https://www.pastpundit.com/home daily 1.0 2022-08-12 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f346b504749ab5effb71413/baeaffa4-1914-42f2-8d8d-3b695d0e3795/HEMMER_Partisans_300dpi.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f346b504749ab5effb71413/1597588580832-0FYOFYNVCCWYPNEXEMI7/image-asset.jpeg Home - Welcome to Past Punditry, the website of writer and historian Nicole Hemmer Nicole is an associate professor of history at Vanderbilt University and director of the Carolyn T. and Robert M. Rogers Center for the Study of the Presidency. She is a columnist for CNN and co-host of the podcasts Past Present and This Day in Esoteric Political History. To learn more, explore the categories below! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f346b504749ab5effb71413/1597272375553-65KVT3C9ZC1ROAJGOTUW/washpost.jpg Home - Writer. I write books and political commentary appearing in newspapers and magazines around the world. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f346b504749ab5effb71413/1597275005819-CDYSGBI242BBFU68P7P5/studio.jpg Home - Podcaster. I host and produce podcasts exploring all the ways history can shed light on current events. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f346b504749ab5effb71413/1597274578287-OZTGEL6DG5EY1XW2I819/goldwater.jpg Home - Historian. I hold a Ph.D. from Columbia University and spend a lot of time searching through archives — and building them. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f346b504749ab5effb71413/1597274813006-98X26W83GR4JYPTJICQ1/cooper.jpg Home - Speaker. I speak to national audiences on radio and television, and as an experienced keynote, panelist, and moderator. https://www.pastpundit.com/about daily 0.75 2020-08-16 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f346b504749ab5effb71413/1597277318156-2X454PXYOGE8Y3TLIL8X/profile+pic.jpg About - taking advantage of studio hair and makeup https://www.pastpundit.com/writing daily 0.75 2021-03-27 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f346b504749ab5effb71413/1597279727613-8APQ9LSKLZQTCO7PMNSY/messengers.jpeg Writing - Messengers of the Right Back before Rush Limbaugh or Fox News, conservatives built their own media outlets — radio, television, magazines, publishing houses — as a way to secure political power in the U.S. Messengers of the Right tells the story of how conservative media pioneers were already transforming American politics in the 1950s and 1960s. “Superb.” — The National Interest “Well-researched and well-argued.” — New York Review of Books “This is political history—and American history—at its finest.” — Margaret O’Mara, University of Washington https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f346b504749ab5effb71413/1597281354329-13P33WWYIAAQ1M4GBRD8/outlook.jpg Writing - Columns and Commentary I’ve written for a number of major newspapers, magazines, and websites, as both a columnist and as a contributor. My beat is conservatism, the GOP, media, and white nationalism. I also write broadly about American politics and culture. For five years I was a weekly columnist at U.S. News & World Report. I followed that with a regular column at Vox and a biweekly column for The Age in Melbourne, syndicated across Australia. I’m currently a weekly columnist at CNN Opinion. You can also find my byline at the New York Times, Washington Post, NBC News, The Atlantic, New Republic, Los Angeles Times, Politico, Christian Science Monitor, New York Times Book Review, The Australian, Sydney Morning Herald, and Washington Examiner. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f346b504749ab5effb71413/1597283046844-9C0BNE9SXZZQZDBJHDBL/nyt.jpg Writing - Don’t Expect Polls to Change Republican Minds By Nicole Hemmer, Nov. 10, 2019 As support for both the impeachment inquiry and President Trump’s removal rises, opponents of Mr. Trump’s presidency are experiencing a long-dormant emotion: hope. With each new poll, social media ripples with excitement. A majority supports impeachment. A plurality supports removal from office. And almost every day brings new details from the transcripts of the impeachment hearings, each with damning testimony of corruption and obstruction that promises to build even more support for removal — enough, even, to move Republicans on the issue. But that hope springs from a false premise — that as the polls go, so goes the Republican Party. That’s no longer the