How come we rarely hear about the H.W. presidency? In-office just 30 years ago, we transitioned from out of the Cold War into an entirely new economic and global landscape during his tenure.

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We have a new episode out to start season 3 with our first three-parter on the Bush family political dynasty. While each American generation has had its fair share of politically powerful families, none have been able to occupy the white house for 12 years over a 20 year span.

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How ashamed should we all feel (especially men) that we are living in a time where a woman has still never been President of the United States? Women only represent approximately a quarter of both chambers of Congress, and as of three days ago, Ketanji Brown Jackson was just confirmed as the first black woman to serve on the Supreme Court. The nation credited for kickstarting the modern global order in promoting representational democracy hardly has led the way in achieving real, descriptive poltitical representation domestically.

There have been countless women, however, who have tried to change that, and this episode is dedicated to some of their efforts in our final episode of season two. We also dive into the barriers women face when running against male candidates, as well as the particular biases voters have against women who try to make a run for the presidency. 

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One of the most powerful and sustainable ways a country maintains a shared, holistic identity across their varying communities is by prioritizing that its people learn/feel a shared sense of history. At the same time, a country's success rate in achieving this is always changing, as its people's experiences within it vary widely based on their race, gender, income, and education -- especially in the United States. Americans' interpretation and understanding of historical events is far from universal, and that problem is likely to get worse, as more people digest separate sources of content and information about what is going on in the world than ever before.

JFK, though, still has a unique grip in uniting Americans -- even in 2022. He is only second to Abraham Lincoln in recent polls of favorability scores for past presidents, and that is especially meaningful when many Americans alive today witnessed his presidency. He remains the rare president that embodies something as close to a shared history as Americans have -- as his political highs, lows, and death were all captured in the very early years of television. 

By no means did Kennedy have the most "successful" presidency, but it somehow still means more than almost any other, and not just in our imagination. Kennedy's death inspired the passage of foundational legislation in modern American society that grew the size and prosperity of the nation's middle class to new pinnacles, and though we don't know if they would have happened had he lived, the fact that his presidency and death helped push them to reality should not be undervalued. 

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The expansionist, states rights focused presidencies of Jefferson, Jackson and Polk in the pre-Civil War era were among the most popular during the period. They also brought the horrific conflict that was the Civil War closer to a reality precisely for the same reasons -- expanding claimed US territory and the institution of American slavery with it. As a result, their early presidencies made it essential for southern politicians to adopt the policy preferences of those administrations if they wanted to attain higher offices and political power.

In many ways, Andrew Johnson's actions as President were exactly on brand with what southern Democrats embodied. The difference was that Johnson was the first to find himself in a post-slavery society following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. He sought to quickly re-admit seceded states into the Union, as well as to do little to nothing to enforce civil rights protections for newly freed Black Americans --policies that are not inconceivable for presidents Johnson grew up championing.

With this context in mind, in this episode we discuss whether it's fair that Johnson is most often placed as the worst President in American history by historians. Oddly enough, before Johnson is President, he's most well known for standing up to and opposing secession, and continues to serve in the US government even as his home state of Tennessee joins the Confederacy. Could he have been capable of better handling the era of Reconstruction? Or is he better understood as acting as you would expect a institutionalized southern democrat would in these unprecedented circumstances, simply becoming the scapegoat for the accumulation of his predecessors moral and political failures?

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Jimmy Carter, in many ways, was the true 20th century Presidential anomaly. As one of the most religious and solely local politicians to win a Presidential election -- Carter took pride in embracing his outsider appeal to an American public who had grown accustomed to how institutionalized and predictable the presidency had become.

Carter's brand that he cultivated, as a devoutly honest and morally pure figure, however, alienated the American public just as effectively as the lies of Vietnam and Watergate. With a sputtering economic performance and few other domestic accomplishments, Carter showed how his inexperience in dealing in politics on the national stage rendered him incapable of capitalizing on his incumbency advantage. 

Jimmy Carter's presidency tells a story of an administration that never figured out how to operate effectively, especially when it came to influencing Congress and overall public opinion of the nation's performance. Even in the arena that Carter enjoyed the most success -- foreign policy -- is also where he made his most catastrophic mistakes. As he never became aligned with his party or with any political establishment, Carter had few friends he could count on, and stubbornly crashed out as the only Democratic President of the 20th century not to win re-election, which would continue to haunt the party until the more modern Clinton years came in presidential politics.

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In this episode of Unpresidented, we move on from the do-nothing president to the man responsible for taking more land than any other US leader in history. James K. Polk's fierce persistence and vital political connections fed him a steady, stable political career, driven to fulfilling his political party's aspirations. 

When his name entered the fray at the 1844 Democratic Convention, no one thought they were gambling away the nation's future by considering Polk to take the nomination. Unlike his mentor, Andrew Jackson, Polk was coming into a nomination as a highly experienced, seasoned politician, who was less vulnerable to making impulsive decisions.

Polk's presidency, though, became one of the most consequential in US history, and possibly the most when just considering one-term presidents. Though he leaves office as a hero, he also leaves the nation with irreparable problems in its power structures, that seal an inevitable Civil War in just 12 years time.

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There are many Presidents who have passionately advocated for putting as many limits as possible on government intervention into Americans' lives. Platforms of fewer taxes, regulations, and safety nets have been spearheaded by Presidents like Thomas Jefferson, Grover Cleveland, and Ronald Reagan -- spanning across almost 200 years of Presidential history. 

Calvin Coolidge could be fairly considered the most passionate of this group for conservative policies, but also the one who found the most economic success within their implementation, at least during their actual Presidential years. The economy took off during his time in office, and for a brief period, Coolidge looked like a genius.

The Great Depression that follows immediately after Coolidge leaves office is probably the reason why you hardly hear about him today. It's hard to ignore the emergency conditions that Hoover immediately had to try to handle upon taking over Coolidge, and you could an argument that he is the most responsible for the Depression of anyone. 

At the same time, for better and worse, the Republican Party of the past 50 years still very much romanticizes many of Coolidge's Roaring 20s policies, and represents an icon of character and moral values. Is Coolidge a redeemable President like Grant that we are too quick to judge, or are we justified to lambast his Presidential years as ones filled with irresponsible greed?

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Former living American Presidents just might the most exclusive and bewildering clubs to be a part of. What do Presidents do after they are done being arguably the most powerful person on Earth? They have classified knowledge and expertise on all the most pressing issues of our time -- then somehow, they have to return to normal, public life as ordinary citizens.

In this special side-episode of Unpresidented, we dive into how various Presidents over time have decided to move forward with their lives and what kind of power they actually possess when they are no longer in office. The life of a former President has changed drastically over time, and there is a lot to distinguish from the era of modern post-presidents and the Presidents who came in the nation's first 150 years. It turns out, being a former President today is extremely lucrative and profitable, but that wasn't always the case. What has happened to spark this change, and is it ethical for Presidents to profit so much off of their former Presidential brand? Should there be more oversight on Post-Presidential actions? Give it a listen and let us know what you think in our poll questions below!

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Bill Clinton, the politician, was everything 90s America needed him to be - a genuine centrist not afraid to feed a new era of Republican Congressional dominance with right of center policies, but also ambitious enough to attempt to pass his own Medicare for All bill that came much closer to becoming law than versions that are proposed today.

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