Encore: Political Parties | The Reagan Revolution | 6

American History Tellers

Wondery

Society & Culture, Kids & Family, History, Education For Kids

4.7 • 18.3K Ratings

🗓️ 14 October 2020

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The year 1968 marked a watershed in American politics. Anti-war protests were roiling the country. Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was shot dead in Memphis. Democratic President Lyndon Johnson’s approval rating was plummeting. The assassination of Democratic presidential hopeful Robert Kennedy would throw the party into disarray, toppling the New Deal coalition built by Franklin Delano Roosevelt two generations earlier and leading to a conservative surge.

The political sea change would drive Republican nominee Richard Nixon to the White House in 1968. And it would eventually elect a former actor and California governor who would change the face of American politics in ways that are still being felt to this day. His name was Ronald Reagan.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, prime members, you can listen to American History Tellers add free on Amazon music,
0:05.6	download the app today.
0:08.0	This is a special encore presentation of our series on political parties in the United
0:12.4	States.
0:13.4	As we head into November and face a contentious and consequential election, it seems
0:17.3	a ripe time to revisit how we got here in the first place.
0:20.4	It wasn't always Democrats and Republicans.
0:22.8	And if you'd like even more insight into our American political process, search for and
0:27.0	subscribe to another one of my podcasts, American Elections Wicked Game.
0:31.1	It chronicles every single presidential election from 1789 to 2020.
0:36.1	Both in this series and in that podcast, you'll find our current strife isn't so new,
0:40.7	and certainly not any worse than it has been.
0:42.9	Hopefully, that's a comfort.
0:44.9	Imagine it's around noon on May 17, 1968.
0:59.0	You're an anti-war activist in Caitonville, Maryland.
1:02.4	You and a group of eight others have just arrived at the Knights of Columbus building
1:05.5	on the west side of town.
1:06.8	It's a two-story building with white siding and peaked windows at the front.
1:11.2	The local office of the Selective Service is on the building's second floor.
1:15.5	You're standing in a small circle at the foot of an exterior staircase that leads up
1:19.3	to the second floor entrance.
1:21.2	The group's leader, Father Daniel Barrigan, takes a moment to look everyone carefully
	...

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