PAST EVENTS
Lay of the Land
How has our democracy and the two parties changed – given the turn to the radical right in the Republican Party even after Trump’s 2020 defeat and Biden’s sometimes rocky two years in office? The Common Good has brought together renowned journalists Susan Glasser, Peter Baker, and David Frum lead in discussion by Norm Ornstein.
Lay of the Land
with the ultimate political insiders
Susan Glasser, Peter Baker, and David Frum
and Norm Ornstein, Moderator
Wednesday March 15th, 5:00 -6:00 via Zoom
How has our democracy and the two parties changed – given the turn to the radical right in the Republican Party even after Trump’s 2020 defeat and Biden’s sometimes rocky two years in office? The Common Good has brought together renowned journalists Susan Glasser, Peter Baker, and David Frum lead in discussion by Norm Ornstein..
Join us on Zoom to discuss the changes of our democracy during the upheaval of the last few years, the shifting balance of power in the GOP today, and the near future of 2024’s election season. Be sure to check out Susan Glasser and Peter Baker’s latest book The Divider: Trump in the Whitehouse, 2017-2021 also available for purchase.
Susan Glasser, renowned staff writer and star political journalist at the New Yorker. She was previously at the Washington Post starting in 1998 where she edited the Post's Sunday Outlook and national news sections, helped oversee coverage of Bill Clinton's impeachment, covered the wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan, and served as Moscow bureau co-chief with her husband, Peter Baker. She was editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy until 2013. Glasser then joined Politico, and served as editor during the 2016 election cycle. She also was the founding editor of Politico Magazine. Now, she writes the online column "Letter from Biden’s Washington" in The New Yorker, where she is a staff writer. Glasser has also written three important books with her husband Peter Baker.
Peter Baker is an award-winning author, journalist at the New York Times, and political analyst for MSNBC. He has also written for the Washington Times and the Washington Post. He won the Gerald R. Ford Journalism Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency in 2007. Baker also served as Moscow Bureau co-chief with his wife Susan Glasser, and has published numerous books with her as well as other political books including Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, a detailed narrative account of the two-term presidency of George W. Bush, Obama: The Call of History, and Impeachment: An American History. He has also served as the Jerusalem bureau chief for the Times until 2016 where he returned to cover the Trump presidency.
David Frum is a writer for The Atlantic, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush, and the author or co-author of now ten books. Frum has been active in Republican politics since the first Reagan campaign of 1980. From 2001-2002, he served as a speechwriter and special assistant to President George W. Bush. He is credited with helping to create the phrase "axis of evil” in Bush's 2002 State of the Union address. In recent years, Frum has been one of many prominent Republicans to openly criticize Donald Trump as not representing Republican or foundational democracy values. He is a frequent commentator on MSNBC, CNN, and BBC. From 2014 through 2017, Frum served as chairman of the board of trustees of the leading UK center-right think tank, Policy Exchange. The Common Good was proud to host Frum as a member in January of 2018 as a participant in our Town Hall at Hunter College, “Trump – Year One” Panel, alongside historian Douglas Brinkley, New York Times columnist Roger Cohen, former White House Press Secretary Dana Perino, and political strategist Edward Rollins. Frum currently serves as a member of The Common Good Honorary Advisory Board,
Norman Ornstein (Moderator) is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he studies politics, elections, and the US Congress. He is a co-host of AEI’s Election Watch series, a contributing editor and columnist for the National Journal and The Atlantic, a BBC News election analyst, and the chairman of the Campaign Legal Center. Dr. Ornstein previously served as co-director of the AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project and senior counselor to the Continuity of Government Commission. A longtime observer and analyst of American politics and the US Congress, he has been involved in political reform for decades, particularly campaign finance reform and the reform of Senate committees. He has also played a part in creating the Congressional Office of Compliance and the House Office of Congressional Ethics. Ornstein also serves as a member of The Common Good Honorary Advisory Board,
Biden's First 100 Days
Biden’s First 100 Days with Anita Dunn, Senior Advisor to the White House; David Frum, bestselling author, Senior Editor at the Atlantic, and former speechwriter for Pres. George W. Bush; and to lead the conversation, and presidential historian and member of our Honorary Advisory Board, Douglas Brinkley.
ABOUT THE EVENT
OK, Joe Biden has served for 100 days as President. He enjoys fairly high favorability ratings but can they last? What’s the Biden agenda and effect? We’ll leave that to our expert panel to decipher. The Common Good is thrilled to welcome top White House insiders Anita Dunn and David Frum - and leading the conversation is Presidential historian and TCG Honorary Advisory Board Member Douglas Brinkley, to give us the good, the bad, and the normal of President Biden’s first 100 days.
