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Podcasts Take Two
The 2016 election: Is history repeating itself?
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Aug 4, 2016
Listen • 8:57
The 2016 election: Is history repeating itself?
A country divided by a two divisive presidential candidates. Sound familiar? It's politics in the late 1880s.
A political illustration from the humor magazine, "Puck," in the July 4, 1883 edition. It shows Uncle Sam putting politicians, newspaper editors, and others on "Ice" in an icehouse to keep them cool until campaign time for the presidential election.
A political illustration from the humor magazine, "Puck," in the July 4, 1883 edition. It shows Uncle Sam putting politicians, newspaper editors, and others on "Ice" in an icehouse to keep them cool until campaign time for the presidential election.
(
Library of Congress
)

A country divided by a two divisive presidential candidates. Sound familiar? It's politics in the late 1880s.

The country divided by two divisive presidential candidates, social unrest at home and abroad, and technology that's made it easier to catch campaign slip-ups and broadcast it around the country.

Sound familiar?

No, it's not the 2016 election – it's politics in the 1800s.

As the adage says, "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

UC Santa Barbara historian John Majewski joined Take Two to talk about how political polarization has happened before in American politics, and how it's happening again.