case, and it hasn’t been for a generation…. Read on https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f346b504749ab5effb71413/1597283311440-W0J3667WH5YB4ZBW02O1/vox.jpg Writing - Tweedy Racists and “Ironic” Anti-Semites By Nicole Hemmer, Dec. 2, 2016 Collect all the portraits lining the many profile pieces of white supremacist Richard Spencer, and you might think you were holding the proofs for a slightly down-market GQ. A soft-faced white man in a too-tight peacoat, posing in a DC park. In a tweed sports jacket, standing in a brass-and-glass elevator. In dark-wash jeans, propping his leather ankle boots on a hotel room desk. A recent Mother Jones profile is an exemplar of this beneath-the-hood reporting on white supremacy. It lingers over the details: the private school pedigree, the “slivers of togarashi-crusted ahi” that Spencer orders at the upscale hotel lounge, his “‘fashy’ (as in fascism) haircut.” The left-wing magazine does not truck in Spencer’s white nationalist politics — quite the opposite. But like many profiles of the alt-right leader, it contains an air of surprise. He’s a racist, but he wears some swank cufflinks. Such coverage isn’t new to the alt-right. Operating from the flawed assumption that white supremacy is the provenance of poor whites and troglodytes, journalists have long had a tendency to get enamored of repackaged racism. Since the 1970s, the national press has fallen, again and again, into the trap of missing the substance of racism for its style…Read on https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f346b504749ab5effb71413/1597284523744-MCPSGY7PY5XSQ75TWTGO/wapo.png Writing - How Breitbart Became Just Another Right-Wing Trump Cheerleader By Nicole Hemmer, Jan. 12, 2018 Steve Bannon, once depicted as the power behind President Trump's rise, has seen his fortunes fade fast, ousted first from the White House and now from Breitbart, the right-wing website that he turned into the hub of Trumpism and the alt-right during his four-plus years as its executive chairman. It was a steep fall for the erstwhile kingmaker. Featured as "The Great Manipulator" on the cover of Time magazine and depicted as the Grim Reaper on "Saturday Night Live," Bannon leaned into the image of himself as a dark, all-powerful Svengali. "Darkness is good," he told the Hollywood Reporter shortly after Trump's election. "Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That's power." Yet if Bannon was, for a moment, the face of the brutalist turn in American politics, that moment is over. Bannon may not have lost his mind, as Trump claimed in recent weeks , but he has decisively lost. It's not just Bannon on the decline, however. Breitbart itself has slipped from its place as left-wing bogeyman and right-wing powerbroker. The loss of Bannon once would have been seen as cataclysmic, a crippling blow to a site, and a movement, that drove so much of the tumult in American politics. But now it seems like the inevitable closing act. These days, Breitbart feels a lot like run-of-the-mill conservative media, not so different from Fox News or talk radio. That's partly an unintended consequence of its triumph: Breitbart's influence seeped into right-wing media on all platforms over the past two years. But if every conservative outlet sounds like Breitbart, is Breitbart still essential to Trumpism?…Read on https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f346b504749ab5effb71413/1597285075134-L2WOWFRVL7G3SVJHY0CB/cnn.png Writing - Only One Kind of Anger Counts in the 2020 Race By Nicole Hemmer, Mar. 7, 2020 Now that the Democratic primary has been functionally narrowed to former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders, with Donald Trump waiting in the wings to contend with one of them, there is one prediction about the coming election we can make with a great deal of confidence: There will be a lot of yelling. The election will be an angry one. But its anger will be a certain kind: cramped, masculine, muddled with fear. Perhaps that's the only kind of anger the electorate is comfortable with. But it keeps our political options narrow, and ensures that our rage is always stoked, and never soothed. The coming debates and rallies are likely to be high-volume affairs, orgies of Democrats' anger at Donald Trump and at corporations, and of Trump's vitriol against Democrats, immigrants and the media. That on-stage raging — echoed offstage