Leonard Steinhorn is an author, CBS News political analyst, and professor of communication and affiliate professor of history at American University. He teaches, writes and lectures on American politics and presidential elections; the 1960s in America; baby boomers; recent American history; and race relations in the United States.
Steinhorn is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Vassar College, where he received a bachelor's degree in history. He later received his master's degree in history from Johns Hopkins University. [1]
For several years in the 1980s, he worked as a speechwriter, press secretary, and policy advisor for members of the United States Congress, including former House Judiciary Committee Chair Peter W. Rodino and the future House Majority Leader, Congressman Steny Hoyer. He has served as a senior executive at strategic communication and media firms as well as leading non-profit organizations, including People for the American Way. [1] [2]
In 1995, Steinhorn began teaching at American University in Washington, D.C. He was voted American University Faculty Member of the Year in 1999 and 2001 and he also was named Honors Professor of the Year in 2010. His courses on politics, presidential elections and recent American history have been featured on CNN, C-SPAN, NBC, FOX, USA Today, Agence France-Presse, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. From 2002 to 2004, he was president of American University's chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. [1]
Since 2012 he has served as a political analyst for CBS News Radio, covering politics and elections, and he appears regularly on WUSA9 TV News in Washington, DC. [3] [4] Before that he was a political analyst for FOX-5 News in Washington, DC. [1] He also has appeared in numerous broadcast outlets including C-SPAN, CNN, CBS News, NBC News, BBC, Al Jazeera, ARD (Germany), AFP (France), CGTN (China), and NPR. [1] Steinhorn has appeared as an on-air expert in a number of documentaries, including CNN’s The Sixties and 1968: The Year That Changed America; Superheroes Decoded on the History Channel; and The Kennedy Files on REELZ. [5] He also appeared in a DVD special feature on the Baby Boom generation for the final season of AMC’s Mad Men . [1]
Since 2014 Steinhorn has lectured around the country for One Day University, giving talks on American politics, history, and the 1960s. [1] [6] [7] He also has given speeches at the Clinton Library in Little Rock, The National Press Club, The Economic Club of Florida, Andrews Air Force Base, Amherst College, and Charles University in Prague, among others. [1] [8]
In 2010, Steinhorn founded the website PunditWire with Robert Lehrman, an adjunct professor in American University's School of Communication and former speechwriter for Al Gore. PunditWire, which ceased publication in 2017, was a news commentary site whose contributors are all current or former speechwriters from across the political spectrum. [9]
Steinhorn wrote The Greater Generation: In Defense of the Baby Boom Legacy (2006) and co-authored By the Color of Our Skin: The Illusion of Integration and the Reality of Race (1999). [10] [11]
He has been published in The Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Politico, The Hill, Political Wire, International Herald Tribune, Baltimore Sun, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Chicago Sun-Times, Seattle Times, Huffington Post, History News Network, Salon, BillMoyers.com, World Financial Review, among others. [1] [3] [12] [13] [14]
Publishers Weekly called The Greater Generation a "powerful book" and wrote that "Steinhorn forcefully and gracefully defends his age cohort against these stereotypes in a paean to the generation that forever altered the face of American culture." [11] [15] Kirkus said it was "a sturdy, often convincing defense of his own Boomer generation." [16] Salon.com wrote that Steinhorn's "unapologetic celebration of the boomer legacy is refreshing, and much of his argument is convincing," but criticized it for sentimentalizing boomers. [17]
The New York Times called By the Color of Our Skin a “clear-headed, energetic and pointedly sarcastic book about this country's racial divisions and cultural hypocrisy." [18]
Generation X is the demographic cohort following the Baby Boomers and preceding Millennials. Researchers and popular media often use the mid-1960s as its starting birth years and the late 1970s as its ending birth years, with the generation being generally defined as people born from 1965 to 1980. By this definition and U.S. Census data, there are 65.2 million Gen Xers in the United States as of 2019. Most of Generation X are the children of the Silent Generation and early Baby Boomers; Xers are also often the parents of Millennials and Generation Z.
Baby boomers, often shortened to boomers, are the demographic cohort preceded by the Silent Generation and followed by Generation X. The generation is often defined as people born from 1946 to 1964 during the mid-20th century baby boom. The dates, the demographic context, and the cultural identifiers may vary by country. Most baby boomers are the children of either the Greatest Generation or the Silent Generation, and are often parents of Millennials.
A generation is all of the people born and living at about the same time, regarded collectively. It also is "the average period, generally considered to be about 20–30 years, during which children are born and grow up, become adults, and begin to have children." In kinship, generation is a structural term, designating the parent–child relationship. In biology, generation also means biogenesis, reproduction, and procreation.
Millennials, also known as Generation Y or Gen Y, are the demographic cohort following Generation X and preceding Generation Z. Researchers and popular media use the early 1980s as starting birth years and the mid-1990s to early 2000s as ending birth years, with the generation typically being defined as people born from 1981 to 1996. Most Millennials are the children of Baby Boomers and older Generation X. In turn Millennials are often the parents of Generation Alpha.
