Trump’s First Hundred Days in office have been like no other presidents. There is no deep channel you can follow in trying to write the First Rough Draft of History for this man’s presidency you are constantly going this way and that on jagged currents. This FRDH podcast rambles looking at Trump as an avatar of a new society which emulates what it watches on TV unable to distinguish between reality and reality TV programs. “It’s a Kardashian world and he’s the Kardashian candidate.”

It also analyzes the precedents for Trump and the resistance to him. Ronald Reagan was the first president to gain the presidency following a television career. It looks at what resistance to Reagan was able to achieve.

It also criticizes the current practice of journalism via social networking sites, particularly Twitter. Do you think Woodward and Bernstein would have got to the bottom of Watergate if they had been tweeting every little twist and turn of the story. Give FRDH podcast 17 minutes and forty-five seconds and I will give you something to think about for the next hundred days.

Trump and Security: What’s the Policy?

President Trump’s foreign and security policy: What is it? Does the military know? As American war ships steam towards the Korean peninsula and American diplomats argue with Russian leaders about Syria this FRDH podcast is a conversation with historian Robert Bateman, Lt. Col (ret) of the US Army. Bateman, a veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq is currently a fellow at the New America think tank and a contributing columnist for Esquire magazine. He gives a nuanced analysis that non-specialists can understand explaining Trump’s doctrine … or lack of it. He also comes up with some surprising historical analogs for the chaos president.