From WNYC in New York, this is on the media. I'm Bob Garfield.

And I'm for Gladstone. Thanksgiving is a time we set aside to remember and acknowledge the good in our lives.

Let's face it, acknowledgement is harder in some years than others, but remembering is always hard.

That's why we're devoting this hour to the quirks and quiddities of memory,

especially historical memory.

One thing we've been told about Donald Trump's rise to power

is that it is an unprecedented event in American political history.

Another thing we've been told relentlessly is that we're just reliving a previous fraught

and damaging historical episode.

And like Nixon, Trump is evoking this image of, you know, I'm going to be the law

and order candidate.

Sort of like Goldwater, 1964.

Is George Wallace a good template?

Yeah, I mean, Wallace is the best comparison in my mind.

Also, Donald Trump isn't the first celebrity to become president.

Questions surrounded Ronald Reagan, too.

If only we can understand the past, we can avoid its mistakes,

or at least chastise ourselves for being so blind.

And the reluctant star of that narrative is author Rick Perlstein, chronicler of the Nixon times,

the Goldwater Times, the Reagan times, and other conflict-filled ideological struggles of the 20th century.

In recent months, he's been to TV bookers a sort of rosetta stone of understanding.

Joining me now from Chicago is Rick Pearlstein.

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