Joe Biden 
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SOURCE: The Atlantic
4/13/2021
Biden Can Redeem His Mistake
by George Packer
Writer George Packer argues that withdrawing from Afghanistan repeats a mistake of the Vietnam era: abandoning groups who took the grave risk of allying with the United States.
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SOURCE: The New Yorker
4/6/2021
The Meaning of the Democrats’ Spending Spree
by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Joe Biden supported a balanced budget amendment in 1995, ran as the "establishment" candidate in the Democratic primaries, and has been a regular advocate of bipartisanship. So why is his administration proposing the massive American Rescue Plan Act, and showing a willingness to act without securing Republican cooperation? A tour of recent history can explain.
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SOURCE: Responsible Statecraft
3/30/2021
Will Afghanistan make Biden's Presidency Turn Out like Truman's or LBJ's?
by Joe Cirincione
"Joe Biden can be a great president. But not if he is so afraid of attacks from the right that he repeats LBJ’s blunder and stumbles into a war we cannot win and never need fight."
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SOURCE: Axios
3/25/2021
Inside Biden’s Private Chat With Historians
A recent meeting with the President was convened by Jon Meacham and featured Doris Kearns Goodwin, Michael Beschloss, Michael Eric Dyson, Joanne Freeman, Eddie Glaude Jr., Annette Gordon-Reed and Walter Isaacson. Topics included historical comparison of large-scale policy initiatives.
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SOURCE: Axios
3/24/2021
Biden Met with Historians to Discuss Pace and Scope of Policy Agenda
Joe Biden has sought the counsel of historians as he calibrates his domestic policy agenda, explicitly comparing the current moment to the New Deal and Great Society.
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3/7/2021
The Return of Human Rights on the American Agenda?
by Richard Moe
One of Jimmy Carter's legacies, albeit erratically observed, has been the assertion of human rights as a foreign policy priority. After four years of ignoring the issue, will the US under Joe Biden reclaim leadership in high-stakes relationships with Russia and Saudi Arabia?
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SOURCE: Talking Points Memo
2/1/2021
Why Biden’s Forceful Endorsement Of Labor Is The Strongest From A POTUS In Decades
Labor historians Karen Sawislak and Erik Loomis discuss how Joe Biden's endorsement of freedom of workers to form a union (without mentioning Amazon in particular) goes against decades-long trends in the political power and cultural esteem of labor unions.
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2/21/2021
Advice to POTUS 46 from POTUS 1
by David O. Stewart
The author of a recent political biography of George Washington wonders how the first president would guide the most recent one.
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SOURCE: Politico
2/17/2021
Reparations Bill Tests Biden and Harris on Racial Justice
The President and Vice President have endorsed the establishment of a commission to study the issue of reparations for slavery and post-emancipation racism against African Americans. It is yet to be seen whether the White House can please proponents and opponents if the commission moves toward concrete findings and recommendations.
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2/14/2021
Opportunities for a Catholic President, Then and Now
by Patrick Lacroix
Polling of religious voters might encourage Democrats to give up on reaching them. John F. Kennedy's experience shows that Joe Biden, as the second Catholic President, could succeed in narrowing the gap.
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SOURCE: New York Times
2/10/2021
The New Deal’s Capitalist Lessons for Joe Biden
by Louis Hyman
An economic historian argues that the greatest impact of the New Deal came from programs that guided the investment of private capital to social ends, rather than direct expenditure on public works.
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2/7/2021
To Save Democracy, We Need Historical Memory to be "Hot"
by Shannon Bontrager
Historical memory can run hot or cold; hot memory, when we make ourselves vulnerable to the pain of the past, is a force that will ensure America doesn't just move on from the needless death of the COVID pandemic or the violence of the Capitol insurrection without committing to justice and accountability.
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SOURCE: TomDispatch
1/31/2021
Been There, Done That (Not!)
by Tom Engelhardt
"At 76 — almost as old, that is, as our new president — I fear that Donald Trump was just our (particularly bizarre) introduction to imperial disaster. We now live on a distinctly misused planet in a country that looks like it could be going to the dogs."
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SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
1/29/2021
The Secret to Success for Biden’s First 100 Days
by Amber Roessner
Since Franklin Roosevelt, new presidents have been measured by the standard of the "First 100 Days." As a result, they've learned to aggressively manage the media and in turn received blowback from the press corps. The presidential "honeymoon" period is a thing of the past.
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1/31/2021
How Biden used the VP Springboard to Vault into the Oval Office
by Joel K. Goldstein
Joe Biden's leap from VP to POTUS is a rarity. Vice presidents are often contenders, but seldom successful. Circumstance helped Biden break the mold, but so did learning on the job as second-in-command to become a more credible candidate for the top job.
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SOURCE: New York Times
1/23/2021
Biden Seeks to Define His Presidency by an Early Emphasis on Equity
Nicole Hemmer argues that Joe Biden appears more willing to pledge action on racial equity than Barack Obama was; it remains to be seen if Biden can avoid a backlash from conservatives.
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1/25/2021
Biden's Inaugural and the Return of History
by Paul J. Welch Behringer
Joseph Biden's inaugural address signals a willingness to return to learning from history that may encourage the empathy and humilty elected officials need to solve the nation's problems.
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1/24/2021
"Hands Off Until He Was Safe Over": David Reynolds Urges Biden to Look to Lincoln
by James Thornton Harris
Historian David S. Reynolds recently published Abe: Abraham Lincoln and his Times, a cultural biography that shows how the 16th president was shaped by the many social currents swirling in the young United States.
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SOURCE: New York Times
1/21/2021
Charlottesville Inspired Biden to Run. Now It Has a Message for Him
People who lived through the 2017 white supremacist invasion of Charlottesville warn that there can't be any unity without accountability.
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SOURCE: Associated Press
1/21/2021
Biden Revokes Trump Report Promoting "Patriotic Education"
"In documents announcing Biden’s executive order, administration officials said the panel sought to erase America’s history of racial injustice'."
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