Marshall here. Welcome back to the Realignment.

Today's episode is part of the Realignment's Daily Series, covering the big themes that drove 2022.

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Today's episode is all about the FBI, especially as embodied by his most famous director, Jay Edgar Hoover.

Speaking with Beverly Gage, a professor of 20th century American history at Yale, sees the author of G-Man, Jay Edgar Hoover, and the making of the American Century, which just came out.

In terms of 2022 themes, not only did the FBI front itself at the center of politics during the Trump presidency,

but the raid on Mar-a-Lago earlier this year brought the debate about how the bureau should behave during a moment of hyper-politicization.

With this issue, it's been interesting to note how the FBI has shifted from an institution that seemed aimed at the left in the 50th of the 70s to the far right in the 1990s, and now to the Trump right in the 2010s of the 2020s.

There's no obvious answer for how to address this, and there's no way we're going back to the pre-FBI world, but it's a dynamic to think about going into the next year.

Huge thank you to Lincoln Network, and hope you all enjoy this episode, and I will see you tomorrow.

Professor Beverly Gage, welcome to the Realignment. It's great to be here.

Great to chat with you, really interested in the book, obviously. I have a question to start about the title.

What was the title of the title?

Professor Beverly Gage, welcome to the Realignment.

It's great to be here.

Great to chat with you, really interested in the book, obviously.

I have a question to start about the title. What was the American Century in the context of the FBI?

You think of loose and the big essay in 1941, but one wouldn't also think of that as also related to J. Edgar Hoover.

So introduce the concept of the American Century, and what it has to do with the FBI.

Yeah, so the American Century is often a term that kind of refers to US power around the world.

I think here I'm using it in a couple of ways. One is just kind of a shorthand for the 20th century, which was, as we all know, the American Century.

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