Can America Survive Another 250 Years? | H.W. Brands
Hold These Truths with Dan Crenshaw
Dan Crenshaw
4.8 • 16.1K Ratings
🗓️ 19 June 2026
⏱️ 66 minutes
🔗️ Recording | Apple Podcasts | RSS
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Summary
Historian H.W. Brands joins Rep. Crenshaw to discuss how many of the challenges facing America today are rooted in debates that began at the Founding. They explore the origins of partisan politics, the limits of executive power, the meaning of the Constitution, and the enduring challenge of preserving self-government. What did the Founding Fathers get right? What would they think of America today? And what lessons can we learn from them to endure for another 250 years?
Professor H.W. Brands is the Jack S. Blanton Sr. Chair in History at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of more than 30 books, including "The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin", "Reagan: The Life", and "American Patriarch: The Life of George Washington."
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men are created. As a member of Congress, I get to have a lot of really interesting people in the office. Experts on what they're talking about. This is the podcast for insights into the issues. China, bioterrorism, Medicare for all, in-depth discussions, breaking it down into simple terms. We hold. We hold these truths. We hold these truths. |
| 0:21.3 | With Dan Crenshaw. |
| 0:22.2 | The angle has landed. |
| 0:24.5 | Hey all, welcome back. |
| 0:25.6 | Hold these truths. |
| 0:26.5 | Best podcast ever. |
| 0:27.7 | And today's guest is H.W. Brands. |
| 0:30.7 | He's one of America's most acclaimed historians and the author of more than 30 books. |
| 0:35.3 | 30. |
| 0:35.5 | That's a lot of books on figures that range from Benjamin Franklin, Andrew Jackson, Teddy Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, Ulysses, Grant, and many others. |
| 0:44.8 | And as we approach America's 250th, there are very few people better equipped to help us understand the founding, the presidency, political polarization, |
| 0:55.2 | and how we got here. What history can teach us about the challenges facing the country today? |
| 1:01.1 | So, Professor Brands, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining us. |
| 1:04.5 | Delighted to be with you. Maybe we can just start with that very general question as we approach 250. |
| 1:11.6 | I mean, is there a unitary theory on how we got here, historically speaking? |
| 1:19.6 | Well, I mean, it'll sound like a flip answer, but we got here one year, one election, one decade at a time. |
| 1:25.6 | But that's actually an important way of looking at it, |
| 1:28.0 | because at the time of the founding, nobody was thinking 250 years ahead. Nobody was thinking |
| 1:33.8 | a hundred years ahead. In fact, if we start for the Declaration of Independence, the war for |
| 1:40.0 | American independence had already begun. And nobody knew how the war were going to turn out. |
| 1:43.4 | There was a great hope, of course, that it would turn out with an independent country. But there was no guarantee that that was a case. Both parties to the war, both the British and the Americans, they expected that the war would be short. There would be each side who would sort of demonstrate its purpose and the other side would back down. The war went on very much longer than anybody thought. So that alone indicated that this was a bigger deal and a harder undertaking |
| 2:05.8 | than people had thought they'd gotten into. The first national government of the United States |
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