in our discourse and even in comments like those made by Sen. Chuck Schumer (who later said "I shouldn't have used the words I did") about Trump's nominees to the Supreme Court — doubtless matches and amplifies an anger roiling the electorate. But anger also helps explain how we ended up, after winnowing the most diverse primary field in American history, with three white men grasping for the presidency. They're the only demographic whose rage is considered legitimate… Read on https://www.pastpundit.com/podcasts daily 0.75 2021-03-27 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f346b504749ab5effb71413/1616851834319-J5S4HHJYJVXOGDNEBS0V/WTYF-SQUARE-ARTWORK.6.jpg Podcasts - Welcome to Your Fantasy A new podcast about how Chippendales, a seedy strip club in West LA, became an international phenomenon — and how paranoia and greed turned it into a hotbed of drugs, corruption, and murder. From Pineapple Street Studios and Gimlet. Available now, only on Spotify. Also, don’t miss the eye-popping Insta account, @chippendalesrevealed…. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f346b504749ab5effb71413/1597325144483-9OL6LZQSCN82UF5DMNTE/thisday.jpg Podcasts - This Day in Esoteric Political History From a global pandemic upending society to an especially intense U.S. presidential election cycle, we’re living in an unprecedented time. Maybe. In this show, Jody Avirgan, Nicole Hemmer, Kellie Carter Jackson, and special guests rescue stories from the entirety of U.S. political history to map our journey through this era. Each episode takes one moment, big or small, from that day in the past and explores how it might inform our present –– and it does so in under ten minutes. New episodes release Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays. We’re posting about moments from the past @thisdaypod on Twitter and Instagram. If you have a suggestion for a topic, get in touch. This Day In Esoteric Political History is a proud member of the Radiotopia podcast network from PRX. Find all our episodes — with links to all your favorite streaming services — here! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f346b504749ab5effb71413/1597325197862-KSG2THP945B5F3SMTO74/a12+light+grey.jpg Podcasts - A12: The Story of Charlottesville Named by The Guardian as “one of our favourite podcasts of 2018” … “an essential listen.” A12 is a six-episode podcast series about the white nationalist violence in Charlottesville in 2017, and the history behind it. Created, produced, and hosted by Nicole Hemmer. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f346b504749ab5effb71413/1597325274294-6WR43QEN44BKCBB32F9N/pastpresent.png Podcasts - Past Present Hosted by Nicole Hemmer, Natalia Petrzela, and Neil J. Young, Natalia, Past Present is a weekly podcast dedicated to bringing historical insights to political and cultural debates. Why is Pope Francis so popular in America? What's behind the corporate defense of gay rights? How does The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt manage to get the '90s so right? Since 2015, we’ve been offering listeners an alternative to the reflexive and polarized world of punditry. Interested in the world around you but exhausted by rote reactions and partisan talking points? You've come to the right place. Find episodes, show notes, and more here! https://www.pastpundit.com/a12 daily 0.75 2020-08-13 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f346b504749ab5effb71413/1597350855159-QO5Z4C84LAHMSUUFBWQT/a12+light+grey.jpg A12 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f346b504749ab5effb71413/1597359139528-7UMEHWMFD0A8RQYCEWYT/podcast.jpg A12 - Voices Jalane Schmidt, UVA professor and local Black Lives Matter founder Claudrena Harold, UVA history professor and advisor to the Black Student Alliance Seth Wispelwey, co-founder of Congregate Cville John Edwin Mason, UVA history professor and vice-chair of Blue Ribbon Commission on statues Tim Heaphy, former U.S. attorney and author of the city's independent review Brennan Gilmore, witness suing Alex Jones for defamation Joyce Camden, local trauma counselor Mike Signer, former Charlottesville mayor Larry Sabato, UVA politics professor Rabbi Tom Gutherz, senior rabbi at Congregation Beth Israel Ben Doherty, UVA law librarian and organizer with Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) Kathleen Belew, author of Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America