← History As It Happens
History As It Happens
2024 Year in Review
00:49:36
Note: This episode was produced before the news of the passing of former president Jimmy Carter. The episode scheduled for this upcoming Friday, Jan. 3, will cover Carter's legacy. Today's episode: Biden's humiliating fall. Trump's historic comeback....
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- [00:00]
Martin DeCaro
History as it happens. December 31, 2024 Year in review so.
- [00:07]
Jeremy Suri
I've decided the best way forward is.
- [00:09]
Martin DeCaro
To pass the torch to a new generation.
- [00:11]
Jeremy Suri
That's the best way to unite our nation. Frankly, this was, I believe, the greatest.
- [00:16]
Martin DeCaro
Political movement of all time.
- [00:18]
Jeremy Suri
There's never been anything like this in this country.
- [00:21]
Martin DeCaro
26 year old Luigi Mangione is facing an 11 count indictment including first degree murder in the furtherance of terrorism. Islamist fighters took the capital Damascus. On the outskirts of Damascus, rebels storm.
- [00:33]
Jeffrey Engel
Assad's notorious Sadnaya prison.
- [00:35]
Jeremy Suri
Bashar Al Assad took power in 2000.
- [00:37]
Jeffrey Engel
That means that Russia has invaded Ukraine.
- [00:40]
Martin DeCaro
In the southeastern part of the country. That's ongoing. Now Ukraine is pushing into Russia in.
- [00:44]
Jeremy Suri
Fury in Israel after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrant for the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
- [00:50]
Martin DeCaro
Starvation of civilians as a method of.
- [00:52]
Jeremy Suri
Warfare willfully causing great suffering, serious injury.
- [00:57]
Martin DeCaro
To body or health or cruel treatment.
- [01:00]
Jeremy Suri
America and Israel must stand together.
- [01:05]
Martin DeCaro
It was one hell of a year of unexpected earthquakes, historic political comebacks and the horrors of war and much more. We'll look back at 2024 and ahead to 2025 next as we report history as it happens. I'm Martin DeCaro.
- [01:22]
Jeremy Suri
Well, I think this is the central reason why history is so fascinating and so important because we only really see the inevitable events in retro. What's impossible before it happens looks inevitable after it happens. Every leader in every moment and every citizen in every time is surprised by the course of events. Things never go just as we expect them to go because of the infinite complexity of human behavior and because of the ways in which small changes in one place or another can have huge effects somewhere else. And whatever we're talking about, that would be the case. Just think about elections. That way, almost every major election, with some exceptions, could have turned out differently. And we know that societies would be different with different people in power. Wars are the same way. So many wars turned on a few moments here or there. And that's what we grapple with. And that's why we're fascinated by history. That's the drama of history.
- [02:19]
Martin DeCaro
Happy New Year. And those are words of hope, knowing that if 2025 is anything like 2024, many, many people on this planet will not have a happy year as it has been all throughout the human experience. Now, life is better for more people today than it's probably been at any point in the past. Yet poverty, war, cruelty, misery live on. And nowadays, it seems the news comes at us so quickly, it's almost impossible to make sense of the dizzying events that define our times. So I pledge to you I'll continue the work I've done the past four years in 2025, and that is to place the headlines in historical perspective. For now, let's look back at 20 with historian Jeffrey Engel, the founding director of the center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University, and historian Jeremy Suri of the LBJ School of Public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the host of this Is Democracy podcast and the co author, along with his son, of the Democracy of Hope newsletter on substack. Jeremy Suri, happy New Year. Welcome back.
- [03:27]
Jeremy Suri
Happy New Year to you as well. And always good to talk to you.
- [03:30]
Martin DeCaro
Martin and Jeffrey Engel, welcome back.
- [03:33]
Jeffrey Engel
Good to talk to you.
- [03:34]
Martin DeCaro
You know, I was hoping you'd say something different because every time you come on the show, I say welcome and you say good to talk to you, come up with something different. Just for, you know, it's, it's New Year's Eve.
- [03:43]
Jeremy Suri
All right. We could pretend we're back in New York.
- [03:44]
Jeffrey Engel
Suddenly, it's suddenly very less good to talk to you.
- [03:47]
Jeremy Suri
I was going to say, who the hell are you, man?
- [03:49]
Martin DeCaro
There you go. What are we doing here? Well, Happy New Year, fellows, and what a hell of a year it was most people might expect topic number one, Donald Trump's victory. We're going to get to that, but I want your reflections as historians, as American citizens on two more recent things, events, what have you, the fall of Assad in Syria, not because we need to do a discourse on Middle Eastern history here. I've already done that on a recent episode. I'm more interested in this notion that we humans, year after year after year, fail to foresee earth shaking events that wind up being all we talk about the next year. This idea that we're in control of the global environment and we can shape it to our liking. And there's something called regime change that you can affect, and then all of a sudden regime change happens somewhere and we had nothing to do with it. Jeremy Suri, why don't you go first?
- [04:45]
Jeremy Suri
Well, I think this is the central reason why history is so fascinating and so important, because we only really see the inevitable events in retrospect. What's impossible before it happens looks inevitable after it happens. Every leader in every moment and every citizen in every time is surprised by the course of events. Things never go just as we expect them to go because of the infinite complexity of human behavior and because of the ways in which small changes in one place or Another can have huge effects somewhere else. And whatever we're talking about, that would be the case. Just think about elections that way. Almost every major election, with some exceptions, could have turned out differently. And we know that societies would be different with different people in power. Wars are the same way. So many wars turned on a few moments here or there. And that's what we grapple with. And that's why we're fascinated by history. That's the drama of history.
- [05:38]
Martin DeCaro
Now. The consequences, the real ones that wind up coming down the pike are not the ones we expect when we initiate the action. And predicting the future is a fool's errand. But I think this Assad, the fall of Assad is going to really ripple across the Middle East.
