It's Dropping Out Season
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Welcome to the This Day In Esoteric Political History newsletter. Each week, a member of our team (or a friend of the show) gathers together bits of America’s past and attempts to find a throughline that might add a little understanding to our current moment.
Today, you’re in the steady hands of me, Jody!
A quick recap of next week in American history.
March 28
1796: President George Washington cited executive privilege in refusing a request for documents from Congress. This started a long and messy tradition of presidents shielding their actions from oversight—a tradition that’s very much alive today
March 29
1952: President Harry Truman announces that he won’t be seeking another term as president, throwing the Democratic party into dissaray
2001: President George W. Bush orders the U.S. to abandon the Kyoto Protocol on global warming
March 30
1870: The 15th Amendment, guaranteeing the right to vote regardless of race, is adopted
1951: Ethel and Julius Rosenberg are convicted of spying in order to share nuclear secrets with the U.S.S.R. They would be sentenced to death and eventually executed
1981: President Ronald Reagan is shot and wounded in an assassination attempt after exiting Washington Hilton Hotel
March 31
1776: Abigail Adams writes to John Adams, urging him to "remember the ladies" in the new laws of the land.
1968: President Lyndon B. Johnson announces he won't seek reelection
April 1
1945: U.S. forces land on the Japanese island of Okinawa during World War II
1970: President Richard Nixon signs the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act into law, banning cigarette advertising on television and radio in the United States
April 2
1863: The largest in a series of Southern bread riots occurs in Richmond, spawned by food deprivation during the American Civil War [[subject of an upcoming episode!]]
1870: Victoria Woodhull, the first female presidential candidate, announces her candidacy
1910 : Louisiana Senator Robert F. Broussard proposes allocating a quarter of a million dollars to import hippos from Africa and grow them in American swamps, then harvest them for food
April 3
1979: Jane Byrne becomes the first woman elected mayor of a major American city (Chicago)
In which we take the above collection of events and find themes, throughlines, rabbit holes and more.
Well, the first thing that jumps out is that this is apparently the week in which sitting Democratic presidents announce that they won’t be seeking re-election.
(don’t hold your breath for 2024)
It’s a reminder that election years are long and that narratives can coalesce and shift rapidly in the months between April and November. Both presidents felt that there was enough time to let the party find a new candidate and rally the troops. Of course, cut to November in both 1952 and 1968 and… the Dems got torched.
It’s also worth noting that those decisions were made in a period when the convention played a much bigger role in deciding the candidate, rather than serve as the coronation party that they are today. Changes to the primary process, the need to raise enormous amounts of cash as early as possible… it’s a lot harder to change gears these days.
Nevertheless, it’s worth re-visiting Truman and LBJ’s remarks when announcing that they’d bow out.
Truman:
“I shall not be a candidate for reelection. I have served my country long, and I think efficiently and honestly. I shall not accept a renomination. I do not feel that it is my duty to spend another 4 years in the White House.”
LBJ:
With America's sons in the fields far away, with America's future under challenge right here at home, with our hopes and the world's hopes for peace in the balance every day, I do not believe that I should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan causes or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office—the Presidency of your country. Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.
More than anything, they seem exhausted. And that part certainly resonates with all of us here in 2024.
See you on the show, and in the newsletter next week. And a special shoutout to researcher Jacob Feldman, who has been the engine behind getting this new newsletter off the ground.
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