Latest news with #Chervinsky
Yahoo
18-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Presidential historian calls for end to 'silly' Presidents' Day, compares it to celebrating a king's birthday
Presidential historian Lindsay Chervinsky argued on Monday, Presidents' Day, that the holiday shouldn't be celebrated during a conversation on MSNBC, suggesting the actions of different presidents should be celebrated, but not the people themselves. "It is a little bit silly. I mean, we have had some real duds, so I'm not sure we really want to be celebrating all presidents. And the tradition actually comes from celebrating birthdays, which is a celebration that we inherited from celebrating the king, and I'm just not sure that that's exactly what we want. I think instead, it makes a lot more sense to celebrate actions," Chervinsky, who is also the executive director of the George Washington Presidential Library, said. Presidents' Day occurs on the third Monday of every February, and celebrates all U.S. presidents, though it originally celebrated George Washington's birthday, which was on Feb. 22. MSNBC host Ali Vitali asked Chervinsky to explain why she felt the holiday was "ridiculous." "Let's celebrate Washington returning his command and ensuring that there wasn't a military dictatorship. Let's celebrate Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. Things that they actually had control over as opposed to their birthday," she added. Msnbc Legal Analyst Pushes Back On 'Morning Joe' Co-hosts Sounding Alarm On 'Constitutional Crisis' Vitali then brought up something Chervinsky said earlier in the show, "the idea that Trump posted something just over the weekend where he quoted Napoleon Bonaparte-esque saying, 'He who saves his country does not violate any law.'" Read On The Fox News App "It feels like exactly the example of what you're saying we should push against," Vitali added. Chervinsky agreed and said a president shouldn't be celebrated just because they exist. "I think if we think of a president as someone to celebrate just because they exist, which is what the king was, and that's why they celebrated the king's birthday, then you kind of - it does evolve into that argument that they can do no wrong," Chervinsky continued. Click Here For More Coverage Of Media And Culture Protests broke out across the country today over Trump's policies, according to reports, including outside the Capitol in Washington, D.C. Vitali asked Chervinsky about the "star power" often needed to win the presidency. "I think it's worth acknowledging, like, really excellent skills. It's worth respecting those things. But I think that if we see them as somehow other, it causes us to believe that we shouldn't criticize, we shouldn't analyze, we shouldn't hold accountable," Chervinksy said. She concluded that presidents should be celebrated for specific actions and leadership, not just because they're the person in article source: Presidential historian calls for end to 'silly' Presidents' Day, compares it to celebrating a king's birthday
Fox News
17-02-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Presidential historian calls for end to 'silly' Presidents' Day, compares it to celebrating a king's birthday
Presidential historian Lindsay Chervinsky argued on Monday, Presidents' Day, that the holiday shouldn't be celebrated during a conversation on MSNBC, suggesting the actions of different presidents should be celebrated, but not the people themselves. "It is a little bit silly. I mean, we have had some real duds, so I'm not sure we really want to be celebrating all presidents. And the tradition actually comes from celebrating birthdays, which is a celebration that we inherited from celebrating the king, and I'm just not sure that that's exactly what we want. I think instead, it makes a lot more sense to celebrate actions," Chervinsky, who is also the executive director of the George Washington Presidential Library, said. Presidents' Day occurs on the third Monday of every February, and celebrates all U.S. presidents, though it originally celebrated George Washington's birthday, which was on Feb. 22. MSNBC host Ali Vitali asked Chervinsky to explain why she felt the holiday was "ridiculous." "Let's celebrate Washington returning his command and ensuring that there wasn't a military dictatorship. Let's celebrate Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. Things that they actually had control over as opposed to their birthday," she added. Vitali then brought up something Chervinsky said earlier in the show, "the idea that Trump posted something just over the weekend where he quoted Napoleon Bonaparte-esque saying, 'He who saves his country does not violate any law.'" "It feels like exactly the example of what you're saying we should push against," Vitali added. Chervinsky agreed and said a president shouldn't be celebrated just because they exist. "I think if we think of a president as someone to celebrate just because they exist, which is what the king was, and that's why they celebrated the king's birthday, then you kind of - it does evolve into that argument that they can do no wrong," Chervinsky continued. Protests broke out across the country today over Trump's policies, according to reports, including outside the Capitol in Washington, D.C. Vitali asked Chervinsky about the "star power" often needed to win the presidency. "I think it's worth acknowledging, like, really excellent skills. It's worth respecting those things. But I think that if we see them as somehow other, it causes us to believe that we shouldn't criticize, we shouldn't analyze, we shouldn't hold accountable," Chervinksy said. She concluded that presidents should be celebrated for specific actions and leadership, not just because they're the person in power.
