President Taft’s lesson for team Trump

Plus: a warning about Trump's brand of populism |

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By Made by History / Produced by Olivia B. Waxman President-elect Donald Trump has said that he will task Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy with leading what he calls his “Department of Government Efficiency”—the name of which suggests they will be charged with streamlining the federal government. If they hope to follow through on that goal, they might look for guidance to the administration of former President William H. Taft, writes Laura Ellyn Smith for Made by History. Taft came to the White House during the Progressive era and was a reformer in that tradition. He undertook efforts to reorganize the federal government, which had grown significantly in prior decades.  But, rather than reducing the size of the bureaucracy, Taft’s cabinet found that the government’s efficient operation actually required hiring and retaining experts and skilled workers. That is one lesson that Musk and Ramaswamy would be wise to recognize, Smith argues, if efficiency is indeed their goal.               Note: Made By History will be moving to a new email domain, with newsletters coming from either TIME@nl.time.com or timehistory@mail.beehiiv.com. Make sure we don't end up in your spam folder by following these instructions.

HISTORY ON TIME.COM History Offers a Warning About Donald Trump’s Brand of Populism By Brucie Porter / Made by History The career of George Wallace serves as a reminder that populist rhetoric can cloak policies that hurt the very voters to whom it appeals. Read More » The Man Who United Americans in a Polarized Time—And His Lessons for Today By Elizabeth M. Reese / Made by History Bringing Americans together as the Marquis de Lafayette did would be unlikely in 2024, but the country can still learn from his story. Read More » Column: How the Burial Ground of My Enslaved African Ancestors Became a Historical Landmark By Sade Green Sade Green visits the burial site of her enslaved African ancestors and explores what it means to be a witness to their lives and legacy. Read More » Abolitionism Shows How One Person Can Help Spark a Movement By Caleb Franz / Made by History Rankin's 'Letters on American Slavery' set out a moral argument for abolition that resonated across the nation. Read More » The Miami Museum Showcasing LGBTQ Histories By Julio Capó Jr. & Helena Gomez The life story of Paul Chalfin, the queer artist who helped build Villa Vizcaya, sheds light on larger histories. Read More »

FROM THE TIME VAULT This week in 1981: Cats NEIL LEIFER The Dec. 7, 1981, cover of TIME “Garfield and his top-selling feline pals are but one example of the cat boom in the U.S., which now goes well beyond book and comic pages. There is, for example, Cats, an opulent, energetic rock musical adapted from T.S. Eliot’s volume of poems Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. The production has been a smash hit in London for nine months and will stalk onto Broadway early next year…cats are even gaining on dogs. Thirty-four million cats—often in multiples—inhabit 24% of America’s households, an increase of 55% in the past decade.” Read More » This week in 1990: Margaret Thatcher London Express/Editorial Enterprises The Dec. 3, 1990, cover of TIME “Even the funny old world’s leaders were taken aback at the spectacle of a head of government being challenged, then brought down by her own party. When she arrived in Paris for the summit on European security on Sunday, Thatcher was a virtual institution, the doyenne of chiefs of state and the longest- serving British Prime Minister in more than 160 years. There were rumblings of discontent within the ruling Conservative Party, but she was confident she could keep them muffled. Within three days, however, Thatcher rushed back to London bearing fatal political wounds inflicted in her absence by her party.” Read More » This week in 2002: Lord of the Rings TIME The Dec. 2, 2002, cover of TIME “Our fascination with science fiction reflected a deep collective faith that technology would lead us to a cyberutopia of robot butlers serving virtual mai tais. With The Two Towers, the new installment of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, about to storm the box office, we are seeing what might be called the enchanting of America. A darker, more pessimistic attitude toward technology and the future has taken hold, and the evidence is our new preoccupation with fantasy, a nostalgic, sentimental, magical vision of a medieval age. The future just isn’t what it used to be–and the past seems to be gaining on us.” Read More »

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