- [05:53]
Jeffrey Engel
Jeffrey Engel it's those ripples that you can never anticipate. To reinforce Jeremy's point, you know, if I were right now to write the history of Assad's collapse, I would have to, if not start the first chapter, then at least the second chapter with October 7th and say that that created the first wave of a dynamic of change within the Middle east and the dynamic of priorities within Middle Eastern allies. The degrading of allies of Assad and also Ukraine, the grading of an ally, Assad in Russia that allowed this thing that a year and a half ago we wouldn't have imagined Assad being overthrown. Something happens somewhere else that causes a ripple effect. It's just a good example of how we all should really give our historical subjects a little bit more credit, I think, oftentimes than we do because we forget, because everything looks inevitable, that they were just as confused as we are.
- [06:48]
Martin DeCaro
You know, I want to have you both back on at one point to discuss something in retrospect. And that was George H.W. bush. I think, Jeffrey, you're familiar with him. George H.W. bush's inaugural address in 1989, when he said the day of the dictator is over.
- [07:07]
Jeremy Suri
For a new breeze is blowing and a world refreshed by freedom seems reborn.
- [07:13]
Jeffrey Engel
For in man's heart, if not in fact, the day of the dictator is over. The totalitarian era is passing.
- [07:29]
Martin DeCaro
Its old idea is blown away like.
- [07:32]
Jeffrey Engel
Leaves from an ancient lifeless tree.
- [07:35]
Martin DeCaro
You know, things haven't been going so well across the globe lately when it comes to democracy and, you know, the so called rise of the autocrats. So it's actually nice to see this SOB in Syria be shown the door. However, things can get worse.
- [07:50]
Jeremy Suri
They can get worse and they can get better. I mean, I think this just builds on Jeff's point we don't know and there might be some of both. It could turn out to be an Iraq situation where the downfall of Saddam Hussein, not that anyone regrets it, but it didn't make life better in Iraq. But it can be different. It could be a similar situation to perhaps what we saw for a while in Tunisia. For a while, the downfall of the dictator in Tunisia led to an opening for at least a few years in Tunisia.
- [08:16]
Martin DeCaro
And let me just say what I mean by that is, you know, it'll be hard for any leader in Syria to be worse than Assad. Talking about the potential for chaos and things spilling over borders, etc.
- [08:27]
Jeffrey Engel
The most pessimistic but perhaps realistic thing which I have heard at this point could be a medium term consequence of Assad falling is that the Iranians will decide that they really do need nuclear weapons after all, to protect their security. Because look, they lose, their allies are losing on multiple, multiple fronts. So if we turn around and say what was the consequence of Assad? It's a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, I think I'd rather have Assad in power. I'm not Syrian. Easy for me to say. One thing we've learned here, Martin, is that things can always get worse. Not to bring up a sore subject, but as jets fans we know things can always get worse.
- [09:03]
Martin DeCaro
We're going to get to our personal likes and dislikes about 2024 later in the later in the program. Jeffrey Engel But I know what you mean as far as from a geopolitical great power vantage. I mean that's one reason why major powers meddle in the affairs of smaller countries. Because while the Russians wanted to have Assad in power and they used him to fight Islamic militants that were also the enemies of the West. I mean, the whole Syria picture was complicated. And you know, Assad is basically going to get away with it. Sure, he lost his country and he's going to enjoy the winters in Moscow now, but the man belongs in a prison cell for the rest of his life. He's a mass murderer.
- [09:41]
Jeremy Suri
True. I don't know if I would say he's getting away with it. He's not getting appropriately held accountable by the people he harmed in Syri. But he's now under Vladimir Putin's thumb and I don't think anyone would define that as freedom in any way. But I sympathize with President George H.W. bush because it certainly looked in late 89 like the day of the dictator was gone. And for about a decade, maybe a decade And a half is something I'm writing about in my new book. I mean, it was really hard to be a dictator. The presumption was against you. And most dictators tried to pretend they were Democrats and in many cases even had fall elections. Saddam Hussein did this, right? He strangely won like 99 of the vote. I wonder who the 1% were who voted against him. The point here being that that was true for a while, but then things changed very fast. That's another point. It's a kind of Emersonian point. There is a seesaw, back and forth, yin and yang to history too. We don't know exactly when and how, but the wheels do turn and one side wins for a while and then things turn back. And that's kind of what we're experiencing now too.
- [10:45]
Martin DeCaro
Another big story recently, Luigi Mangione, he is accused of the cold blooded murder, shooting to death in Manhattan, a healthcare executive. And he becomes a folk hero. Now I know Bonnie and Clyde were folk heroes, right? I mean they were pretty awful people. They murdered people as well. What does this tell us about American society? Jeffrey Engel?
- [11:07]
Jeffrey Engel
You know, I don't think that there's anybody. I shouldn't say anybody. There's probably a 0.001% of Americans that enjoy our healthcare system and think even when it works that it's set up well. It is incredibly complex, designed to be frustrating and it's opaque. And we all have the experience of not knowing what bill we're going to get at the end of a procedure. And we also have the experience of being told you'll get that procedure in four months. There is not a single person who thinks this system is working well, except perhaps the people who are making billions of dollars off it. While in no way, shape or form do we want to condone violence, the frustration is certainly something that many Americans feel.
