Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

This day, May 23rd, 1944, a fracture in the Texas Democratic legislature.

For the first time in their recent history, Texas had two rival Democratic conventions. The main cause of the rift was whether to support

FDR and his more progressive New Deal policies. All of this, of course, in the run-up to that

fall's 1944 presidential election, where FDR was running for re-election.

One faction of the Democratic Party called for quote the restoration of states

rights which have been destroyed by the Communist New Deal," end quote,

and then went on to call for the quote,

restoration of the supremacy of the white race.

So there you have the states rights dog whistle followed very quickly by you know what we're just going to say the quiet part out loud we want white supremacy

So here to discuss that split within the Democratic Party and the ways in which state parties can

be royalled over whether or not to support a controversial president which

sounds very familiar these days are Nicole Hammer of Columbia and Kelly

Carter Jackson of Wellesley. Hello

Jody. Hey there. And we should say this moment kind of plants the seeds for the

way in which the Democratic Party would split and transform into the 1950s.

But, Mickey, let's start in 1944 itself.

Both paint the picture of what it means

to be a Democrat in 1944 and why FDR is emerging as a controversial figure

within his own party?

Well, this kind of goes to the whole point of what we're talking about today, but to be a

...