Jon Meacham

America's Crises Would Be Daunting for Any President-Elect

Division is, in fact, more the rule than the exception in American life, writes @jmeacham

By Jon Meacham November 12, 2020

How Impeachment Shows Who We Are as Americans

The possible impeachment of Donald Trump is about more than one man. It is a singular moment in American democracy that will try our capacity for reason over passion, fact over faith and principle over tribe

By Jon Meacham November 7, 2019

Country Music Should Be Political. After All, It Always Has Been

The distinctive American music has always reflected the complicated lives of the people who make it

By Jon Meacham August 15, 2019

Mueller Offers a Lesson in the Power of Reason Over Passion

Almost a century ago, in the aftermath of the First World War, the journalist Walter Lippmann, then 32 years old, published an influential and disturbing critique of democracy and its future. The mood in the...

By Jon Meacham March 28, 2019

George H.W. Bush Believed in the Essential Goodness of Americans

It was Bush who quietly but unmistakably laid the foundations for the 21st century

By Jon Meacham December 1, 2018

A Leader Should Appeal to Their People’s Best Instincts. Donald Trump Appeals to the Worst

George Washington understood the stakes. "As the first of everything," Washington wrote, whatever he did, substantially as well as stylistically, would "serve to establish a precedent." In 1790, the first full year of Washington's presidency,...

By Jon Meacham November 1, 2018

What President Trump Reveals in His Allusions to Nixon and McCarthy

The Evening ended badly. on Dec. 13, 1950, the Washington columnist Drew Pearson was being feted at a birthday dinner at the Sulgrave Club near Dupont Circle. A vocal opponent of Senator Joseph McCarthy, Pearson...

By Jon Meacham August 23, 2018

The South Could Mend America’s Divide—If It Reckons With Its Past

A chance to reshape American life

By Jon Meacham July 26, 2018

50 Years After 1968, We Are Still Living In Its Shadow

No one in the loop--including, almost surely, the man himself--was sure he would really do it. On March 31, 1968, Lyndon B. Johnson was scheduled to address the nation about the Vietnam War at 9...

By Jon Meacham January 18, 2018

Could the 25th Amendment Be Trump's Downfall? Here's How It Works

The 25th Amendment, a constitutional primer

By Jon Meacham January 11, 2018

My Father's Vietnam

The casualties of a lost war didn't end with the fighting

By Jon Meacham September 14, 2017

The Naughty Nineties Set the Stage for Our Reality-TV Presidency

One of the great historical questions is also one of the most difficult to answer: When, precisely, did a given phenomenon, cultural or political, truly begin? Should we date Christianity's durability to the time of...

By Jon Meacham September 14, 2017

American Hate, a History

The message was clear. The fate of America — or at least of white America, which was the only America that counted — was at stake. On the autumn evening of Thursday, Oct. 7, 1948,...

By Jon Meacham August 17, 2017

Elvis In the Heart of America

What the rise, fall and rebirth of an icon tells us about who we were--and who we are now, 40 years after his death

By Jon Meacham August 10, 2017

What Does Trump See When He Looks Back In History? Mostly He Sees ... Trump

It was Vintage Ronald Reagan. Addressing a fundraiser for the JFK Library in 1985, the 40th President mused about the mystery and magic of the White House. "Nothing is ever lost in that great house;...

By Jon Meacham May 4, 2017

Our Historical Ambivalence About Immigrants Is a Great American Paradox

Passions were high, and the president of the United States was eager to act. In 1798, John Adams, amid talk of war with France, signed the Alien and Sedition Acts to, in his view, protect...

By Jon Meacham February 2, 2017

Do Business Leaders Make Good Presidents?

Do the lessons of business apply to government?

By Jon Meacham January 19, 2017

George H.W. Bush and Bob Dole Unite for Pearl Harbor at 75

They are old men now, living emblems of American ages past. Long rivals, once allies, and now friends, George Herbert Walker Bush and Robert Dole are in the twilight of a pair of remarkable lives,...

By Jon Meacham December 7, 2016

Andrew Jackson’s Lessons for Donald Trump

"With Donald Trump’s rise to power as America’s 45th President, those in search of an illuminating analogy have frequently cited the example of the seventh"

By Jon Meacham December 7, 2016

What a President Needs to Know

Amid the clamor of advisers and the fog of hard calls, some basic requirements remain

By Jon Meacham July 14, 2016

How Jeb Bush's Trouble Began During Dad's Presidency

The candidate is bedeviled by a party drawn to extremes

By Jon Meacham November 5, 2015

Old Hickory in a New Century

On the bicentennial of the Battle of New Orleans, a new conversation about Andrew Jackson—the most flawed of heroes—should begin

By Jon Meacham January 8, 2015

A Tea Party Tempest in Tennessee

Why Lamar Alexander should prevail against a hard-right challenger

By Jon Meacham July 29, 2014

From Gaza to Ukraine, the Effects of World War I Persist

We still live in the long shadow of a war that began a century ago

By Jon Meacham July 24, 2014

Joe Manchin: The Outlier

The West Virginia Senator went to D.C. to get stuff done. Oh well

By Jon Meacham June 19, 2014

The Importance of FDR's D-Day Prayer

Listen to the words that President Franklin D. Roosevelt used to mark Operation Overlord on June 6, 1944

By Jon Meacham June 5, 2014

The Winding Road to D-Day

FDR's patient diplomacy in 1942 and '43 made Operation Overlord possible in '44

By Jon Meacham June 5, 2014

The Winding Road to D-Day

FDR’s patient diplomacy in 1942 and 1943 made Operation Overlord possible in 1944

By Jon Meacham June 3, 2014

Brown v. Board of Education: Few Revolutions Are Ever Truly Complete

Sixty years since the historic Supreme Court ruling, the work of making equal opportunity real for all Americans is not over.

By Jon Meacham May 17, 2014

Obama's Shades of Gray

His critics say he's weak and whiny. But he's doing what most Presidents do: muddling through

By Jon Meacham May 8, 2014

Obama’s Shades of Gray

His critics say he’s weak and whiny. But he’s doing what most Presidents do: muddling through

By Jon Meacham May 7, 2014

George H.W. Bush Relishes the Twilight

The 41st President talks about how he is remembered. "It's 'kinder and gentler' all over the place," he says, enjoying a change in regard for his presidency and being witness to another Bush boomlet

By Jon Meacham April 7, 2014

The God of Noah: Great, but Not Always Good

A movie that reminds us of the difficult, often perplexing nature of the Bible

By Jon Meacham March 30, 2014

Jon Meacham: The South's Red Hot Town

Nashville and its economy are on fire, sparked by a booming cultural scene, world-class health care, rising universities--and a really good spot on the map

By Jon Meacham March 7, 2014

How Presidents Judge One Another

History is full of examples of presidents thinking and talking about their predecessors, writes TIME's Jon Meacham in a President's Day analysis of how the leaders of the free world compare their administrations to those of years past

By Jon Meacham February 16, 2014