Heather Cox Richardson is a political historian who uses facts and history to make observations about contemporary American politics. She has written about the Civil War, Reconstruction, the Gilded Age, and the American West in award-winning books whose subjects stretch from the European settlement of the North American continent to the history of the Republican Party through the Trump administration. She is the author, most recently, of the best-selling Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America.
Join the discussion over at heathercoxrichardson.substack.com, where we talk about history, politics, and the relationship between image and reality in America.
“Pedagogy is the teaching of children, or dependent personalities. Andragogy is the facilitation learning for adults, who are self-directed learners. Heutagogy is the management of learning for self-managed learners.”
I feel that the SCOTUS judges who voted to pass presidential immunity are committing a coup from within and are all "guilty" of sedition and treason for dismantling the separation of power by usurping legislative and executive power to concentrate it in judicial power.
Thank you for discussing the SCOTUS decision. The lack of emphasis about the gravity of it has broken my heart more than anything else. It is catastrophic and so is the indifference to it. I’ve been beside myself about it. Thank YOU, Heather!
Richardson is the very best. at pointing out the worst and darkest that must be seen, while standing for a transformative point of departure in how we react, and that this transformation is thewhole point of the Democratic process .
There's an old hymn that fits this time . " Once To Every Man and Nation Comes The Moment To Decide " Ladies , this doesn't let us off the hook , The word "man" just is there to fit the beat of the music . Look up this hymn and read it , and be inspired ..
i just saw a short in which you mentioned Salmon P Chase. Would love to hear an indepth episode covering him. I found your channel looking for info behind Benjamin Harrison.. I'd love to hear any thoughts you have on him. Esp regarding land grant disputes in New Mexico and the Colfax County War..
Followed Heather for quite some time, enjoyed and learned so much. She makes sense of the complicated things going on in our country and keeps me up to date and informed. She has earned my paying subscription to her newsletter!
Brilliant!! I was already a fan before I listened to this conversation, but now I am a super fan. You are a treasure HCR 🫶🏻 You have given me & millions of others, a voice & POV that cuts through all the crap. For that I am eternally thankful 😌
I loved hearing about what Mike Pence is up to. I’ve been wondering…. Thank you for emphasizing the importance of SCOTUS’ decision that the Orange Man is above the law. huge implications for how he’s setting up to overturn the election. We need a landslide win for Harris.
Thank you so much doing the work you do now, HCR! Really helping me survive this time in US. I remember listening to live arguments from SC about the immunity case, and thinking NO WAY, there's no way they can agree to something so egregious, that would reflect on them so badly in history, the loss of a real democracy. When the decision came down, my stomach dropped, and I took a deep breath.
"The Constitution is not a suicide pact. We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution." Abe Lincoln 🕶 #BidenDelivers "What a man does for himself, dies with him. What a man does for his community lives long after he's gone. It is the people, and not the judges, who are entitled to say what their constitution means, for the constitution is theirs, it belongs to them and not to their servants in office-any other theory is incompatible with the foundation principles of our government. Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of today. A nation that still needs to distinguish between stealing an election, and stealing a new pair of shoes, is not completely civilized yet. This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in." Teddy Roosevelt "We are a nation of many nationalities, many races, many religions-bound together by a single unity, the unity of freedom and equality. Whoever seeks to set one nationality against another, seeks to degrade all nationalities. We must especially beware of that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American Eagle in order to feather their own nests." FDR 💙💛#SlavaUkraini "Americans, indeed, all free men, remember that in the final choice a soldier's pack is not so heavy a burden as a prisoner's chains. Don't join the book burners. Do not think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed. If a political party does not have its foundation in the determination to advance a cause that is right and that is moral, then it is not a political party; it is merely a conspiracy to seize power. Should any political party attempt to abolish social security unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group of course that believes you can do these things. Among them are a few other Texas oil millionaires and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid." Ike Eisenhower ⛽🛢 #FascistGOP "In an effort to eliminate the possibility of any rival growing up, some monopolists would sacrifice democracy itself. It is no coincidence that the growth of modern tyrants has in every case been heralded by the growth of prejudice. American fascism will not be really dangerous until there is a purposeful coalition among the cartelists, the deliberate poisoners of public information, and those who stand for the K.K.K. type of demagoguery. The American Fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact.... They cultivate hate and distrust. They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective, toward which all their deceit is directed, is to capture political power, so that using the power of the State and the power of the market simultaneously they may keep the common man in eternal subjection. The obvious types of American fascists are dealt with on the air and in the press. These demagogues and stooges are fronts for others. Dangerous as these people may be, they are not so significant as thousands of other people who have never been mentioned. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power. If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States. There are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition to include only those who in their search for money and power are ruthless and deceitful." Henry A. Wallace #Project2025NowSofterOnAbortion "I know nothing" 💰⚔✝⚔💰 #ChristianNationalism "The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them. Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception. Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism. By 'nationalism' I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions and tens of millions of people can be confidently labeled 'good' or 'bad'...By 'patriotism' I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. One prod to the nerve of nationalism and the intellectual decencies can vanish, the past can be altered, and the plainest facts can be denied. The point is that as soon as fear, hatred, jealousy and power worship are involved, the sense of reality becomes unhinged. And, as I have pointed out already, the sense of right and wrong becomes unhinged also. There is no crime, absolutely none, that cannot be condoned when "our" side commits it. Even if one does not deny that the crime has happened, even if one knows that it is exactly the same crime as one has condemned in some other case, even if one admits in an intellectual sense that it is unjustified -- still one cannot feel that it is wrong. Loyalty is involved, and so pity ceases to function.” George Orwell, Notes on Nationalism "Politics, so far as mobilizing support is concerned, represents the art of calculated cheating, or more precisely how to cheat without being really caught.” James Schlesinger, Systems Analysis and the Political Process, Rand Corp., June, 1967 #MurdochGutterMedia "Fox News and Rush Limbaugh have raised ignorance to ideology and stupefied an entire political party. No more roguish and rowdy band of predators ever did more to demean and despoil the democracy on whose carcass they feed. The corporate right and the political right declared class warfare on working people a quarter of a century ago and they've won. Take the paradox of Rush Limbaugh, ensconced in a Palm Beach mansion massaging the resentments across the country of white-knuckled wage earners, who are barely making ends meet in no small part because of the corporate and ideological forces for whom Rush has been a hero. The rich today are richer, there are more of them, they have round-the-clock propaganda factories in Rupert Murdoch's empire and rightwing talk radio, and corporate media have their back. If the watchdog doesn't bark, how do you know there's a burglar in the basement? And the press is supposed to be a watchdog. Secrecy is the freedom tyrants dream of. Democracy may not prove in the long run to be as efficient as other forms of government, but it has one saving grace: it allows us to know and say that it isn't. How do we protect the soul of democracy against bad theology in service of an imperial state? Bill Moyers “The point of modern propaganda isn't only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth. But we must not forget the effort undertaken by the ruling elite in Russia to manipulate Western politicians, businessmen as well as journalists. That's why [Vladimir] Putin's "fifth column" is that powerful in the West. The Republicans aren’t the ones denying reality. They admit they cannot win elections fairly. They admit the Jan 6 insurrection reflects their members and their base. They are acting accordingly to seize and hold power. Denying that is the delusion. Garry Kasparov "I once said, 'We will bury you,' and I got into trouble with it. Of course we will not bury you with a shovel. Your own working class will bury you. We do not have to invade the United States, we will destroy you from within. The press is our chief ideological weapon." Nikita Khrushchev
“Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.” Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism "Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices." Voltaire If we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. The defense of democracy must consist in making anti-democratic experiences too costly for those who try them; much more costly than a democratic compromise I personally call the type of government which can be removed without violence 'democracy,' and the other, 'tyranny.'. Optimism is a duty. The future is open. It is not predetermined. No one can predict it, except by chance. We all contribute to determining it by what we do. We are all equally responsible for its success." Karl Popper #LockHimUp 🔒 "A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury. The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant." John Stuart Mill "Just a simple choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one." Bill Hicks “Love casts out fear; but conversely fear casts out love. And not only love. Fear also casts out intelligence, casts out goodness, casts out all thought of beauty and truth." Aldous Huxley "Take sex away from people. Make it forbidden, evil. Limit it to ritualistic breeding. Force it to back up into suppressed sadism. Then hand the people a scapegoat to hate. Let them kill a scapegoat occasionally for cathartic release. The mechanism is ages old. Tyrants used it centuries before the word "psychology" was ever invented. It works, too." Robert A. Heinlein
Listening to what Heather had to say about The Debate, its immediate aftermath and Kamala on July 10th (start from around minute 48) , is how things have transpired. By choosing Tiim Walz as her running mate, she has not only kept that coalition together, but expanded and energized it. We're not going back!
A false sense of security abounds in the Democratic party. Democrats had better register people to vote in a hurry or watch this election go to Trump. The Supreme Court will flip any close election. Think Gore-Bush.
That's to access the archive if I'm not mistaken. It costs nothing to receive her emails in real time. Sign up, even if you can't get to them yet, you'll have them in your inbox for when you may want them.
Helping Hands of Round Pond. Excellent! Please support as you too may have a Round Pond org too. My city does with lots of wedding pictures. However we've lost our Rose Garden. Sound familiar Melania?
I heartily recommend Richardson's book, "How The South Won The Civil War." Not a cheery read but definitely helps explain where we are under Trump, MAGA, Project 2025, etc. Vote Harris/Walz!
Heather said the Republican Presidential Primary debates didn't seem to be more interesting to watch than...doing the dishes. During that pause, I was thinking _cleaning the toilet._
📢📢📢THERE IS A CONVICTED CRIMINAL 👿 as a candidate working for the CRIMINALS of so called supreme court, and other COUNTRIES DICTATORSHIPS to turn the US INTO A MILITARIZED DICTATORSHIP 👿 😈 😈 📢 😈 😈 📢 😈 😈 📢 MILITARIZED MILITARIZED MILITARIZED DICTATORSHIP
When you say, ". . . having looked at what just happened in Poland and England and France . . .", please don't forget us in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The general election was nationwide, throughout the UK--it was the fall of the SNP and rise of Reform UK that created a possibility for Labour to win.
Thank you❤ I am grateful for your work and humbled at 75 years to wake up to the threat to our democracy. Faith in government was shattered by the assassination of JFK. I was too young to vote and never voted until Obama. Then I voted for Hillary. The threat and nightmare of Trump is truly a clarion call to motivate all Americans to defend our priceless, fragile democracy. Harris-Walz are answered prayer.❤🇺🇸💙
