On March 4, 1933, at his first inauguration, Franklin D. Roosevelt stood before the American people and addressed a nation in crisis. He understood that his task was not only economic recovery but the restoration of trust and unity. With words that reached beyond the immediate moment, he offered a powerful call against the biggest enemy facing the country: “The...

We know the darkness—we’re living it—but what about the light? America’s moral conscience reflects our evolving values, shaped by both successes and failures. We’ve seen progress in Civil Rights, Women’s Rights, LGPTQ+ rights, but we’ve also faced dark chapters—slavery, the mistreatment of Native Americans, Japanese internment, McCarthyism, and Watergate. Each of these pivotal moments, both the triumphs and the trials,...

On Christmas Eve, 1974, John Dean, former counsel to President Richard Nixon, was sitting in Fort Holabird prison in Baltimore, Maryland, talking to a Mafia guy. “Let me ask you something, if you don’t mind. You look a little bit wet behind the ears to be the President’s lawyer. How’d you get there so young? Your old man put in...

Imagine if Watergate had been more than just a scandal. Imagine if Nixon got away with it. I don’t mean no one finds out; I mean he beats the justice system, and the only people held accountable are his co-conspirators, Republicans who were sucked into the vortex of loyalty, sacrificing their principles to protect a man who manipulated the levers...

In a 2016 poll entitled “What Voters Want in a President Today,” Pew Research reported that “more than a year before the first primaries, more voters valued a hypothetical candidate with ‘experience and a proven record’ (50%) than one who had ‘new ideas and a different approach’ (43%). Six months later, those numbers had flipped – 55% said it was...

The Presidential Greatness Project, led by Professors Brandon Rottinghaus and Justin Vaughn, is a research effort that evaluates U.S. presidents through the lens of expert scholars in the field of presidential politics. Every few years, these scholars weigh in on which presidents exemplify greatness based on their leadership, historical significance, and legacy. In 2024, not surprisingly, Abraham Lincoln still holds...

I first heard about John Gilbert Winant several years ago in Concord, New Hampshire, while I was teaching a class on ethics. My co-captain, Professor Stephen Ambra, spoke admiringly of the three-term Republican governor of the state. However, the most compelling part of Winant’s story unfolded during his time abroad, serving as the U.S. Ambassador to England. In 1941, Democrat...

On this anniversary of 9/11, let’s take a moment to remember those we lost and honor the heroes who ran toward danger. It was a day that tested so many who put their lives on the line to save others and brought out the best in us—courage, compassion, duty, and a sense of unity that crossed all divides. As we...

In 63 BCE, Rome was facing an internal crisis that threatened to destroy the Republic. Roman senator Lucius Sergius Catilina, known as Catiline, was conspiring to overthrow the government. With the help of a coalition of the discontented, his plan included violent uprisings and the assassination of several leading senators and political figures, including Cicero, Rome’s famed philosopher and statesman....

Legend has it that a man once approached the Jewish sage Hillel the Elder with a challenge: if he could sum up the principles of Judaism in a single sentence, the man would convert. Hillel responded, “What is hateful to thee, do not unto thy fellow man: this is the whole of the law; the rest is commentary.” Hillel’s words...