FRDH podcast Archive 3: Trump And The Politics Of Paranoia

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Donald Trump may be the most unusual President of modern times but he built his successful campaign in a way that has a long tradition in American politics: stoking unreasonable fears about foreigners and the future … unreasonable fear is called paranoia by psychiatrists.

This FRDH podcast was reported and recorded in the weeks just before the 2016 presidential primaries got underway. Originally broadcast on BBC Radio 4, it was the first major piece in mainstream media to take the Trump candidacy seriously and to try and put it in historical context.

Playing on the electorates unreasonable fears about their society has long been a tactic for gaining political office.  In this podcast we learn about that long history. From the Salem Witch Trials through the Know-Nothing anti-Irish immigrant party to the founding of the John Birch Society and finally, Trump himself.

Leading historians including Columbia University’s Eric Foner and Harvard’s Richard Parker and Lisa McGirr as well as early Trump supporters from South Carolina are among the interviewees.

This 28 minute long podcast is a very accurate First Rough Draft of History. Donald Trump used some of the oldest tools in the political tool box to win the White House.

The FRDH Podcast is hosted by internationally acclaimed journalist Michael Goldfarb and is about History. The History he has reported on; the History he has written about; and the long History he has lived.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, YouTube and Soundcloud, and you can follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

The FRDH Podcast is hosted by internationally acclaimed journalist Michael Goldfarb and is about History. The History he has reported on; the History he has written about; and the long History he has lived.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, YouTube and Soundcloud, and you can follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

You can also donate to keep the episodes coming.

FRDH Podcast Archive 6: Yellow Springs Ohio 1993

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Yellow Springs Ohio 1993: Race, violence, fear. Part of the Sony-Award winning series, Homeward Bound.

In 1993, the BBC World Service sent me to the Midwest to report on America in transition. I had been a student there 20 years earlier at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

I had left the United States in 1985 and this was my first extended visit back to the country where I was born. I made a giant circuit driving southeast from Chicago to Yellow Springs and then swinging west along the Ohio River to Missouri, Kansas and Iowa before returning to Chicago and flying back to London.

I found a country uncertain of itself and going through changes it didn’t understand. Much of the division I heard about and observed on that trip has hardened and led to the election of Donald Trump.

I also encountered right wing talk radio for the first time. Listen to the voices I recorded.

The FRDH Podcast is hosted by internationally acclaimed journalist Michael Goldfarb and is about History. The History he has reported on; the History he has written about; and the long History he has lived.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, YouTube and Soundcloud, and you can follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

The FRDH Podcast is hosted by internationally acclaimed journalist Michael Goldfarb and is about History. The History he has reported on; the History he has written about; and the long History he has lived.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, YouTube and Soundcloud, and you can follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

You can also donate to keep the episodes coming.

FRDH Podcast Episode 9: Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre

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Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre was the hinge point of the Watergate scandal.  The words coup and Third Reich were thrown around. The events of that weekend in October 1973 marked the beginning of the end of Nixon’s Presidency.  Do they hold a lesson for today?  President Trump has started his term of office exercising power in a similar fashion.  His firing of the acting Attorney General Sally Yates has echoes of the Saturday Night Massacre.  Nixon said, “If the President does it, it’s not illegal.” Trump acts as if he thinks that is the way the world works.  But Nixon found out even his own Republican Party didn’t think that was true.  Will Trump?  This is an essay from my archive and it offers a chance to reflect on how American politics has changed in the more than four decades since the Watergate scandal.

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The FRDH Podcast is hosted by internationally acclaimed journalist Michael Goldfarb and is about History. The History he has reported on; the History he has written about; and the long History he has lived.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, YouTube and Soundcloud, and you can follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

The FRDH Podcast is hosted by internationally acclaimed journalist Michael Goldfarb and is about History. The History he has reported on; the History he has written about; and the long History he has lived.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, YouTube and Soundcloud, and you can follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

You can also donate to keep the episodes coming.