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" The president was not the most important political player in the 19th century. Besides Jefferson at the beginning, Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln, the center of politics was Congress. "

H. W. Brands

Congress

Beginning

Political

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" I read in all forms: paper, computer, phone, audio. "

" President Obama ran a campaign in 2008 that was entirely expected from a non-incumbent. You promise, and you imply that if you elect me, everything good is going to happen. "

H. W. Brands

Happen

Everything

" I had this grand plan for writing the history of the United States in six volumes. This was in the mid-1990s; I was fairly young and very ambitious. I pitched it to a publisher, who just laughed at me. "

H. W. Brands

History

Just

" The Reagan Revolution has had no second act. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Booker Washington was essentially the head Republican boss in the South. He was a power broker. "

H. W. Brands

Republican

Power

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

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

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

" The Founders were anything but demigods to themselves and their contemporaries, who recognized full well that the experiment in self-government had only begun. "

" I've probably written some books - I know I've written some books that were more interesting to me than to a large audience, but that was mostly when I was first getting started in academia and writing for a narrow audience. "

" 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. "

" Reagan's enduring value as a conservative icon stems from his resolute preaching of the conservative gospel, in words that still warm the hearts of the most zealous conservatives. Yet Reagan's value as a conservative model must begin with recognition of his flexibility in the pursuit of his conservative goals. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

" I was raised in, and presumably to, the cutlery business. I really didn't think that that's what I wanted to do for a career. But I felt a certain obligation to give it a try. "

" 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? "

" Most presidents have not considered 100 days a significant milepost. "

" People are interested in people. They buy biographies; they don't buy studies of presidencies. "

" 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

" Everything that happens today is like something in the past, but it's also unlike things in the past. We never know until an event happens if it's the similarities or differences that matter more. "

" I'm the farthest thing from a bibliophile. I purge my collection regularly: If I haven't read a book in a couple of years, I try to give it to someone who will. "

" I'm more inclined to say the presidency has changed Trump rather than Trump changed the presidency. He has moderated or reversed himself on most of the positions he took as a candidate. Reality has set in, as it does with every new president. "

H. W. Brands

New

President

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

" 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. "

" He used humor more effectively than any president since Abraham Lincoln. Reagan was not an especially warm person, but he appeared to be. Many people disliked his policies, but almost no one disliked him. "

" Reagan conspired in the underestimation of his own ability. "