American History & Presidents

President-Elect Trump: The New Whig President

As someone who served as a Republican delegate from Pennsylvania during the 2016 election, and as a professor of political science and presidential history, I have some fresh political-historical observations untangled from partisan gossip about Donald Trump and his future … Continue reading

The Roots of the New Trump Order

Ronald Reagan won a convincing popular and electoral victory in 1980. Campaigning for income tax cuts, smaller government, and a resolute stand against communism, Reagan earned a mandate to carry out his conservative vision. Part of his victory was owed … Continue reading

Death by Fidel

Editor’s note: This article first appeared at The American Spectator. Fidel Castro is dead. To say those words is so strange. I’ve never known a moment when he wasn’t alive. Castro came to power seven years before I was born, … Continue reading

The Center Presents: Presidential Trivia

We here at the Center want to know how well you know the men who held the highest office in the land. That’s why we’ve created this challenging Presidential Trivia. Have fun! Thanks for having fun with our Presidential Trivia! … Continue reading

What Is Gold Saying About Trump?

Editor’s note: This article first appeared at Forbes.com. Amidst the larger drama of the election last Tuesday, the financial markets staged their own little drama. When the Dow futures plummeted by hundreds of points as it began to look as … Continue reading

How Trumpism trumped Bushism

When Ronald Reagan chose George H. W. Bush as his running mate in 1980, a decades-long dance among the Bush family, the Republican establishment, and the conservative movement began. Without a doubt this one choice set the stage for two … Continue reading

The Gong Show Election of 2016

Many of those reading this article remember The Gong Show. It ran on NBC from June 1976 to July 1978 and briefly reprised in the 1980s. It featured amateur talent, much of it rendering absurd humor. Three judges awarded ridiculous … Continue reading

Remembering a Grimly Prophetic July 4

Editor’s note: A shorter version of this article first appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. On July 4, 1826, America awaited a special moment. It was the young nation’s Jubilee. It was the 50th anniversary of its birth, of the signing of … Continue reading

Trump vs. Reagan: What is a Conservative?

Editor’s note: This article first appeared at ConservativeReview.com. Many of Donald Trump’s supporters have compared him to Ronald Reagan. It is quite instructive that Trump himself picked up the 1980 Reagan campaign slogan, “Let’s Make America Great Again.” Trump speaks positively of Ronald … Continue reading

Hiroshima: Obama vs. Truman

President Obama’s address at Hiroshima, Japan on May 27 provides us with a good opportunity to examine his foreign policy attitude and contrast it with the views of one of America’s most courageous war-time presidents—Harry S. Truman. This exercise has … Continue reading

A “What If” Memorial Day

The news could not have been worse. Starvation, malnutrition, diseases such as typhoid, smallpox, dysentery, and pneumonia, along with freezing temperatures that assaulted thousands of shoeless feet bloodying the snow, attached to bands of “walking skeletons” exposed to the elements … Continue reading