Listening to America

Clay interviews Professor Mark Squillace of the University of Colorado Boulder's law school about the history and future of the National Monuments. When Congress created the National Monuments system in 1906, did they consider what the maximum size should be for a presidential proclamation of a new National Monument? Since a president can create a National Monument by executive order, can a later president reduce or eliminate that National Monument? Did the men who created the Antiquities Act understand that many National Monuments, like the Grand Canyon, would later graduate into full National Park status? With the Trump administration paring down some National Monuments, will a test case go to the Supreme Court to determine who, if anyone, has the authority to reduce the size of an already dedicated National Monument? And what was Theodore Roosevelt's role in our interpretation of the Antiquities Act? This episode was recorded on August 6, 2026.

Host David Horton asks Clay to discuss how two very different presidents, Theodore Roosevelt and Thomas Jefferson, viewed power. Both were ardent believers that the United States must control the North American continent. But Jefferson wanted to limit presidential power to ensure the legislative branch of the national government led on almost every public matter. Theodore Roosevelt was much more comfortable with power than Jefferson because he believed the 1787 Constitution was an outmoded, inefficient social compact for the problems of the 20th century. But even Roosevelt would have been startled by the idea of a Unitary Executive of essentially unlimited authority. Has the pendulum reached its limit, and are the people of the United States ready to move back toward regular order, or is the current flirtation with autocracy likely to become the new norm? This episode was recorded on October 25, 2026.  

David Horton and Clay discuss the likelihood of a calm transfer of power during and after the November midterm elections. Does anyone believe there will be no allegations of election rigging, of votes by undocumented workers, or charges of election fraud in a few weeks? Time will tell, but Clay and David make a few careful predictions before the election. They also discuss Clay's recent cultural tour of Thomas Jefferson's France — Paris, Dijon, Nimes, the Pont du Gard, and the celebrated Canal du Midi that connects the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. France highly regards Jefferson as one of America's greatest ambassadors. Was the French Revolution in any way a cousin to the American Revolution a little more than a decade earlier? And why was Thomas Jefferson so cheerful about bloody revolution? This episode was recorded on October 17, 2026.

Host David Horton debriefs Clay on his recent cultural tour of the National Monuments of the Four Corners area. Clay teamed up with his friend Dr. Susan Ryan to visit Mesa Verde National Park, Bears Ears National Monument, and Canyon of the Ancients National Monument with a group of 20 participants from across the U.S. The goal was to explore the history and current status of America's National Monuments in the wake of President Trump's executive orders reducing the size of Bears Ears by more than 90%. Susan Ryan was an outstanding cultural tour lead, explaining how Southwestern archaeology is changing in the 21st century to show much greater respect for Indigenous communities. Clay performed as the 26th president, Theodore Roosevelt, and helped lead discussions of the 1906 Antiquities Act text and its several important ambiguities. This episode was recorded on October 9, 2025.  

Clay Jenkinson gives four or five lectures annually for the Smithsonian Associates. In his most recent talk, he analyzed three notorious 20th-century censorship cases, all involving books once regarded as obscene. First, the case against James Joyce's novel Ulysses, thought by some to be the greatest novel of the century, went to trial in 1933. Second, the trial of D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover in 1960, banned in England not just for its explicit sex scenes, but because the adulterous affair was between an aristocratic woman and a mere working-class gardener. And finally, Allen Ginsberg's Beat Generation poem Howl, published by City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, was tried in 1957. Each case was full of dramatic twists, irony, and humor, and in each case a judge or jury decided these amazing works of literature were not legally obscene. This episode was recorded on August 15, 2026.