- [11:46]
Jeremy Suri
There's a long tradition of the criminal folk hero in American history, of course, and I think this builds on Jeff's very accurate accounts. They're usually people who take on a hated impersonal institution that people seem unable to get their arms around, right? So for Bonnie and Clyde, right. It's the nature of sort of economic elites, whatever they look like. The case that Luigi brings up for me in my mind, especially because of the Italian connection, is Sacco and Vanzetti. In the 1920s, these were two young, also good looking Italian immigrants who had basically robbed a store and they were standing in for immigrants. The Jean Valjean story, right? Immigrants and others who felt they didn't have opportunity and that they had to steal to get access. And people believed that they had been mistreated, just as today people were creating false alibis for them after their trial. And that went on for many, many decades. When Americans feel upset about a system, we're not very good at having systemic explanations. We're very good at finding villains and heroes. The Cowboy, the vigilante who takes on the system that we don't like. In this case, Jeff said it so well. This health care system that no one likes, everyone feels disempowered by someone who takes that on. We don't think they're going to fix it, but we naturally sympathize with them. They're the Cowboy on the frontier and we want to sympathize with that John Wayne figure.
- [13:11]
Martin DeCaro
Well, here's my, my theory about his appeal among young people. And I have nothing to back this up. This is just a guess. You know, a lot of young people are disenchanted by not just young people. A lot of people are disenchanted with the American political system right now and the failure of our institutions. But especially for young people who have lived through two major economic cataclysms. The 08 crash and then you had the economic consequences of the pandemic. And we live in a country where we don't have truly universal health insurance, paid family leave, childcare, et cetera, et cetera. For a young person who looks at how our political system has failed to deliver and they see a profit driven industry like health insurance where people are being denied care that could save their lives, they eschew politics. You know what? To hell with this. Politics isn't working. So this guy, you know, sure, he pulled the trigger and killed somebody, but that guy was an SOB too. I mean, that's the attitude. I think if people give up on politics, they can turn to somebody like this. But of course nothing gets accomplished until it gets into politics. So you can never really give up on politics.
- [14:16]
Jeffrey Engel
Our students and yeah, you guys would.
- [14:18]
Martin DeCaro
Know, you have students, so.
- [14:19]
Jeffrey Engel
Yeah, well, our graduate students in particular and my postdoctoral fellows, because, you know, they're a little bit older, they're usually pushing 30, they expect at this point that they're not going to be able to buy a house. Just as one indicator of the disillusionment that they have. And I don't think it's disillusionment. I think it's actually perhaps a realistic assessment that is something that I think Americans are going to have to come to terms with, that the markers that we used to have of the American dream are becoming more and more difficult for the average American.
- [14:49]
Jeremy Suri
And I also think we have to come to grips with the fact that there's just too much gun violence in our society. As we're speaking today. There was just a shooting at a school in Madison, Wisconsin, which is where my daughter happens to be in college, at a small Christian school there. Three people died at least. You know, people don't see those shooters as heroes, but the Luigi story is part of that story, too. A society that has become numb to gun violence, where more and more people are turning and some people are apologizing for it. And where we've seen, and this is at the top of my list of frustrations, it doesn't make 2024 any different. It's yet another year where we've done absolutely nothing to address gun violence. In fact, we've probably made it worse.
- [15:28]
Jeffrey Engel
I think we probably made it worse. And we are, of course, right as we are thinking about this. December is the anniversary month of Sandy Hook. If that wasn't going to jar the nation, it's hard to fathom anything that will.
- [15:40]
Martin DeCaro
You are right. Because I'll just note to our listeners, we happen to be recording this on December 16th, the episode coming out on December 31st. So they're not alarmed by what you said. Yes, there was a juvenile opening fire at a Christian school in Madison, killing four people, according to police. I just got this alert on my phone from the New York Times and I looked at it and just put my phone right back down.
- [16:02]
Jeffrey Engel
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
- [16:04]
Martin DeCaro
Another one of those. Obviously it's not an oh, well situation. Well, that's a little bit old.
- [16:12]
Jeremy Suri
That chart.
- [16:13]
Martin DeCaro
That chart's a couple of months old. And if you want to really see something to say, take a look at what happened. We're going to fix our borders. We're going to fix everything about our country.
- [16:33]
Jeremy Suri
And we made history for a reason tonight. And the reason is going to be just that. We overcame obstacles that nobody thought possible.
- [16:43]
Martin DeCaro
And it is now clear that we've achieved the most incredible political thing. Look, what happened. Is this crazy? No, Small bore analysis. Meaning we don't need to get into. What if Harris has said this or gone on that podcast or what about the campaign in Michigan versus Pennsylvania? That small stuff gets less important as time goes by. I want to talk about the notion that we're moving into a new period and that maybe Trump's reelection is another sign of that or another symptom of that or another causal mover to borrow A term that historians might use. Some people are saying we're in a post liberal period. We're in a post, post Cold War period. Maybe we really can't say this yet. Maybe we can't define it. Jeremy, your thoughts on this? Are we moving into a new period of history right now that is less liberal than the previous one? And what does Trump's win have to do with that?
- [17:41]
Jeremy Suri
Well, I think we're in a period where there are many more questions about the future of democracy. Liberalism of a certain variety has reached the end of the line. Right. And that liberal neolism was a liberalism that presumed there was some fusion, some natural fusion between markets and equality, very wealthy individuals somehow through an invisible hand producing value that would help those at the bottom. It's not that that's entirely wrong, but people don't have faith in that any longer. It's not neoliberalism per se. It's actually a form of kind of what I would call Cold War liberalism. And we were sort of living on the fumes of Cold War liberalism for a long time. And just as America's position in the world is more question that as the legitimacy statement, as the brand that we represented, that's more questioned. I don't think that's the end of liberalism, but I think it's. It's going to look different. It's going to look very, very different. I don't think we've seen what's next. We just know we've left that period. We're. We're in a period of transition, the beginning of a new period. And I don't know what it's going to look like. I don't think it's going to be a period of authoritarianism per se, but it's not going to be the democracies that, that the three of us grew up in, either.
- [18:51]
Martin DeCaro
A liberalism that doesn't have a revolutionary or aspirational vision. I mean, that was Samuel Moines book.
