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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning everyone. Today, it's a Brian Lehrer Show Summer Friday Special as the producers and I take a little time to decompress from our working at-home routines. Today, we're going to look back to our spring 2018 series, The Eights, a brief history of the American culture wars decade by decade. This has great historical audio. This has oral history supplied by you on the phones plus some great guests. The point was, and it still applies, to explain the extreme polarization of American life and politics today.
In this special, we start with a series kick-off and America's place in the world in 1948. Then 1958, and the creation of the US Civil Rights Commission with one of its former commissioners, Mary Frances Berry. We will also hear from the late Cokie Roberts in what turned out to be her final appearance on this show as she was joined by journalist Elizabeth Drew to talk about Richard Nixon's election in 1968, and how Donald Trump's 2016 campaign actually had in more in common with the third party candidate that year, George Wallace.
We'll finish up in 1978 with New York Time's columnist, Gail Collins, on the demise of the ERA. No calls today, but you can add your thoughts by tweeting @brianlehrer. Here we go, back to where we were as a nation in 1948.
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In 1948, the Cold War was taking shape.
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