In this podcast originally broadcast on the BBC in 2016, FRDH podcast host Michael Goldfarb looks back at the first presidents whose terms in office he lived through; Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy. He reflects on the president’s role beyond politics in shaping American’s sense of themselves. The stories he tells give a hint at the long downhill run American society has taken from the days of Eisenhower and Kennedy to a presidential choice between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

The Biden/Harris ticket has been announced, now how do the pair campaign in a pandemic? In this FRDH podcast, Michael Goldfarb speaks to Democratic party organizer Meg Ansara, veteran of the 2012 Obama Campaign and the 2016 Clinton campaign about how to overcome the challenges of getting out the vote when you can’t just knock on somebody’s front door and ask to come in. Give us 17:33 of your time to explain how to do it

With a little under 100 Days til the US Election no one is sure what the reality of the race is. It is a measure of just how norm-shattering, traumatic, and, frankly, bizarre Donald Trump’s years in office have been that virtually no one feels confident that the previous history of US Presidential election is a guide to what will happen on November 3rd. In this FRDH Podcast Michael Goldfarb tries to see through the twitter induced paranoia engulfing American society to the historical precedents that should be providing the key to understanding the situation.

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“Look what’s happening out in the streets,” sang the Jefferson Airplane half a century ago. Now, as then, the Airplane could sing, “Look what’s happening out in the streets” about demonstrations sparked by the murder of George Floyd. In this FRDH podcast Michael Goldfarb looks at the differences and the similarities between two uprisings of people against the police and a government that has lost moral legitimacy in their eyes.

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There are so many numbers being thrown around during the pandemic but only one is truly frighening: 26 million Americans have applied for unemployment benefits. What does it mean when so many lose their jobs in just over a month? It’s never happened before. In this FRDH podcast, nost MIchael Goldfarb looks at the frightening precedents of earlier eras of mass unemployment. Give him 11:18 to explain it all to you.

Does the crushing of Jeremy Corbyn in the UK election hold a lesson for the US in 2020’s election? Must the Dems nominate someone from the center? In this FRDH podcast Michael Goldfarb asks, just what is the center? Is it a fixed point? Must the center always hold

In this BBC programme, originally broadcast in the Archive on 4 slot, FRDH host Michael Goldfarb uses archive sound and historical readings to trace the history of American presidential impeachment. Using interviews with participants in the last two presidential imepachments and historians he explores what it’s like to sit in judgment on a freely elected president and just what are High Crimes and Misdemeanours.
Those who don’t know history are condemned to repeat it – listen to this important history and, please, share widely.

A tweet by Donald Trump announcing the withdrawal of American troops assisting the Kurds in northeastern Syria opened the door for a Turkish invasion of the area raising the spectre that ISIS would be reborn in the chaos. In this FRDH podcast Michael Goldfarb speaks with someone from Mosul in Iraq who lived the full horror of ISIS the first time around, the man known on twitter as @mosuleye.