war had been over for just over a year. Continental Europe had been partitioned, Much of it was in ruins. Millions were displaced and homeless.
There was a way out of the catastrophic conditions around the continent, Churchill told his audience, “It is to re-create the European Family, or as much of it as we can, and provide it with a structure under which it can dwell in peace, in safety and in freedom. We must build a kind of United States of Europe.”
He added, “The first step in the re-creation of the European family must be a partnership between France and Germany.”
If The United States of Europe is inevitable the questions are will it be created by war or peace? And can Britain be part of it?

Brexit: An apostate thought: the EU will be better off without UK. Churchill saw it clearly in a speech given on the 19th of September 1946 at the University of Zurich. The war had been over for just over a year. Continental Europe had been partitioned, Much of it was in ruins. Millions were displaced and homeless.
There was a way out of the catastrophic conditions around the continent, Churchill told his audience, “It is to re-create the European Family, or as much of it as we can, and provide it with a structure under which it can dwell in peace, in safety and in freedom. We must build a kind of United States of Europe.”
He added, “The first step in the re-creation of the European family must be a partnership between France and Germany.”
The United States of Europe is inevitable the questions are will it be created by war or peace? And can Britain be part of it?

Facts are the building blocks of journalism leading, hopefully, to the truth, and the FRDH, First Rough Draft of History. In a world overwhelmed by data and statistics facts are easy to come by, but can numbers alone tell a story?
In 2016, the bulk of institutional journalism missed the rise of Donald Trump because the numbers said his victory wasn’t possible … then it was.
In this FRDH podcast, Michael Goldfarb says journalism’s increasing reliance on data is behind this failure. Lies, damned lies and statistics have led reporters down a blind alley. He argues for a different approach to reporting the world, one that places a deeper reliance on the rational imagination. He borrows a word from the German enlightenment for this technique, “einfühlung.”
It’s a word coined by philosopher, historian, and clergyman Johann Gottfried von Herder in the 18th century. Google translate says Einfühlung means empathy which is accurate up to a point but doesn’t quite get at Herder’s intention. Einfühling means “in feeling,” feeling your way into a story.
For an example he takes listeners on a journey through his past to Northern Ireland and the years he spent getting to know Protestant paramilitaries. Then returns to the present to Ohio in 2016 at the height of the Presidential campaign.
In writing FRDH, the first rough draft of history, who you gonna trust: a data set or an eyewitness story?

Resistance is a beautiful word. It is a Romantic word. It is the word of the moment. But what does resistance really mean? Are you a resister if you simply say you are? Anyone can call themselves a resister and put a hashtag in front of it. Does that make them part of the “#resistance?”
Real resistance has an objective and it comes at a price.

This FRDH podcast tells several stories of resistance from recent history to see if they have something to teach those who want to resist President Trump.

French resistance: Almost from the moment the German Army overran France in June 1940 there was resistance: acts of non-cooperation with German orders or scrawling anti-Nazi graffiti on walls. It was spontaneous and uncoordinated and it had little effect. The new administration of the country took shape: a zone of occupation run by the Germans in the north headquarted in Paris. A French run government based in Vichy oversaw the south. Very quickly this new normal became established fact.
From the beginning, the resistance – think of it as being written without a capital “r” at that point – was as disparate as French society. All manner of people and groups “resisted’ without any central coordination. The resisters came from the right and the left, men and women. They were catholics, protestants and jews.

Vietnam War resistance: Non-cooperation with the draft was called resistance. An organization named “Resistance” was started by David Harris. Harris served time in a Federal Prison for his anti-draft activities.

Artistic resistance from the 1930’s in America.

Resistance is a beautiful word … but it is just a word. It is a name for something, it is not the thing itself. It is not action. If it helps people get over the shock of change to add hashtagresistance to their messages … fine but more important than the word is this question: What is a meaningful way to act in a political order you find wicked or shameful? Should you act as an individual or be part of an organization? Is speaking out resistance? or just a first step towards it?

Give FRDH 15 minutes and I will give you the past as prologue to the present.