In the 1850s stories about desperate runaway slaves trying to evade capture in the northern states aroused sympathy for the fugitives and stoked anti-slavery sentiment. A related impact seems to be taking shape in our times. Videos showing the tragic experiences of undocumented immigrants grabbed by ICE agents are provoking negative responses from the American public. Polls register growing criticism of the Trump Administration’s efforts to arrest, detain, and deport thousands of people that have lived and worked in the United States for many years.

The situations involving fugitive slaves and fugitive immigrants are different, yet a comparison is intriguing. Reactions to tragic cases involving fugitive slaves affected national politics in the 1850s. Outrage over the aggressive treatment of immigrants might shake up current politics.

When a refugee from Afghanistan allegedly shot two National Guardsmen in Washington D.C., discussions about the tragedy invoked memories of America’s chaotic exit from Afghanistan in 2021. Partisans invoked different lessons when describing that crisis. Republicans blamed President Joe Biden. They said he failed to plan an orderly withdrawal. Democrats blamed President Donald Trump. They pointed out that he arranged a pact with the Taliban that established a deadline for removing all U.S. troops from Afghanistan.

These sharply critical judgments about the American-led evacuation from Kabul, Afghanistan are short-sighted and essentially wrong.

No military withdrawal from Afghanistan was easily workable after twenty years of vast U.S. involvement in that country. In view of many challenges, the removal of U.S. troops and U.S. citizens along with 124,000 Afghans in August 2021 was a relative success.

American Society is now deeply split along ideological and cultural lines. When did this polarization intensify?

One among several key turning points occurred in 1987 when President Ronald Reagan nominated Robert Bork for a seat on the Supreme Court. Bork’s controversial statements about American society and the law provoked intense opposition. Senators rejected the nomination.

Many of the issues raised in that Senate hearing are familiar to us today. Robert Bork was an influential promoter of culture wars over identities,, values, and ideologies, and he championed the Unitary Executive Theory that justifies enormous presidential power.

Can Netflix’s recent film, The House of Dynamite and other movies like it influence public opinion regarding nuclear warfare? The historical record from the 1950s until recent times shows that sometimes this cinema does have an impact. The films also reflect public concerns at the time they were produced.

This discussion begins with an examination of two movies that influenced Ronald Reagan’s thinking about nuclear warfare, The Day the Earth Stood Still and The Day After. The podcast then explores the influence of other films produced during the Cold War, including On the Beach, The Mouse That Roared, Fail Safe, and Dr. Strangelove. Finally, explains why films about nuclear onflict have made a comeback in recent years.

Public opinion polls show President Trump’s approval rating has slipped substantially since his second inauguration. Do those results indicate vulnerability? If the trend line continues, could President Trump begin to lose his grip on the reins of political power?

Despite this evidence, discussions in the national media contain little speculation about declining influence. Instead, the national media report on the expansion of Trump’s influence in American life.

Will this state of affairs continue? Perhaps. Or perhaps not.

There are some intriguing similarities between Trump’s situation and that of Joseph McCarthy. Senator McCarthy seemed invincible in the early 1950s, but later, in a matter of months, he quickly fell from grace. McCarthy’s record demonstrates that political power can erode quickly when political conditions change and leaders overreach.

When Kimmel returned to ABC Television after a temporary suspension, he delivered a powerful defense of the American people’s right to criticize political leaders and their policies.

This podcast traces the evolution of ideas about free speech from a court case in 1735 to the present. It notes that some of the most important efforts to deal with the rights and limitations of speech and press occurred during wartime.

The podcast also explores the relevance of this history to present-day controversies about the Trump Administration’s pressures against Jimmy Kimmel and the mass media.

Medical science had pretty much eradicated measles by the year 2000, but an outbreak occurred recently in Texas and other states largely because many children had not been vaccinated. Public resistance to vaccination has grown in recent years, and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, has cut vaccine research drastically.

Could resistance to medical science run amok, endangering public health?

This podcast cites the example of George Washington’s decision to immunize his troops against smallpox early in the American Revolution. The podcast also identifies how a worldwide vaccination campaign to eliminate smallpox eventually succeeded in the late twentieth century. Both histories are relevant to present-day clashes between the defenders and critics of vaccines.