Beschloss stresses the importance of protecting democracy before it's history

Even with final exams at Purdue University Fort Wayne starting next week, there was still time for one last inspiring lesson on Thursday night. Best-selling author Michael Beschloss delivered a masterclass on presidential history as the final presenter in the 2023-24 Omnibus Speaker Series.

Assuring the audience that he is nonpartisan and has voted for presidential candidates from both major parties - while also saying he would avoid naming any current candidate - Beschloss made pointed comments about living political figures to draw parallels to other moments in time.

"I think we are as close to a potential choice between dictatorship and democracy as we have ever been in American history, including in 1940 and 1860," Beschloss said after being introduced by Richard Weiner, chair of the Department of History. "Too many people have given up their lives on the battlefield, abroad and domestically; in civil rights marches and women's marches to expand the rights of all of us. Where we should be going is our rights as individual Americans should be expanding. That used to be a conservative notion, to protect individual rights.

"You don't want a dictator who can tell you what to do. All I'm saying is that any form of dictatorship could change your lives so much every hour of every day. So think about the choice very carefully and do not be sidetracked on other issues, because to my mind, looking at this through the context of history, it's too important."

While stressing that he sees the November election as a point of real potential danger for the country, Beschloss said he hopes his sons, ages 27 and 30, continue to have as many rights as he and his wife have had throughout their lifetimes.

"It will not happen if people don't see what's at stake," he said.

During an afternoon classroom session among mostly Honors Program students and political science majors, Beschloss engaged in a lively question-and-answer session. The students were guided through American history on a path that sounded as if it could have been inspired by the Billy Joel song "We Didn't Start the Fire." Beschloss highlighted events such as the Civil War, 9/11, Father Coughlin, Watergate, the Great Depression, the 2008 economic collapse, the pandemic, World War II, Kent State, and D-Day. He also deftly answered students' queries about presidents.

"None of these people are a devil or an angel," Beschloss said. "They are all parts of light and darkness mixed up."

The key to studying presidents, Beschloss said, is time, often taking decades to discover behind-the-scenes stories that expose a president's strengths and insecurities. Historical hindsight, he said, allows them to be revealed as three-dimensional figures.

"I can make an academic argument for why knowing about politics and knowing about history is good for anyone living in any period," Beschloss said, "but it's hard for me to see how any of us could live through a period like this without at least wanting the self-defense of having some idea of what is going on and what kind of opportunities there might be - but more to the point right now, what kind of dangers."

Beschloss's presence on campus seemed timed perfectly with critical arguments being made in multiple courts and on Capitol Hill.

"As long as I've been alive, I've always just taken democracy as a given and never thought of it because threats would come from time to time, but they would be evanescent," Beschloss said. "To connect this to what we saw this morning, in all my life, I never thought I would hear the Supreme Court justices seriously entertaining the argument that a president should have the right to go tell the military to go shoot his opponent without any penalty. I don't think that's going to happen, but it's possible."

Speaking to distinctly different audiences, Beschloss tailored his message to engage each. America has survived because of its historic strength and purpose, he said.

"The overwhelming thing about American History is not that we haven't had crises and divisions, because God knows we've had a lot of them through two-and-a-half centuries, but here's a system that was devised in 1787," Beschloss. "We've gone through depressions, we've gone through wars, terrible divisions, terrible atrocities, violence, and all sorts of things, but in the end, our democracy has survived all of it. The DNA of America is still what I think it was in 1787."

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