- [19:00]
Jeremy Suri
Yeah, yeah. I'm not sure I go along with that, though. I think it's a fair argument. I think what was at the core of Cold War liberalism was a belief that a certain trained group of individuals could manage society and manage society in a way in which would allow people to continue to get rich, while those who were not so rich would have opportunity. The kind of managerial capitalism and managerial democracy that has its extreme versions in technocracy, but it's at the very core of the notion of having a school of public policy and training people to be able to do this kind of work, creating a modern bureaucracy. And it's one of the great triumphs of the second half of the 20th century that that really becomes the norm in so many societies. And I think that model worked for its time. It doesn't work for today. It doesn't have the same faith attached to it. But we have to admit, even those like myself, who think there's a lot of value in that model, it didn't produce the results that it promised. Look at how unequal our world is, for example. Look at all the needless wars we fought. The managers did not manage as well as they promised. And being unable to manage as well as they promised, they don't have the same legitimacy. And that's a fair criticism.
- [20:08]
Martin DeCaro
There's a bipartisan consensus behind everything you just said. I just talked to Nelson Lichtenstein about this on the show, about the transformation of American capitalism starting after the Cold War. The post Cold War period is over and it's been over. We're maybe waking up to that belatedly, the next period. How to define it, we can't say for sure yet. If what you're saying is right, then we can understand why people have rejected liberalism, or more specifically the Democratic Party, which had always been the party of blue collar workers. So I can understand why they're frustrated with it, but it's still hard to understand why the alternative they prefer is Donald Trump.
- [20:47]
Jeffrey Engel
Donald Trump represents as outside the mainstream and outside a box a political figure as we have had since, I don't know, Andrew Jackson, maybe Huey Long.
- [20:57]
Martin DeCaro
Yeah, well, Trump says the system is rigged. And people say, you know what? He's right.
- [21:01]
Jeffrey Engel
And he says lots of crazy stuff beyond fictional, breaking every norm that we ever saw in politics. We have all said, all of us many times, that if any other person said the things he said, they would have had their career ended long ago. So.
- [21:14]
Martin DeCaro
But you know, Jeffrey, you know what.
- [21:15]
Jeffrey Engel
People do say people have turned to Trump. I don't think it's because of his ideology. I think there are some who like it. But I think the majority of people who are voting for Trump are actually voting for Trump because he is as far different from what we're seeing as you can possibly get.
- [21:28]
Martin DeCaro
He's not just beyond fiction, he's a liar. But you know what people say, and there is some truth to this. Well, they'll say all politicians are full of it. Look what the mess they've made of our, of our lives and our country over the past 30 years. Trump is a liar, but he doesn't hide it. So in a sense, he comes off more authentically.
- [21:44]
Jeremy Suri
I guess there's some strange logic to that. I do have to point out that our country's not a mess, by the way people might perceive it that way, but this is part of Jeff's point that people are believing and seeing something. In fact, most Americans, not all. Most Americans today live better than they've ever lived before. And yes, our students will have trouble buying a house, but you know what? Their parents and grandparents did better than pretty much any generation of Americans, almost across race, actually, some of this is the way people perceive things, which is real, but is also different from the reality that's out there. But sort of building on what Jeff said, I think it's not just that Trump is an outsider. I think it is the attraction in this moment. I don't think this will necessarily define our era, but it is the attraction of a feudal lord, of a strong man. That's what I see across societies. Because if people can't manage, and you don't trust institutions, whether they're governing institutions or economic institutions, now perhaps not even military institutions, what do you look for? You look for that strongman figure who you believe will protect you. And why do you believe he'll protect you? Well, there are different kinds of reasons. It could be because of the way he looks. It can be because of what he says. It can be because he hates the same people you hate. I mean, one of the reasons that Latino men are voting for him is they feel completely left out of the system. They don't actually think Donald Trump is their champion, but they think that Donald Trump authentically hates those who they hate and those who they think are mistreating them. And so it's a cocktail of those things. And that's really not unprecedented. That's how strong men work. They put together. They're coalitions of grievance, and they become the sort of projection for that coalition of grievance.
- [23:19]
Martin DeCaro
Tariffs will solve those problems, obviously, and.
- [23:23]
Jeremy Suri
Eliminating any labor to do any work in your community.
- [23:27]
Martin DeCaro
One last remark about Trump, and we'll move on to Biden briefly in our Year of Review episode here. On a personal note, and I understand that Trump supporters listening aren't gonna appreciate what I have to say. I'm just disappointed.
- [23:40]
Jeremy Suri
Any who are listening, yeah, sure.
- [23:41]
Martin DeCaro
I am a Bihar partisan, or I should say nonpartisan podcast. I mean, this is just my personal opinion. I'm disappointed that somebody like him has been reelected. He's a monumental disgrace to our democracy. He trashed the peaceful transfer of Power, one of the foundations of our democracy. And he will get away with that. I mean, the Jack Smith prosecution, which took too long, is over for all intents and purposes. So I just think at this important time in our history, and it's always an important time in our history, that we could have done better as a polity, but we didn't.
- [24:14]
Jeremy Suri
I just want to say, to build on that for me as a teacher and a parent, that's the hardest part of this, even more than the policy differences and everything else, because we know this as educators. We all know this, even if we're not educators. Right. People follow what you do more than what you say. You know, we can pontificate all we want. Actually, our students are looking at what we do. And when you have a figure who acts that way. And this is why I was always disappointed with Bill Clinton, because Bill Clinton wasn't nearly as bad, but he had his own clear behavioral issues that ran again against what we would assume. It justifies, it empowers that behavior. And I don't think it's a surprise we're seeing more belligerence in sporting events, more belligerence in interpersonal relations, more toxic masculinity in our society. It enables that. And the fact that so many people embrace that a second time is actually quite depressing to me.
