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" Reagan refused to demonize his foes. Instead he charmed them, with a few exceptions, including Tip O'Neill, the Democratic Speaker of the House and the embodiment of the liberalism Reagan sought to reverse. "

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" It wasn't the smiling Trump that people elected. It was the frowning, glowering, angry Donald Trump that people elected. "

H. W. Brands

Angry

Smiling

People

" If you wanted to, you could write history in Haiku. "

" The president of the United States from the 1940s until 2017 was considered the leader of the free world - probably the most powerful person in the world - not simply in terms of America's military might but in terms of the moral authority of the president. Donald Trump has largely abdicated that. "

" If - heaven forbid - a shooter did come into my class, I wouldn't want to have to worry about getting caught in a crossfire. "

" Previous candidates who get elected are almost always sobered by the office and the responsibility they take on. Donald Trump shows no evidence of that. He's the same Trump that he was when he was host of his reality TV show. He's the same Trump that he was when he was a candidate. "

" On style points alone, Donald Trump makes GWB look magnificently presidential. "

" The race question in America has often been about race, but it has equally often been about power. "

" Our love for the Founders leads us to abandon, and even to betray, the very principles they fought for. "

H. W. Brands

Abandon

Our Love

" President Trump is doing what he can to act decisively. And if there's one thing most people have in mind in distinguishing the business world from the political world is that the CEO of a business can act decisively. "

" The candidate who promises the most has the best chance of winning. "

" When you look at the development of the American presidency, you see that the presidents who have had the greatest impact are the ones who fit their times most successfully. "

" Although this should not be so, historians reconsider presidencies based on how the presidents conduct themselves after leaving office. "

" In revering the Founders, we undervalue ourselves and sabotage our own efforts to make improvements - necessary improvements - in the republican experiment they began. "

" Members of Congress are somewhat reluctant to tangle with a president who seems to have the backing of the American people. "

" There has always been interest in certain phases and aspects of history - military history is a perennial bestseller, the Civil War, that sort of thing. But I think that there is a lot of interest in historical biography and what's generally called narrative history: history as story-telling. "

" The Republican Party has moved substantially to the right of where Reagan was. "

" Harry Truman's decision to fire Douglas MacArthur at the height of the Korean War in April 1951 shocked the American political system and astonished the world. Much of the world didn't realize the president had the power to fire a five-star general; much of America didn't realize Truman had the nerve. "

" Interest in the Founders has risen and fallen over time, as has admiration for them and their accomplishments. "

" It's hard to say that Trump actually has a health care policy. "

" The Catalonian movement is quite serious; I don't think it's simply symbolic. I think that they believe that Catalonia can be more successful on its own than as part of Spain. "

" Toward the end of the 1964 presidential campaign, Reagan gives a speech on behalf of Barry Goldwater. It was like a screen test for a new career. "

" A lot of people were ambivalent about Vietnam. Lyndon Johnson in 1964 positioned himself as the peace candidate. Once Johnson sent large amounts of troops into battle in 1965, most Americans were behind the war. "

" I cannot think of a president or administration that has taken seriously the 100 days. "

" It's hard to get in the head of somebody. The closest we can get is through the words they've left behind, either their contemporary correspondence or after-the-fact memoirs. "

" Politics is not something most people have to do every day. Their daily lives are much more influenced by job opportunities, whether the country is in a recession or a boom period. If you really want to understand what drives American history, look at the economic... side. "

" When you tell a story, there are imperatives of structure, of style, of pacing and all of this, that are there simply because you want to make it a good story. When do you introduce your characters? When do you put them onstage, when do you take them off the stage? How do you weave the different threads of the narrative together? "

" George W. Bush has shown himself to be a decent guy, not exploiting his former office to make top dollars giving speeches. "

" To me, the puzzle of Ronald Reagan is how a comparatively ordinary man, someone with not extraordinary talent, accomplished such extraordinary results. At the age of 50, no one expected that this was going to be the guy who would become, at least in my interpretation, one of the two most important presidents of the 20th century. "

" In the academic world, biographies of these great figures of the past fell out of favor in the 1960s, when there was a turn toward social history, which meant the history of the voiceless and faceless. But the public at large never embraced the idea that these dead white guys should be abandoned. "

" The American political system is based on the president taking the initiative and Congress responding. With President Trump, it's been the opposite. "