Thursday, May 6th, 2021
5:00pm-6:00pm
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David Frum is a staff writer at the Atlantic. Frum is the author of ten books, most recently TRUMPOCALYPSE: Restoring American Democracy(HarperCollins, 2020). His first book, Dead Right, won praise from William F. Buckley as “the most refreshing intellectual experience in a generation” and from Frank Rich in the New York Times as “the smartest book written from the inside about the American conservative movement.” In National Review, John Podhoretz hailed Frum’s history of the 1970s, How We Got Here, as “an audacious act of revisionism, written in a voice and style so original it deserves to be called revolutionary.” Arianna Huffington said of Frum’s 2012 novel, Patriots, “David Frum is someone who fearlessly speaks his mind, regardless of where the chips may fall, so it’s no surprise he’s able to convey so much truth in his fiction.” Frum’s memoir of his service in the George W. Bush administration, The Right Man, was a New York Times bestseller, as was his 2018 book, Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic.
David Frum has been active in Republican politics since the first Reagan campaign of 1980. From 2014 through 2017, Frum served as chairman of the board of trustees of the leading UK center-right think tank, Policy Exchange. In 2001-2002, he served as speechwriter and special assistant to President George W. Bush.
David Frum holds a BA and MA in history from Yale and a law degree from Harvard, where he served as President of the Federalist Society.
Douglas Brinkley is one of the most prominent historians in the U.S. — and CNN's presidential historian - having charted American history and significant figures for decades. He is also the official Presidential Historian for The New York Historical Society, an essayist, and a prolific and renowned biographer. He has published over three dozen highly acclaimed books, including many discerning biographies and shrewdly edited collections of presidents and presidential records. His subjects have ranged from Presidents Teddy Roosevelt, JFK, FDR, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Richard Nixon to the life of Rosa Parks, Hurricane Katrina, the space race and American Catholicism.
Currently, Brinkley is an esteemed professor at Rice University as the Katherine Tsanoff Brown Chair in Humanities and Professor of History, He is also a member of the Century Association, Council of Foreign Relations and the James Madison Council of the Library of Congress. His early teaching career included positions at the U.S. Naval Academy, Princeton, and Hofstra University. At Hofstra, he spearheaded an acclaimed American Odyssey course which took students across the country in a sleeper bus, visiting historical sites and meeting with cultural icons and is the subject of his travelogue The Majic Bus.
“Trump – Year One” Panel
The Common Good hosted a panel of specialists for a stimulating examination of one of the most extraordinary first 12 months in modern presidential history. We brought the best and the brightest to break it down – with questions like; What is the impact of this President on our politics, on our institutions, on our economy, on our democratic norms and values, on our international power and prestige? Where are we now? Where are we headed?
The Common Good hosted a panel of specialists for a stimulating examination of one of the most extraordinary first 12 months in modern presidential history.
We brought the best and the brightest to break it down – with questions like; What is the impact of this President on our politics, on our institutions, on our economy, on our democratic norms and values, on our international power and prestige? Where are we now? Where are we headed?
listen:
WATCH:
Douglas Brinkley is an award-winning presidential historian and best-selling author covering American Presidents including Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan. He is currently professor of history at Rice University and a CNN Presidential Historian. The Chicago Tribune has dubbed him “America’s new past master.”
Roger Cohen is a New York Times columnist with an international perspective. Cohen was a foreign correspondent for more than a decade before becoming foreign editor of the New York Times, and has been a columnist there since 2009. Mr. Cohen has written several books including: “Hearts Grown Brutal: Sagas of Sarajevo,” an account of the wars of Yugoslavia’s destruction, co-authored a biography of Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, and a family memoir. Raised in South Africa and England, he is a naturalized American.
David Frum is Senior Editor at the Atlantic Monthly. He served as a speechwriter and special assistant to President George W. Bush, and later a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, He is the author of nine books, including the New York Times bestseller The Right Man. David Frum’s latest book is Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic. Frum has been listed as one of the most influential public intellectuals in North America.
Dana Perino served as White House Press Secretary for President George W. Bush. She currently serves as co-host of FOX News Channel’s “The Five” and anchors “The Daily Briefing with Dana Perino.” While at the network, Perino has contributed to live top-rated election and political coverage. She is the president of Dana Perino and Company, and a frequent public speaker on political trends.
Edward Rollins has long been considered one of America’s premier political strategists and communication experts. He has managed political campaigns for candidates and initiatives in this country and around the world. Mr. Rollins managed President Ronald Reagan’s 49 state landslide reelection campaign in 1984 in which President Reagan won more electoral votes than any President in history.
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