Jim Ryan, president of UVA Risa Goluboff, dean of UVA Law School and chair of the Dean's Working Group on the university's response to August 11 & 12 Louis Nelson, UVA associate provost and architecture history professor Ibram X. Kendi, author of Stamped from the Beginning Mary McCord, visiting professor at Georgetown law and attorney pursuing the militia lawsuits Dahlia Lithwick, Slate Supreme Court correspondent Nina Silber, Civil War historian at Boston University Phyllis Leffler, professor emerita of UVA history department Margo Smith, founder of the Kudzu Project additional background interviews Will Richey, owner of Whiskey Jar restaurant Rabbi Rachel Schmelkin, rabbi educator at Congregation Beth Israel Elaine Ellis Thomas, former associate rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church Jack Ronayne, local student involved in Sacajewea mural https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f346b504749ab5effb71413/1597360217821-CGC8WQVGD176CSYUKVLG/IMG_3926.jpg A12 - Sources Commentary/Analysis Made by History's coverage of Charlottesville Annette Gordon Reed, "Charlottesville: Why Jefferson Matters" Wes Gobar, "What it’s like to be a Black student as white supremacists march in your college town" Citizen Justice Initiative, "The Illusion of Progress: Charlottesville's Roots in White Supremacy" Alexis Gravely, "At the University of Virginia, Black Students Are Still Recovering From August 11" German Lopez, "Why the ACLU defends white nationalists’ right to protest — including in Charlottesville" Sophie Abramowitz, Eva Latterner, and Gillet Rosenblith, "Tools of Displacement" Nicole Hemmer, "Why this happened in Charlottesville, my hometown" Nicole Hemmer, "Sounds and Silence in Charlottesville" Primary Sources Report from the Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces (pdf) Independent Review of August 11-12, 2017 (Heaphy Report) Prohibiting Private Armies at Public Rallies (pdf) Local History Black Fire at UVA Race and Place: An African-American Community in the Jim Crow South "To seek the Peace of the City" Jewish Life in Charlottesville Brendan Wolfe, "Unearthing Slavery at the University of Virginia" That World is Gone: Race and Displacement in a Southern Town Ervin L. Jordan, "Charlottesville During the Civil War" Books Kathleen Belew, Bring the War Home Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning James Robert Saunders and Renae Nadine Shackelford, Urban Renewal and the End of Black Culture in Charlottesville, Virginia Matthew D. Lassiter and Andrew B. Lewis, eds., The Moderates' Dilemma Carol Anderson, White Rage https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f346b504749ab5effb71413/1597360393759-RKUKZMTXJL522UAQPAI0/Large+JPG-Aro+Ha_0380.jpg A12 - Credits A12 was written and produced by Nicole Hemmer, who also designed the cover art and composed the theme music. Other music in A12 featured in A12 under a Creative Common license comes from the performers: Lee Rosevere Doctor Turtle Daniel Burch Jason Shaw U.S. Army Blues https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f346b504749ab5effb71413/1597351563462-IYQ2SZH69C43WADX3PWH/googleplay.png A12 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f346b504749ab5effb71413/1597351575808-ZB6PQW3J0QAEQXP2F5R3/stitcher.jpg A12 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f346b504749ab5effb71413/1597351583170-M1VANG3G8744KWQR7NIC/itunes.png A12 https://www.pastpundit.com/history daily 0.75 2020-08-13 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f346b504749ab5effb71413/1597339492863-GK580ACKYOOHXFSWGLNA/Obama%2BMagazine%2BCover.jpg History - Obama Presidency Oral History Project We’re building one of the largest presidential oral history archives in existence, talking with more than 400 people for an archive of at least 1200 hours of video and audio interviews. Unlike previous presidential oral histories, we’re including people outside the administration — activists, politicians, artists, journalists, and ordinary people from across the world who shaped, and were shaped by, the Obama presidency. It’s exciting work! You can learn much more about it here. