If any major dictionaries are seeking nominees for word of the year, U.S. politics might provide one. The multiple felony indictments against former President Donald Trump, highlighted by his mug shot in Georgia, are truly unprecedented.
Never in American history has a current or former president faced criminal charges and the possibility of prison if convicted. Neither has a major party candidate ever maintained a massive lead in the polls while under indictment. It is possible that next spring Mr. Trump could cement the 2024 GOP presidential nomination while on trial for allegedly attempting to overturn the 2020 results. Unprecedented, indeed.
In this episode of History As It Happens, historians Jeffrey Engel and Jeremi Suri discuss the origins of this bizarre moment in American life – changes to the Republican Party since the end of the Cold War – rather than focusing solely on the fact that Mr. Trump’s presidential-run-while-indicted is uncharted territory.
“The absence of an existential foreign policy threat after the Cold War catalyzed the attention on domestic concerns … the idea that the United States was heading in the wrong direction at the end of the Cold War is remarkably prevalent,” said Mr. Engel, who said Pat Buchanan’s surprising showing in the 1992 GOP presidential primaries was indicative of some Americans’ concerns with deindustrialization, immigration and cultural liberalism.
“What you see at the end of the Cold War is the fundamental transformation of the global economy. The United States is part of that. The world of Ronald Reagan is still the world of thriving small towns. … That is the imagery he’s trying to create. The world of the 1990s and 2000s is a world of much greater income inequality, where the ‘knowledge economy’ means [young people] have access to skills, knowledge and earning power that their parents might never have been able to consider,” Mr. Suri said.
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He added that students who don’t have access to the doors of the “knowledge economy” are left behind in a bifurcation of economic opportunity, potentially leading to anger and grievance when compounded with other problems.
Mr. Engel is the founding director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University. Mr. Suri is the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin. History As It Happens is available at washingtontimes.com or wherever you find your podcasts.
