Grover Cleveland's superhuman moral courage with Troy Senik

Country Over Self

Recorded on 09-26-2024 In this episode, Matt and Troy talk about the 22nd and 24th President, Grover Cleveland, the only president to serve two non-sequential terms in history (up to this week's election of Donald Trump), and some of the interesting similarities to the party alignment circumstances to today's environment. Matt and Troy cover a number of vignettes from Cleveland's time in office, including the role that "doing the right thing" played in his political life, the shocking way he handled his cancer diagnosis and surgery, and the extraordinarily gracious way he handled his defeat and the inauguration of his successor in 1888, all during a time of immense transition for the Democratic Party. Troy SenikTroy Senik is a former White House speechwriter, having served under President George W. Bush during his second term. Today, he is the co-founder of Kite & Key, a non-profit digital media company dedicated to making public policy research accessible to the public. In 2022, he published his first book, A Man of Iron: The Turbulent Life and Improbable Presidency of Grover Cleveland, named by the Christian Science Monitor as one of the best books of 2022.

Senik’s career has spanned journalism, government, public policy, and non-profit leadership. He is a former columnist and member of the editorial board at the Orange County Register, the former opinion editor of the Los Angeles Daily Journal, and the former editor-in-chief of Ricochet. His writing has appeared in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, National Affairs, City Journal, and The Guardian. He has served in senior leadership roles at the Los Angeles World Affairs Council and the Manhattan Institute for Public Policy, and also spent a decade as the host of a series of podcasts on public policy for the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

A former Jeopardy! champion, Mr. Senik holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and philosophy from Belmont University and a master’s degree in public policy from Pepperdine University. Born and raised in Southern California, he currently lives in the New York City area.

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