- [25:06]
Martin DeCaro
And the lying, of course, all politicians stretch the truth when it is convenient for them, but. But the lying, I mean, the man still claims he won the 2020 election, and there are still people who believe that we had that election. If it were an honorable election, we wouldn't have had any of the problems that we're talking about right now. So it is an assault on the very notion of objective reality.
- [25:28]
Jeffrey Engel
How future generations are going to describe our reality is up for grabs at this moment. Because I can write a scenario where Donald Trump's version of American history is repudiated, or at least continues to be contentious, in which students, you know, 50 years from now, will read about the incredible triumph of democracy that kept the country together. Or 50 years from now, they'll read about the incredible triumph of democracy that recognized how everybody began to understand that Donald Trump was right. History is, in fact, written by the winners. What the nation comes to believe is in large part going to be dependent upon what happens next.
- [26:06]
Martin DeCaro
Well, so much talk about democracy and fascism over the past four years and the end of democracy, or, you know, our republic will not survive the damage that is being done. Isn't this why Rome is so popular among people these days? The Study of Rome, apparently. I mean, I haven't gotten in on this. I haven't listened to the Rome history podcast, but it was piece by piece that the Roman Republic was dismantled and then suddenly you didn't have a republic anymore.
- [26:30]
Jeremy Suri
Well, I mean, there's a serious argument to be made about that, but that's not the argument 99% of people are making. They're taking one or two little isolated facts or, and generalizing from them. And sure, I mean, no empire lasts forever. And the Roman Empire, for a variety of reasons that people from before and after Gibbon have written about, there are all kinds of explanations. It does, in a certain way, die a slow death, but there are parts of it that carry on. In some ways, the Byzantine Empire is the continuation. So this is not a simple story. Right.
- [27:01]
Jeffrey Engel
Well, and let's go back for a second to the end of the Cold War moment. What is better than the end of the Cold War?
- [27:06]
Martin DeCaro
Well, that was an end of an empire.
- [27:08]
Jeffrey Engel
The two operative theories of what was going on at the end of the Cold War. First was Francis Fukuyama's that democracy was ascendant and was going to be the end of history. That one obviously gets remembered as not having panned out. But the second, and Jeremy knows this far better than I as a student of his, is Paul Kennedy's sense that empires rise and fall. And remember that Kennedy was writing in the 1980s explaining and predicting that the Soviet Union and the United States were both entering periods of crisis. His book ponders which one was going to collapse first. So since we know the Soviets collapsed first, that perhaps gave a new life, gave new life, gave a little extra boost to the American empire. But it's still everything that Kennedy describes about imperial overstretch, about the lack of investment in infrastructure, about over prioritizing the military, et cetera, et cetera, is clearly true in American society today, as it has been since the 1980s. So he might be right. If we asked him America is going to collapse, he'll say, well, not yet, but it will.
- [28:14]
Martin DeCaro
The rise and fall the Great Powers, 1987. Paul Kennedy. I did read that book a few.
- [28:19]
Jeremy Suri
Years ago, and to be fair, as Jeffrey knows, he's been saying exactly that since 87, that just wait in the long run.
- [28:25]
Jeffrey Engel
Well, you know, the United States, I think I heard him say at one point, well, you know, like I didn't anticipate the Internet, so that gave a boost for a couple years.
- [28:33]
Martin DeCaro
Well, you know, the United States is not collapsing. Decline is only evident in retrospect. It's a process that takes along a long, long time. But I think Kennedy was saying it's relative power that ebbs and flows, too. So, I mean, obviously, the unipolar moment is over. The United States does not have unchallenged hegemony over all parts of the globe, and that's not such a bad thing either.
- [28:54]
Jeffrey Engel
Well, but that's why the Roman Empire is a good example, because fall of the Roman empire lasted, what, 350 years? There was no moment where the lights all turned off, of course.
- [29:02]
Martin DeCaro
So, yeah, I don't know. I don't know anything about Rome, so I shouldn't.
- [29:04]
Jeffrey Engel
Well, I just told you everything you need to know.
- [29:06]
Martin DeCaro
There you go.
- [29:07]
Jeffrey Engel
So if the United States is declining in relative power vis a vis at the rest of the. It's not going to happen overnight. Until it happens overnight.
- [29:15]
Martin DeCaro
So Biden's legacy, we're not going to cover that in this episode because you both have graciously and generously agreed to come back on the podcast again in 2025. And we're going to try to put Biden's four years, maybe his whole career, in some type of historical context. We're going to move on to one more ugly, ugly ass. I mean, there's so many to choose from. 2024, and that is the ongoing, disastrous wars in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Another truism about history is that wars always last longer than people expect them to. They escalate and they ripple and they do more damage than what was originally thought possible, and they have consequences that we can't possibly foresee. The war in Eastern Europe. Are you confident that we might see a negotiated settlement soon?
- [30:03]
Jeremy Suri
No, I'm not. I think it's really hard to think about what it looks like. I do think Donald Trump will push for that. He might have a little bit of leverage early on. But here's the challenge, right? I mean, the Ukrainians can't agree to anything that allows Putin to just lick his wounds, prepare and attack again in a year or two. We know historically the best way to police that from happening would be to have a settlement that has the United States, the United nations, and other international entities policing it. But the will there from the United nations and the United States is not there. So. So I hope there's a negotiated settlement. But much of what we're seeing in Ukraine is in some ways a replay of World War I. And World War I went on for four years with the lines hardly moving and tens of thousands of people dying a month. And that could continue. Both Ukraine and Russia are hurting from this war. Look at what Russia has lost. Finland joins NATO along with Sweden, which was unthinkable before. The Russians have lost. It looks like they've lost their air base in Syria and probably losing their naval base in Syria. Those are their last bases cases in the Middle east from the Soviet Union, period. I mean, these are huge losses. And they're. They're so short of personnel. Right. They're bringing in Yemenis and North Koreans, so they're in a tough situation. But the Ukrainians have even more threadbare resources now, and they might lose support from the US So I don't know. I don't foresee a clean, easy deal of any kind in Ukraine.
