Welcome to Country Over Self: Defining Moments in American History
In the tumultuous 2024 presidential campaign, a couple of phrases that keep coming up are "Country Over Self" and "Country Over Party." We are all in search of that perfect leader who can unite us all and drive forward a positive agenda for America, whose selfless devotion to the American project of forming a more perfect union hits the mark.
But is that construct reality or wishful thinking?
In Country Over Self: Defining Moments in American History, technology CEO, business author and host of The Daily Bolster podcast on leadership, and amateur presidential historian Matt Blumberg interviews a series of a dozen American presidential scholars for 15-30 minutes to explore the topic of Country Over Self. Each episode will focus on one President and in particular one vignette or moment in that President’s public life where that President made a choice or series of choices that reflected a desire to strengthen the country, either at the expense of, or without regard to the potential impact on, that President’s role, power, or stature.
These moments – and countless others like them – have accumulated over the nation’s 250 year history to define the American character and the history of our nation. But does that distinctly American character, the hallmark of the most successful constitutional republic in the history of the world, really rely on ability for our political leaders to choose country over self? Or is it more the case that our leaders frequently make decisions where their personal interests happen to align with what's best for the country, or that we romanticize history?
Through this podcast, Blumberg brings some of our country’s leading historians together to remind all of us about that character, and how it was developed over the centuries by a number of our courageous leaders, both on the left and on the right, because courage is not a partisan matter. While each episode will probably cover some additional topics and context about the subject, the focus on one critical moment is the design to attract listeners’ attention – and to have an impact.
