from WNYC Studios. I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast. It's Monday, February 16th.

Happy President's Day. You know, there wasn't always such a holiday. The national holiday,

some of you know this, especially if you're a certain age or such a holiday. The national holiday, some of you know this,

especially if you're a certain age or just know history, the national holiday used to be

George Washington's birthday, right? On his actual birthday, February 22nd, no matter what day of the

week it was on. And some states, including New York, also observed Abraham Lincoln's birthday on February 12th. But then

Congress passed the law called the Uniform Monday Holiday Act that moved Washington's birthday

to the third Monday in February. That began in 1971. And then it became generally

known as President's Day as Lincoln's birthday got swept in. Why the

Uniform Monday Holiday Act? Well, as History.com tells it, the change was seen by many as a novel

way to create more three-day weekends, obviously, for the nation's workers, and it was believed

that ensuring holidays always fell on the same weekday would reduce employee absenteeism.

It continues while some argued that shifting holidays from their original dates were cheapen their meaning,

the bill also had widespread support from both the private sector and labor unions

and was seen as a sure fireway to bolster retail sales. How many of you are taking advantage of

President's Day sales right now? So here we are, 55 years later, President's Day sales obviously

abound. Kids in New York only get one day off from school for Lincoln and Washington, not two

like they used to in past generations. And obviously, President's Day this year comes as the nation

is grappling with the presidency like no other with the question even of whether it's

driving us into authoritarianism as a more serious concern

than perhaps any other time in American history. And we hope to ask our guest about that.

So we begin today with one of the nation's great historians of presidents in particular

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