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f346b504749ab5effb71413/1597341286377-W5BEJ17Z1MKCCVJEBBH7/wapo+sign.jpg History - Made by History In 2017, I co-founded Made by History, the political history section at the Washington Post, with Brian Rosenwald. At Made by History, we publish 11 pieces of historical analysis every week, written by historians across the world. From the start, we were joined by co-editor Prof. Kathryn Cramer Brownell of Purdue University, and in the years since, Prof. Carly Goodman and Prof. Keisha Blaine have joined our editorial team. You can read our founding essay here, and catch up on everything we’ve published here. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f346b504749ab5effb71413/1597339914423-19IRKICLL41K3OB409NL/nixon+recording.jpg History - The Secret White House Tapes For four years, I was part of the Presidential Recordings team at the University of Virginia, where I worked in the secret White House tapes of John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and — of course — Richard Nixon (other presidents secretly recorded, too, but none as intensively as these three). My work focused on Richard Nixon, his vice president Spiro Agnew, and their relationship to the conservative movement. NPR did a great piece on secret presidential recordings in 2017 — check it out! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f346b504749ab5effb71413/1597340348899-4I6KI90RW6PJV6Y6T9ZI/IMG_0468.jpg History - Teaching For several years, I taught courses at that University of Miami (the one in Florida), where I worked as a visiting assistant professor. My classes focused on U.S. politics and culture in the 20th century. They included: History of the United States Since 1877 Conservatism in America Since 1945 Before Occupy and the Tea Party: Social Movements in 20th Century America Suburbia: Culture and Politics in America’s Suburbs Purchasing Power: Consumer Culture and Politics in 20th Century America The American Century: U.S. Foreign Policy Since 1898 https://www.pastpundit.com/speaking daily 0.75 2020-08-19 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f346b504749ab5effb71413/1597342744717-JFAFAGSMLSIK0JQ8DB3E/tomtom.jpg Speaking - Talking politics I’m often asked to speak on a wide range of topics: politics, media, conservatism, white nationalism, elections, the presidency. It’s something I love to do, from addressing the League of Women Voters to giving a conference keynote to moderating a congressional debate. If you’re interested in having me speak to at your event, get in touch! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f346b504749ab5effb71413/1597364447891-4VE3TKUOEK66T5YSNWEE/msnbc.jpg Speaking - TV, Radio, & Podcasts You can catch me now and then on CNN, MSNBC, NPR, BBC, and ABC News in Australia, and in documentaries like CNN’s Race for the White House and Epix’s Slow Burn. Follow me on Twitter to find out about upcoming appearances. Want to check out some past shows? Click the links below! U.S. Election update, The World, ABC News Australia (starting at 37:30) Are Trump and the Anti-Lockdown Militias Itching For Violence?, Deconstructed with Mehdi Hasan How Fox News Helped Roger Stone Stay Out of Prison, Reliable Sources, CNN Why Fox News is at the center of the impeachment story, Impeachment, Explained with Ezra Klein Conservative Media's Place In The Unfolding Impeachment Inquiry, On Point, WBUR Lobbying for Pardons' on Fox News and Infowars, Reliable Sources, CNN From Watergate To "This Russia Thing": Comparing Nixon To Trump, 1A, NPR What You Need To Know About The Alt-Right Movement, Morning Edition, NPR Fox News in a Post-Ailes Era, Reliable Sources, CNN https://www.pastpundit.com/columns daily 0.75 2022-01-21 https://www.pastpundit.com/get-started daily 0.75 2020-08-13 https://www.pastpundit.com/get-started/p/relationship-with-others-wjg33 monthly 0.5 2020-08-13 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ced8e1d5fd4c700018dd761/1560189982811-KFAJF1TCUH1SXZ827UMC/Stocksy_txp824ffa5crXt000_Large_844923.jpg Get Started - Relationship with Others https://www.pastpundit.com/get-started/p/relationship-with-you-tfjbk monthly 0.5 2020-08-13 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ced8e1d5fd4c700018dd761/1560189874730-3B0TSLDUHTQ93497V3L8/Stocksy_txp824ffa5crXt000_Large_844934A.jpg Get Started - Relationship with You https://www.pastpundit.com/get-started/p/relationship-with-youothers-w4kw4 monthly 0.5 2020-08-13 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ced8e1d5fd4c700018dd761/1560190004400-XTA0DF0S9WOZJUG994C8/Stocksy_txp824ffa5crXt000_Original_845035.jpg Get Started - Relationship with You+Others