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Ronald Reagan

Court evangelical James Robison: Trump acted “like a little elementary schoolchild”

John Fea   |  November 19, 2022

The Washington Post is covering a speech by the seventy-nine-year-old James Robison at the November 16 meeting of the National Association of Christian Lawmakers. Read the Post piece here. According to its website, the National Association of Christian Lawmakers (NACL)...

The future of Trumpism

John Fea   |  June 2, 2022

William Kristol believes Trumpism will be around for a long time. Here is a taste of his piece today at The Bulwark: We are now six years into the Trump era and one clearly sees—in the donor and media ecosystems,...

The bridge from Reaganism to Trumpism

John Fea   |  January 25, 2022

Here is a taste of Jonathan Chait’s New York Magazine piece, “New Gingrich Invented Donald Trump’s Lock-Them-Up Politics”: A popular belief, especially among political centrists, holds that Trump is the antithesis of the old Republican ethos. On one side of...

Is Biden’s presidency doomed? Some historical perspective.

John Fea   |  January 17, 2022

Princeton’s Julian Zelizer offers some historical context at CNN: Those who are worried should find some solace in the fact that contemporary presidents have been able to come back from difficult moments like these. Challenging first terms don’t inevitably put...

Should Joe Biden run again?

John Fea   |  December 16, 2021

Over at The New York Times, Bret Stephens thinks Biden will be too old (86 at the end of his second term) to serve a second term. I really don’t have a strong opinion about this, but I do hope...

Episode 26: “Evangelicals Remember Ronald Reagan”

John Fea   |  November 3, 2021

Former president Ronald Reagan died on June 5, 2004. Evangelicals were eager to reflect on the role he played in the rise of the Christian Right. Episode 26: “Evangelicals Remember Ronald Reagan” dropped last night. Subscribers to Current at the Longshore level...

Paul Ryan: “If the conservative cause depends on the populist appeal of one personality…then we’re not going anywhere.”

John Fea   |  May 27, 2021

Tonight the former Speaker of the House will give a speech at the Reagan Library in California. John McCormick of The Wall Street Journal reports: “Once again, we conservatives find ourselves at a crossroads,” Mr. Ryan will say, according to...

Ronald Reagan in 1975: “Why don’t we try reverse psychology and make it harder to vote?”

John Fea   |  May 7, 2021

I am reading Rick Perlstein’s Reaganland and was struck by this passage (p.93-94): Look what happened after President Carter, on March 22, sent a letter to Congress recommending a package of electoral reforms. The president was concerned that America ranked...

On fighting “a guerilla battle at the grassroots of a generation of lower-middle-class people who feel betrayed and exploited”

John Fea   |  April 27, 2021

Here is Rick Perlstein in Reaganland on the rise of the New Right in the 1970s: That notion–conservatism as an ideology for working people–was another New Right theme. [Richard] Viguerie’s father had been a construction worker; his mother toiled in...

God $ Green

John Fea   |  March 15, 2021

If you want to know how American evangelicals have come to reject climate change watch “God $ Green: An Unholy Alliance,” a video from the University of Virginia’s Religion, Race & Democracy Lab. It includes commentary from American historian Darren...

Brooks: “This moment is like 1981, the dawn of the Reagan Revolution, except in reverse”

John Fea   |  March 11, 2021

New York Times columnist David Brooks on Biden’s COVID-19 relief package: The Covid-19 relief law that was just enacted is one of the most important pieces of legislation of our lifetimes. As Eric Levitz writes in New York magazine, the poorest fifth...

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Episode 51: “The Politics of Tinky Winky”

January 27, 2023 By John Fea

He was Florida’s professor of the year in 2006. Today his courses would be illegal.

January 27, 2023 By John Fea

Zakaria: The nation’s policy on classified documents and “secrecy” is “out-of-control”

January 27, 2023 By John Fea

Teaching John Henry Newman’s “What is a University”

January 27, 2023 By John Fea

What is popular this week at Current?

January 27, 2023 By John Fea

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