- [31:27]
Martin DeCaro
Yeah, I was going to jump in there, Jeremy. We're talking about what a disaster the war has been for Russia, even though it still might prevail in one form or another, yet the war persists. I always think of the First World War by John Keegan. All the reasons why it made no sense to persist in this existentially pointless struggle for four years, yet they did.
- [31:46]
Jeffrey Engel
I want to bring up a related issue to this entire conversation, or an observation about this entire conversation, which is one of the things that has really been troubling to me this year in particular, though I think it's been building for a couple of years. I cannot have a thoughtful conversation about history that doesn't sound really pessimistic, and that isn't a downer. And I am not a pessimistic person. Whenever I speak to audiences these days, I feel by the end they need to apologize. The world's a beautiful, amazing place. Do we only focus on the bad things? Do we only focus on the negativities? Do we only focus on the problems?
- [32:19]
Martin DeCaro
Yeah. Because I'm a journalist, you know, that's all I do is deal with depressing stuff. So there you go.
- [32:25]
Jeffrey Engel
Maybe that's what makes 1989 so interesting, to be honest, is that that's one of the few areas where we would say, wow, things are going awesome.
- [32:30]
Jeremy Suri
I think the honesty of your observation, Jeff, points out how much of our historical consciousness is affected by the world we're in. Because, you know, what we're seeing now are historical developments, a number of which seem to be producing rotten fruit of one kind or another. But it might look very different in a couple of years, and the sources might be the same sources now that make us concerned. Right. So if the war in Ukraine produces some sort of better results in Europe than one we can imagine right now. We would then say, you see the arc of history bends toward justice.
- [33:04]
Martin DeCaro
But you know what's not changing? Sorry, Jeremy, but you know what's not changing? We are seeing a new Middle East. How it's going to look in the end, we're not sure. But one underlying issue has not been resolved and will not be resolved for the better, and that is the Palestinian issue. If anything, it's going in the wrong direction. Palestinians are being ethnically cleansed out of northern Gaza and a Palestinian state seems like such a remote possibility that why even talk about it? This is, in the view of some experts, genocide. The consensus has been the only way to solve this fundamental problem is a two state solution. It seems as far away as it's had at any point since the early 1990s during the height of the Oslo Accords.
- [33:47]
Jeremy Suri
Yeah. And that would be my warning to people around Bibi Netanyahu and others who are running a victory in the lap now that Assad has fallen. Right. The case for Netanyahu is that he's used extreme force, force that we thought was unthinkable before from any Israeli leader. And what he's done is he's debilitated Hezbollah, put Iran in a corner, undermined threatening regime in Syria. And not only that, it has opened the door for the Israelis to use force. It's not been covered very much, actually. Right. To destroy Syria's existing naval and other.
- [34:23]
Martin DeCaro
Capabilities abilities as a violation of serious sovereignty. But go ahead.
- [34:27]
Jeremy Suri
You could argue in the short run, big win for Netanyahu. And to his credit, these are things he's wanted to do for a long time. So he has effectuated the strategy that he has had. But you have just pointed out the fatal flaw, which is that there is a large population. In fact, it is the densest part of the world. Gaza, it is the densest part of the world. You have a large population of people who now have no future that they can look to with any kind of hope, with any kind of political say and participation. And their best route in their eyes. Not what I think. It's what I think many reasonable people in that part of the world think is long term resistance. And that's not good for Israel. And Israel has alienated itself from most of its allies around the world. So for the long run, this is a real problem for Israel to try to, to continue to use military power and protect itself and build a sustainable economy as an isolated country with a long term resistance, a resistance that's going to be very difficult to deal with for year after year within their own state. That's a real problem.
- [35:31]
Martin DeCaro
So on that note, we will shift gears now to something positive about 2024. How about Caitlin Clark? What a great story she was. As a longtime news broadcaster, I was always told you don't have to. To put a transition sentence when you're doing a newscast between stories that are totally unrelated. Just read each story in succession. The listeners will get it. So I just went from the disaster of the Middle east to Caitlin Clark. There you go. What a great story.
- [36:00]
Jeremy Suri
Back to, I think, a point Jeff made earlier, right. That there are two new histories we're living now, right. One is maybe a story of authoritarianism and all the negative stuff at the same time. I mean, there's so many positive developments in our world. Women's sports, the attention. The WNBA is now a player who would have taken it seriously five years ago, Right. They were getting, you know, small crowds. Now, Caitlin Clark, and because of her play and because of, I think, her endearing personality, which strangely rubs some people the wrong way. But nonetheless, I mean, she, she has, I think, galvanized an emerging particularly female athleticism and autonomy and leadership and our society, and there's so many elements of that, our society is becoming more diverse racially and gender wise than it's ever been. At the same time that people are resisting that more than ever.
- [36:49]
Martin DeCaro
Hollywood movies. Jeff. I told Jeremy that if he brings up Wicked, he's never allowed back on the podcast again. I'm just kidding. I did not see Wicked, but I thought it was a pretty meh year for movies culturally. Right now there is more entertainment available and at cheaper prices, although those cheaper prices are not so cheap anymore. I think my Netflix, Netflix is $24 a month all of a sudden, but we have more options for entertainment right from our home couches than any people in the history of humanity has ever had. Yet so much of it seems just to be meh. You're a movie critic now, Engel. What do you think?
- [37:22]
Jeffrey Engel
Meh.
- [37:24]
Martin DeCaro
I mean, did you see any good movies this year?
- [37:26]
Jeremy Suri
I did.
- [37:26]
Martin DeCaro
I thought they were all kind of just funny.