CBS News
26-01-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Trump's first week: Congress, courts consider their "checks and balances"
President Donald Trump descended on Washington last week weathering a cold front that pushed his inauguration indoors. But the winter winds were no match for the flurry of executive orders, pardons, and pens he let fly. Mr. Trump swept away Biden administration policies with each jagged stroke. To many in Washington, it seems like history is unfolding before us. "Absolutely," said presidential historian Lindsay Chervinsky, executive director of the George Washington Presidential Library in Mount Vernon, Va. "The thing that's really interesting about studying history is when people are living through historic moments, they know it. "There's no doubt that seeing a president come back after being defeated in an election, that's only happened one other time, and came back after being indicted on dozens of felony charges, and was involved in an insurrection to overthrow the previous election. These are just not things we've seen before," Chervinsky said. "And so, there's no doubt that we are living in a historic moment." On his first day in office, Mr. Trump pardoned some 1,500 January 6th defendants, and broke the record for signing executive orders, issuing even more in the days that followed. They range from re-naming the Gulf of Mexico … to ending diversity efforts in the federal workforce … to exiting the Paris climate accords and the World Health Organization … and reinstating anti-abortion policies from his first term. He has also tried to upend the constitutional right to citizenship for all children born on American soil. But a federal judge already put that change on hold. Chervinsky said, "We are in a system that has separation of powers. There are supposed to be checks and balances. And it is essential that both Congress and the court do their job to check the president, as the president checks them. That is how the system was designed to work. And I think that should give Americans comfort that they occasionally still want to actually do that role." Executive orders have often been pivotal, and controversial. Think of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, or FDR's funding of the Manhattan Project, and his internment of Japanese Americans in 1942. Recall Eisenhower's deployment of troops to desegregate Southern schools, and Kennedy's creation of the Peace Corps. In the past decade, there has been a back-and-forth, with Obama, Trump and Biden reversing each other's policies. Chervinsky said, "When a president needs to use executive orders to get most of their agenda done, it means either that the agenda is not particularly popular, or it is a reflection of the ills in our current political system. Congress doesn't do much. They don't pass that much legislation. They're kind of a broken institution. So, what we see is that a president is trying to go around that. And until Congress tells them not to, they're going to continue doing it. "There have always been periods of fighting, to be sure," Chervinsky said. "American politics is messy." "You've even called it 'vicious,'" I said "That would be an accurate description!" Chervinsky laughed. It all recalls Benjamin Franklin's answer when asked whether America was a monarchy or a republic. Franklin said, "A republic, if you can keep it." I said, "We've been through all of this in the past, and here we are today, carrying on." "So far!" Chervinsky laughed. "One of the things that's great about history is it reminds us that we can be in really bad periods but come out of it. What I think about our current moment perhaps is different is that we have forgotten that nothing is absolute and nothing is permanent. "The founding generation, they had skin in the game because they had fought in the war, or they had been in Congress when this government was founded. And so, no matter how terrible it was, they never wanted to throw it out completely, because they had tried to build this thing from scratch. "I think a lot of Americans today take for granted that we will always be here," Chervinsky said.