A baby boom is a period marked by a significant increase of births. This demographic phenomenon is usually ascribed within certain geographical bounds of defined national and cultural populations. The cause of baby booms involves various fertility factors. The best-known baby boom occurred in the mid-twentieth century, sometimes considered to have started after the end of the Second World War, sometimes from the late 1940s, and ending in the 1960s. People born during this period are often called baby boomers.
James Mackenzie Fallows is an American writer and journalist. He is a former national correspondent for The Atlantic. His work has also appeared in Slate, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker and The American Prospect, among others. He is a former editor of U.S. News & World Report, and as President Jimmy Carter's chief speechwriter for two years was the youngest person ever to hold that job.
William Henry Gates II, better known as Bill Gates Sr., was an American attorney, philanthropist, and civic leader. He was the founder of the law firm Shidler McBroom & Gates, and also served as president of both the Seattle King County and Washington State Bar associations. He was the father of Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft.
Generation Jones is the generation or social cohort between the Baby Boom generation and Generation X. The term was coined by American cultural commentator Jonathan Pontell, who argues that the term refers to a full distinct generation born from 1954 to 1965. Media coverage of Generation Jones typically has described it as a distinct generation, using Pontell's dates. Others see this as a subset of the Baby Boom Generation, primarily its second half. A third view is that Generation Jones is a cusp or micro-generation between the Boomers and Xers.
John Phillips Avlon is an American journalist and political commentator running for U.S. House representative of New York's 1st congressional district. As the Democratic nominee, he is challenging Republican incumbent Nick LaLota in the district's 2024 general election.
Clifford D. May is an American journalist, editor, political activist, and podcast host. He is the founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a think tank created shortly after the 9/11 attacks, where he hosts the podcast Foreign Podicy. He is the weekly "Foreign Desk" columnist for The Washington Times.
Jonathan Edward Favreau is an American political commentator and podcaster and the former director of speechwriting for President Barack Obama.
Victor "Vic" Gold was an American journalist, author, and Republican political consultant. Gold began his career as a lawyer and advisor to the Democratic Party in Alabama before switching to the Republican Party. He worked as deputy press secretary for Senator Barry Goldwater during the 1964 presidential election and press secretary for Vice President Spiro T. Agnew from 1970 to 1973.
Marc Alexander Thiessen is an American conservative author, political appointee, and weekly columnist for The Washington Post. Thiessen served as a speechwriter for President George W. Bush from 2007 to 2009 and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld from 2001 to 2006.
The Strauss–Howe generational theory, devised by William Strauss and Neil Howe, describes a theorized recurring generation cycle in American history and Western history. According to the theory, historical events are associated with recurring generational personas (archetypes). Each generational persona unleashes a new era lasting around 21 years, in which a new social, political, and economic climate (mood) exists. They are part of a larger cyclical "saeculum". The theory states that a crisis recurs in American history after every saeculum, which is followed by a recovery (high). During this recovery, institutions and communitarian values are strong. Ultimately, succeeding generational archetypes attack and weaken institutions in the name of autonomy and individualism, which eventually creates a tumultuous political environment that ripens conditions for another crisis.
PunditWire is a news commentary site featuring contributors from across the political spectrum who are all current or former political speechwriters. Launched on September 13, 2010, the content on PunditWire varies in scope – from foreign policy to campaigns and elections to civil rights and political rhetoric. The website is sponsored by American University in Washington, D.C., and was conceived by American University Professor Leonard Steinhorn, a former political speechwriter and strategist, and Robert Lehrman, adjunct professor in the School of Communication at American University and former speechwriter for Al Gore.
Robert A. Lehrman is an American novelist, commentator, speechwriter, and teacher.
Cody Keenan is an American political advisor and speechwriter who served as the director of speechwriting for President Barack Obama. Keenan studied political science at Northwestern University. After graduation, he worked in the U.S. senate office of Ted Kennedy, before studying for a master's in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. After graduation, he took a full-time position on Barack Obama's presidential campaign in 2008. In 2009, he assumed the position of deputy director of speechwriting. After Jon Favreau left the White House in 2013, Keenan took over as director of speechwriting.
The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump is a 2017 book edited by Bandy X. Lee, a forensic psychiatrist, containing essays from 27 psychiatrists, psychologists, and other mental health professionals describing the "clear and present danger" that US President Donald Trump's mental health poses to the "nation and individual well being". A second edition updated and expanded the book with additional essays. Lee maintains that the book remains strictly a public service, and all royalties were donated to the public good to remove any conflict of interest.
A group where we all pretend to be boomers is a Facebook group created in May 2019, for users – the majority of whom are millennials and in Generation Z – to pretend to be baby boomers. The group has been described as "digital larping". The members of the group post in the manner of a stereotypical internet user from the baby boomer generation.
Dylan Loewe is an American speechwriter, political strategist and author. In 2021, Loewe was named chief speechwriter to Apple CEO Tim Cook. He served as chief speechwriter to then-Vice President Joe Biden from 2012 to 2013. He has collaborated with several authors on their memoirs, including the former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Vice President Kamala Harris. In 2010, he authored the book Permanently Blue: How Democrats Can End the Republican Party and Rule the Next Generation.
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