The Forgotten and The Angry: A Search for the Trump Voter

Every day, as a new Trump embarrassment emerges from the White House, people ask, how did this happen?

Millions of words have now been written about the current state of our politics, our country and of our civic discourse. About the anger that abounds. Every publication, every cable channels, every journalist who covers politics, and many that don’t, have opined on how we got here.

There are as many theories as there are journalists, pundits, professors, and consultants. How did eight million voters who voted for Obama twice become Trump vote
rs? How did the political class miss what was going on among the group that Hillary Clinton called a “basket of deplorables,” while Obama talked of how
“they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them.”

Ben Bradlee Jr. went looking for answers and looking for America in Luzerne County Pennsylvania. What he found was both sobering and frightening and proof positive of two Americas. He reports it all in The Forgotten: How the People of One Pennsylvania County Elected Donald Trump and Changed America.

My conversation with Ben Bradlee, Jr.:

LBJ, Selma and the Great Society

Our mission statement as a country tells us we are a government of laws, and not of men. Yet without great men, including Adams, who said this, we would not have the laws that have provided the framework for our greatness.

Today, the laws that shape our contemporary society, civil rights, the environment, the social safety net, head start, and college loans, were in large measure the result of the Great Society and Lyndon Johnson.

Hundreds of thousands of words have been written about Johnson. Recently the movie Selma reignited the debate about Johnson’s role in Civil Rights legislation.

But Johnson, like all Presidents, was a flesh and blood human being. While we may understand and/or debate the history of his Presidency, Joseph Califano Jr. in his book The Triumph and Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson: The White House Years, gives us a look inside the man himself.

My conversation with Joseph Califano:

You Are Not Special

This is the season in which high school seniors start receiving college admissions, and begin the run up to High School graduation. Given that gallons and gallons of self esteem have been poured into these kids, every one of them thinks that they are special. David McCullough, Jr has a bit of a different idea. Those ideas were a part of a High School commencement speech that he gave back in 2012. The YouTube of that speech has been viewed over two and a half million times.

David McCullough, Jr. has now turned that speech into You Are Not Special: ... And Other Encouragements

My conversation with David McCullough, Jr.