H.W. Brands describes how, during the summer of 1940, as London burned under the Luftwaffe's terror weapons, Roosevelt made the historic decision to seek a third term. He used "Rooseveltian misdirection" to freeze out potential Democratic successors like James Farley and John Nance Garner, eventually engineering a "draft" of himself based on the international emergency. Lindbergh and other skeptics saw this as a move toward a presidency for life, with Lindbergh accurately predicting Roosevelt would run for a fourth term and die in office. To formalize the opposition, the America First Committee was formed under General Robert Wood of Sears Roebuck, with Lindbergh serving as its star speaker. Lindbergh enjoyed massive media support and funding, delivering rallies that drew thousands while Roosevelt campaigned on promises that "your son will not die in a foreign war." The debate became increasingly personal, with Senator Burton Wheeler suggesting that every fourth American son would be "plowed into the ground" if the country intervened. Roosevelt, a master of press conferences, used his "slippery" instincts to treat reporters as adjuncts to his administration, planting ideas to see how they would be received by the public. Despite Lindbergh's constant radio messages that the U.S. was secure behind two oceans and possessed a superior military, Roosevelt began planning the Lend-Lease program as 1941 approached. (4)

Michael McFaul recommends helping Ukraine win the war to undermine Putin's grip on power, as a democratic Ukraine directly contradicts Putin's narrative that Russians require a strong dictatorship. He also stresses the importance of competing for talent by attracting educated Russian and Chinese citizens to the United States through smarter immigration policies. During the Cold War, the ability to draw in the world's smartest people was a major American advantage that is currently being hindered by restrictive visa rules. Strengthening this "brain drain" from autocracies is vital for long-term technological and economic competition. (7)
1900 BAKU

Michael McFaul discusses the Mar-a-Lago meeting between Trump and Xi, supporting the concept of "peace through strength" but emphasizing that engaging autocrats should not mean abandoning democratic values. He argues that the United States must work harder to keep allies united and should explicitly advocate for human rights during high-level meetings. Raising individual cases of repression, such as that of Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong, serves to inspire "small D democrats" living under tyranny. McFaul advocates for a self-help alliance system among democracies to counter cooperation between Russia, China, and Iran. (6)