Ronald Reagan was the most consequential U.S. president of the second half of the twentieth century. Conservatives once lionized him before the rise of Donald Trump. Yet how Reagan is remembered does not entirely square with his actual record. Although an anti-government, anti-Communist ideologue, Reagan governed like a pragmatist. Moreover, the fortieth president was a terrible manager with a flimsy grasp of policy. His administration was rife with scandal. When he left office, the federal deficit had nearly tripled. Despite it all, Reagan was an effective national leader who inspired Americans to feel proud of their country again. In this episode, historian and biographer Max Boot delves into the life and times of "The Great Communicator" whose Hollywood and television careers prepared him for political success.

Further reading/listening:

Reagan: His Life and Legend by Max Boot

When Reagan Pressured Israel (podcast) with Salim Yaqub

Election of 1980 (podcast) with Jeremi Suri and Jeffrey Engel

Star Wars (podcast) with Joe Cirincione

Does the historical concept of oblivion offer a way out of our ruptured political life? "For centuries, legislative acts of oblivion were declared in times when betrayal, war, and tyranny had usurped and undermined the very foundations of law; when a household or nation had been torn apart, its citizens pitted against one another; when identifying, investigating, trying, and sentencing every single guilty party threatened to redouble the harm, to further fracture already divided societies," writes the scholar Linda Kinstler. In this episode, Kinstler delves into the history of oblivion as well as its limitations, as Donald Trump prepares to return to the presidency having gotten away with his attempt to subvert democracy on Jan. 6, 2021.

Further reading:

Jan. 6, America's Rupture, and the Strange, Forgotten Power of Oblivion by Linda Kinstler (New York Times)

Come to This Court and Cry: How the Holocaust Ends by Linda Kinstler (2022)

The United States' most-wanted jihadist in Afghanistan is trying to portray himself as a pragmatic diplomat. Washington doesn't seem to be interested. Sirajuddin Haqqani has the blood of many U.S. soldiers and Afghan civilians on his hands. While the U.S. views him as an enemy, the CIA once handsomely supported his father Jalaluddin Haqqani in the war against the Soviets in the 1980s. The elder Haqqani was close to bin Laden in the years before the Haqqani network would violently resist U.S. invaders -- after the al-Qaeda strikes on 9/11/2001. Ah, Afghanistan, where the past is not even past. In this episode, Adam Weinstein of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft untangles the complexities of a land where the U.S. has been involved for most of the past forty years.

Further reading:

Is Afghanistan's Most-Wanted Militant Now Its Best Hope For Change? by Christina Goldbaum (New York Times)

Ghost Wars by Steve Coll

Taliban by Ahmed Rashid