- [37:28]
Jeffrey Engel
Since we're keeping this podcast as a historical record, this is the year 2024 when I realized I was losing my mind because I feel like I saw a really good movie and I can't tell you what it was.
- [37:38]
Martin DeCaro
The top 10 movies.
- [37:38]
Jeffrey Engel
It's not great radio.
- [37:39]
Martin DeCaro
I know y top 10 grossing movies were all sequels. I mean, where's the originality here? I mean, there's always been sequels, but There doesn't seem anything else but sequels now.
- [37:47]
Jeremy Suri
We saw one just a couple of nights ago, and it's on my mind. And I think it was a very good movie. I don't know if I'd say it was the best movie of the year. And it's not. Is the best movie ever. No, it's not up there with Casablanca and, you know, Lawrence of Arabia. But Conclave is really good about the selection of a new pope.
- [38:03]
Martin DeCaro
Oh, yeah. I got halfway through it and nodded off. So I got.
- [38:06]
Jeremy Suri
See, I really liked it as a political junkie.
- [38:08]
Martin DeCaro
I was just tired. I'm gonna watch it again, but go ahead.
- [38:10]
Jeremy Suri
I thought it was. Was brilliant on what politics really is. I mean, here you have a group of cardinals who are all deep believers. They are religious, they're good men. Right. This should be easy. And you have all the problems of politics, personality, greed, mendacity, lying. They're. Choosing a pope is not that different from a party choosing a party leader or a university deciding who to hire. Right. It's the same. And I thought, I'm thinking of showing it to my students because it just. It shows you the universality of politics and it does that very well.
- [38:45]
Martin DeCaro
I enjoyed it. When I said I fell asleep, it was only because I was tired at the end of the day. But I do want to watch it again.
- [38:51]
Jeffrey Engel
I saw Deadpool and Wolverine and thought it was funny.
- [38:53]
Martin DeCaro
So angle you're having trouble remembering movies. What was the best book you read?
- [38:56]
Jeffrey Engel
Ah, the best book I read. I actually wrote this one down because I wanted to make sure I could tell you I've been thinking about writing this young person of fan. Let's better a young scholar teaching in the northeast at a small liberal arts college. The book is Indian wars Everywhere. The author is. I'm forgetting his name now. Stefan Un a u n e. I'm probably pronouncing that, mispronouncing that. And he makes the very astute point. The way in which American military leaders and operators talk about international foes is basically the same way that we've talked about native Americans in the military since 1780s. Even before, when we talk about military operations, we still use terms like geronimo or the natives are restless or all kinds of Indian terms, which I think reinforces the idea that there is still something within the American psyche of a frontier mentality that can solve problems through violence and through the dispossession of other people's property.
- [39:57]
Martin DeCaro
Jeremy, your favorite book.
- [39:59]
Jeremy Suri
So my favorite novel was A gentleman in Moscow by Amor Taus T O W les and it's actually been made into a series. I forget which streaming service was actually quite good. It's about a Russian aristocrat and his survival in a hotel through the revolution and through the Soviet, early Soviet system, through Stalinism and the humanity and inhumanity of it all. It's beautifully done as a sort of capsule, as only a novelist can. Right to encapsulate these world historical events in that way. In terms of history. There's so many books I read. This is another good news story. There's so many people writing really wonderful books. One that would be on my list. I don't know if it's my top book, but I think one that's really relevant for today that I recommend to everyone. It's actually a relatively short book. It's a biography of Alfred Dreyfus, who is of course the French general who was tried in an anti Semitic trial and imprisoned and then finally released when intellectuals came out to speak out against the anti Semitism in early 20th century France. It's in this series of Jewish lives that Yale University Press publishes Maurice Samuels. S A M U L E S is the author. It's just a 200 page book, but it captures Dreyfus's life. But it also captures the allure of anti Semitism in another time. And it of course resonates with our time now without being political. It's very historically grounded thinking about what anti Semitism is and why it takes hold of an institution like the French military in the early 20th century.
- [41:27]
Martin DeCaro
My favorite or the best book I read this year. And thanks for those two recommendations or three recommendations. Actually, my favorite was Everyone who is Gone is Here by Jonathan Blitzer. It is about the history of the immigration crisis in our country. And I think just with everything going on and with the potential for an attempted mass deportation coming up in 2025. And beyond that, this is one book everyone should read. I learned a ton about it, the immigration system itself and why it is broken. I did have John on the podcast to discuss it. Everyone who is Gone is Here by Jonathan Blitzer. It was a horrible year for many people across the world. It was a good year in many respects as well. Just on a personal note, Jeffrey Engel and I know you can relate to me because we're both fans of a certain New York football team. I know my life is going really well when my biggest personal beef about anything is the fact my football team stinks. I have a really tough life, you know, my team stinks. Talking about the New York jets here, and our buddy Jeremy is already, you know, needling me about the possibility that Rogers might be back or not back next year at the Jets.
- [42:36]
Jeremy Suri
They should bring him back and bench him. Bring him back, pay him all this money and then bench him.
- [42:40]
Martin DeCaro
Well, you're historians, you know, when this period of jets history is written, the two year Rodgers interregnum or era or error, I guess it's not going to look so good, is it?
- [42:50]
Jeremy Suri
Look, there's a problem with New York sports in general, right. And it's the same problem we see in politics. Those who have too much money. Money. And the robber barons today better worry about this. Those who have too much money end up paying for garbage. And that's happening.
- [43:03]
Martin DeCaro
Jeffer, do you have any hope for the future of the New York Jets?
- [43:06]
Jeffrey Engel
No, I mean, I really, really don't. I don't know what to tell you. And when we talk about the history of the New York jets, what are we going to talk about this period? You mean the period of the last 20 years when we haven't made the playoffs?
- [43:16]
Martin DeCaro
14.
