250 Years of Presidents: From Washington to… THIS?

Two hundred and fifty years ago, a handful of revolutionaries bet everything on an idea no one thought would work: a country that governs itself, with no king and no crown. This week, Rick Wilson is joined by acclaimed presidential historian Timothy Naftali — former director of the Nixon Presidential Library and one of the sharpest minds on the American presidency — to walk the entire arc, from George Washington voluntarily handing back power to the constitutional crisis staring us down in 2026.

Rick and Tim get into what the founders actually built, the presidents who tested the guardrails and the ones who saved them, how close the Republic has come to the edge before, and what history tells us about a moment when a sitting president treats the Constitution like a suggestion. They dig into Nixon and the limits of executive power, the long erosion of democratic norms, and why the 250th birthday is less a fireworks-and-hot-dogs photo op than a genuine gut check. America has survived worse than this — the question is whether we still remember how. Happy birthday, America. Now let's talk about keeping you.
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Timothy Naftali is a presidential historian, former director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library, and professor at New York University. Find his work and writing at https://www.sipa.columbia.edu/communities-connections/faculty/timothy-naftali, and follow him at @TimNaftali.

Rick Wilson is on X at @TheRickWilson, on Bluesky at @TheRickWilson.bsky.social, and you can check out Rick's Substack at therickwilson.substack.com.
You can check out more of LP's work at www.lincolnproject.us and on X at @ProjectLincoln.

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