Joe Biden

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• 3/7/2021
  

  The Return of Human Rights on the American Agenda?

  by Richard Moe

  One of Jimmy Carter's legacies, albeit erratically observed, has been the assertion of human rights as a foreign policy priority. After four years of ignoring the issue, will the US under Joe Biden reclaim leadership in high-stakes relationships with Russia and Saudi Arabia? 

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• SOURCE: Talking Points Memo
  2/1/2021
  

  Why Biden’s Forceful Endorsement Of Labor Is The Strongest From A POTUS In Decades

  Labor historians Karen Sawislak and Erik Loomis discuss how Joe Biden's endorsement of freedom of workers to form a union (without mentioning Amazon in particular) goes against decades-long trends in the political power and cultural esteem of labor unions. 

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• 2/21/2021
  

  Advice to POTUS 46 from POTUS 1

  by David O. Stewart

  The author of a recent political biography of George Washington wonders how the first president would guide the most recent one. 

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• SOURCE: Politico
  2/17/2021
  

  Reparations Bill Tests Biden and Harris on Racial Justice

  The President and Vice President have endorsed the establishment of a commission to study the issue of reparations for slavery and post-emancipation racism against African Americans. It is yet to be seen whether the White House can please proponents and opponents if the commission moves toward concrete findings and recommendations. 

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• 2/14/2021
  

  Opportunities for a Catholic President, Then and Now

  by Patrick Lacroix

  Polling of religious voters might encourage Democrats to give up on reaching them. John F. Kennedy's experience shows that Joe Biden, as the second Catholic President, could succeed in narrowing the gap. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  2/10/2021
  

  The New Deal’s Capitalist Lessons for Joe Biden

  by Louis Hyman

  An economic historian argues that the greatest impact of the New Deal came from programs that guided the investment of private capital to social ends, rather than direct expenditure on public works. 

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• 2/7/2021
  

  To Save Democracy, We Need Historical Memory to be "Hot"

  by Shannon Bontrager

  Historical memory can run hot or cold; hot memory, when we make ourselves vulnerable to the pain of the past, is a force that will ensure America doesn't just move on from the needless death of the COVID pandemic or the violence of the Capitol insurrection without committing to justice and accountability.

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• SOURCE: TomDispatch
  1/31/2021
  

  Been There, Done That (Not!)

  by Tom Engelhardt

  "At 76 — almost as old, that is, as our new president — I fear that Donald Trump was just our (particularly bizarre) introduction to imperial disaster. We now live on a distinctly misused planet in a country that looks like it could be going to the dogs."

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  1/29/2021
  

  The Secret to Success for Biden’s First 100 Days

  by Amber Roessner

  Since Franklin Roosevelt, new presidents have been measured by the standard of the "First 100 Days." As a result, they've learned to aggressively manage the media and in turn received blowback from the press corps. The presidential "honeymoon" period is a thing of the past. 

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• 1/31/2021
  

  How Biden used the VP Springboard to Vault into the Oval Office

  by Joel K. Goldstein

  Joe Biden's leap from VP to POTUS is a rarity. Vice presidents are often contenders, but seldom successful. Circumstance helped Biden break the mold, but so did learning on the job as second-in-command to become a more credible candidate for the top job. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  1/23/2021
  

  Biden Seeks to Define His Presidency by an Early Emphasis on Equity

  Nicole Hemmer argues that Joe Biden appears more willing to pledge action on racial equity than Barack Obama was; it remains to be seen if Biden can avoid a backlash from conservatives. 

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• 1/25/2021
  

  Biden's Inaugural and the Return of History

  by Paul J. Welch Behringer

  Joseph Biden's inaugural address signals a willingness to return to learning from history that may encourage the empathy and humilty elected officials need to solve the nation's problems. 

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• 1/24/2021
  

  "Hands Off Until He Was Safe Over": David Reynolds Urges Biden to Look to Lincoln

  by James Thornton Harris

  Historian David S. Reynolds recently published Abe: Abraham Lincoln and his Times, a cultural biography that shows how the 16th president was shaped by the many social currents swirling in the young United States.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  1/21/2021
  

  Charlottesville Inspired Biden to Run. Now It Has a Message for Him

  People who lived through the 2017 white supremacist invasion of Charlottesville warn that there can't be any unity without accountability. 

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• SOURCE: Associated Press
  1/21/2021
  

  Biden Revokes Trump Report Promoting "Patriotic Education"

  "In documents announcing Biden’s executive order, administration officials said the panel sought to erase America’s history of racial injustice'."

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  1/21/2021
  

  Trump’s Parting Gift to Joe Biden

  by Ronald Brownstein

  Joe Biden's inaugural address was the first since Lincoln's in 1861 that used the term "disunion," emphasizing the severity of America's political division and Biden's potential to create a political realignment around commitment to democracy and democratic culture. 

• 
• SOURCE: NPR
  1/17/2021
  

  In His Inaugural Address, Biden Seeks To Move Past 'American Carnage'

  Historians of the presidency and political rhetoric discuss how Biden's address on Wednesday may adapt the traditions of the inaugural address to an unprecedented context.

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• 1/19/2021
  

  Biden Isn't the First President to Have to Change Tracks en Route to Inauguration

  by Jeff Rogg

  The threat of violence forced Joe Biden to cancel plans to travel from Wilmington to Washington by Amtrak, as he famously did during his Senate years. The decision recalls Lincoln's efforts to avoid the (possibly apocryphal) Baltimore Plot. 

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• 1/17/2020
  

  The Politics of an Inauguration Unlike Any Other

  by Michael A. Genovese

  Joe Biden's inauguration will be unlike any other, but he will need to draw on inaugural traditions of declaring purpose and invoking solidarity if he is to begin to repair national division.

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• 1/17/2020
  

  Restoring Civil Society by Executive Order?: An Inaugural Reverie

  by John L. Godwin

  Joe Biden should defend the First Amendment right to peaceable assembly by a temporary emergency order criminalizing the carrying of firearms at public protest events and make clear that the threat of force is not part of the democratic process.