- [43:18]
Jeffrey Engel
So I guess could we go back to our discussion of the fall of the Roman Empire? We could talk about individual Roman. Roman emperors that lost some land, but the overall trend was pretty clear. In retrospect, I am not optimistic at all.
- [43:30]
Martin DeCaro
Well, I did go to a new bookstore the other day and I found on the shelf there the greatest moments in jets history. It's a brand new book, but it's only one page.
- [43:38]
Jeffrey Engel
I was going to say very Joe Namath. And that's it.
- [43:40]
Martin DeCaro
Yeah, that's right. It's a. It's not a book, it's a pamphlet. No, it's a text message.
- [43:43]
Jeremy Suri
Why do you guys remain jets fans?
- [43:45]
Martin DeCaro
Because, you know, I'm not giving up on it now. I've been at this my whole life. Life, you know, you're not going to give us.
- [43:50]
Jeremy Suri
There's a time to move on.
- [43:52]
Jeffrey Engel
Sunk cost.
- [43:53]
Martin DeCaro
You don't know what'll happen because they'll eventually get good and then I'll. Then I'll be exposed.
- [43:58]
Jeffrey Engel
This is actually my question, to be honest. I've pondered this at some length, that if I stop being a Jets fan and I. They become good, will I be secretly happy? Because clearly I will have been the cause of their rejuvenation.
- [44:11]
Martin DeCaro
That kind. Some kind of superstition there, you know, here's my feeling on it. They still made the right move to get Aaron Rodgers. You know why they needed a quarterback and you can't win in this league without a quarterback. It didn't work out. But you know, Mr. Surrey over here, he's got a quarterback now for the next decade. The packers are looking good.
- [44:29]
Jeremy Suri
And notice how this happened, right? We drafted him. We have a system, right? I mean, there's something the packers do. They're not the best football team. They're one of the best, but they're not the best. But they have a system, right? And that's how Love became Love. That's how Rogers became Rogers. And then the system also recognizes when the player is close to the end. That's when we get rid of Farre, we get rid of Rogers. That's the one thing the packers do well. And it's very Wisconsin, right? It's not about the superstar, it's about the system.
- [44:55]
Martin DeCaro
And eventually, I guess in 10 years, love will wind up on the jets just like Favre and Rogers.
- [44:59]
Jeremy Suri
That's probably right. That's probably right.
- [45:01]
Jeffrey Engel
When we write the history of the Rogers era, we will have to begin with the Zach Wilson pick.
- [45:06]
Martin DeCaro
Well, yeah, that is exactly. They needed to get.
- [45:08]
Jeffrey Engel
Move on from him to Jeremy's. To Jeremy's point. It's a systemic failure. Actually, I was about to say I don't know a lot about football. That's not true. I know a hell of a lot about football, personal experience and everything. And I watched Zach Wilson, he was in college and he was terrible. Who thinks this guy's an NFL quarterback?
- [45:22]
Jeremy Suri
I agree with you. I didn't. I never understood that either, Jeff, totally with you. I thought there was something they saw that I didn't see.
- [45:27]
Jeffrey Engel
I feel like we should be saying, hey, Mikey, first time, long time here.
- [45:30]
Martin DeCaro
In Los Angeles, WFA and New York. Well, I have just lost my audience for all of 2024 by spending approximately accomplished three minutes talking about the irrelevant New York Jets. So I apologize to everybody. I was going to say we should finish the podcast with a prediction for 2025, but that's, that's silly too. We don't know what that.
- [45:51]
Jeffrey Engel
No, I got one.
- [45:51]
Martin DeCaro
All right, go ahead.
- [45:52]
Jeffrey Engel
I got one. On my bingo card. It refers to something that was said earlier. Assad is going to get away with it. You said not for long. I. I would be shocked, shocked if we are having this discussion next year and he's still around because people who, who don't do well by Vladimir Putin tend to not be around.
- [46:09]
Jeremy Suri
I agree. I agree. That's a good one.
- [46:11]
Jeffrey Engel
That's almost too easy.
- [46:12]
Martin DeCaro
My prediction. I don't have one. I'm not gonna even waste my time.
- [46:15]
Jeremy Suri
On this, but I've got one. I've got one. We will have a conversation the end of next year, and we'll say, whether he's popular or successful or not, I can't predict. But we will say, isn't it extraordinary that all the things Trump ran on, he's doing now the opposite and renouncing and blaming other people. People blaming Elon Musk for this stupid idea of creating Doge, blaming Tom Bowman for deporting the wrong people, blaming inflation on his treasury secretary, that all the things he has run on, he will renounce and blame other people. He won't say he was wrong. He will simply say other people believed these things that we have associated with him. And we will be commenting on that in one form. Whether it will still work for Trump or not, I don't know. Know. But that will be the reality.
- [47:00]
Martin DeCaro
All right, so on that note, here is my prediction then we will be talking about some major and probably terrible thing that we have no idea is coming right now as we wrap up this year.
- [47:09]
Jeffrey Engel
I think that's absolutely right. In fact, just to add a little bit of academic spin on that, I participated in a project, I guess, about eight years ago now, when Trump first came in at the Miller center at the University of Virginia, where we looked at the first years of administrations and those of us who studied foreign policy looked at the first year of basically every American administration, you know, since the Cold war or since 1945, and came to the following conclusion. In the first year, something happened which nobody saw coming.
- [47:37]
Jeremy Suri
Yeah, I forgot about that project. That was a good volume we did. We looked at each president and that. It's true. Every single one.
- [47:43]
Martin DeCaro
I'll hold you to it. Talk to you guys soon. And I'll talk to all of you soon, too. New episodes every Tuesday and Friday as 202025 unfolds. My newsletter every Friday. Sign up free at history as it happens.com or search for History as it Happens on Substack.
- [49:11]
Jeffrey Engel
It.