Hello, my name is David Ransman and this is Talking Politics. Today we're talking with

the cultural historian Sarah Churchill about the language of politics in Trump's America.

America first, make America great again, fake news. Where do these ideas come from and

what do they really mean?

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Joining us with Sarah is Andrew Preston, who is a historian of American foreign policy and

religion and many of the sources of the ideas that we're going to be talking about today.

We're particularly going to focus on America first, which is part of the subject of Sarah's

fantastic book, Behold America. I love saying that. Behold America. I've been really struck,

particularly when Europeans want to find someone to compare Trump to, they look outside

the United States, they look around the world and they say it's Erdogan, it's Duterte,

it's Orban, or they look to European politics in the 30s if it's not Hitler, then it's Mussolini.

But Trump is a quintessentially American figure and his language, his ideas, these have a

rich heritage in America. And I think a lot of people may be including the United States

can miss the deep historical sources of these things. So just as a starting point, when

you look at Trump, who does he remind you of in America's past? What are the echoes that

you pick up?

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