Since 2006, this podcast has been using history to elevate today's political debates.  "The perfect antidote to bloviating talking heads, My History is thoughtful, nuanced, and highly engaging." -Columbia Journalism Review

From the man who answered T.R.'s phone and maybe saved his life, to the secret "Sphinx" around Woodrow Wilson, to Coolidge's surprise enforcer. We look at all sorts of Presidential assistants and aides, both official ones and non-official ones.
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My History Can Beat Up Your Politics

PRESIDENTIAL ASSISTANTS AND AIDES  "Separated By a Swinging Door"

This episode is all about voting in the federal capital we now call the District of Columbia. We talk about a movement to get voting rights that succeeded for a group of (then) D.C. residents 180 years ago, And about the petitions, committees, tea parties, bus trips and statements by Presidents over the years, and the reactions of Congress to them. Why Lincoln and Jefferson Davis found common ground on one issue about D.C. and neither got their wish. And about the rioting soldiers that may have spurred the whole idea of a federal city on a hill in the first place. Plus, about that guy who lived in a tree.
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D.C. REPRESENTATION: A Love Story

Now on the Patreon: Franklin Roosevelt Takes on Jimmy Walker  In the sweltering summer of 1932, Franklin Delano Roosevelt found himself ensnared in a political web spun by the most notorious machine in New York politics—Tammany Hall. As governor of New York, Roosevelt was well aware of the rampant corruption within the city’s government, but his position as the Democratic nominee for president made any decisive action perilous. Removing New York City’s charismatic, scandal-plagued mayor, Jimmy Walker, would mean war with the political bosses whose support he needed. Yet ignoring Walker’s misdeeds would undermine Roosevelt’s image as a reformer and threaten his appeal to progressives across the nation.
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Now on the Patreon: Franklin Roosevelt Takes on Jimmy Walker

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Bruce Carlson

My History Can Beat Up Your Politics by Bruce Carlson

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