EARLIER POTUS CONFRONTING THE COURTS: 3/8: Roosevelt Sweeps Nation: FDR’s 1936 Landslide and the Triumph of the Liberal Ideal by David Pietrusza (Author)
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 23 March 2025
⏱️ 14 minutes
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Summary
https://www.amazon.com/Roosevelt-Sweeps-Nation-Landslide-Triumph/dp/1635767776
Award-winning historian David Pietrusza boldly steers clear of the pat narrative regarding Franklin Roosevelt’s unprecedented 1936 re-election landslide, weaving an enormously more intricate, ever more surprising tale of a polarized nation; of America’s most complex, calculating, and politically successful president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, at the very top of his Machiavellian game; and the unlocking of the puzzle of how our society, our politics, and our parties fitfully reinvented themselves.
With in-depth examinations of rabble-rousing Democratic US Senator Huey Long and his assassination before he was able to challenge FDR in ’36; powerful, but widely hated, newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst, who blasted FDR’s “Raw Deal”; wildly popular, radical radio commentator Father Coughlin; the steamrolled passage of Social Security and backlash against it; the era’s racism and anti-Semitism; American Socialism and Communism; and a Supreme Court seemingly bent on dismantling the New Deal altogether, Roosevelt Sweeps Nation is a vivid portrait of a dynamic Depression-Era America.
1933
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is CBSI and the world with David Petrucia, the author of the new book Roosevelt Sweeps Nation. |
| 0:12.0 | I'm John Batchelor, and we're about to look at two of the most important figures of the 1936 election, |
| 0:19.5 | who were not elected, but made very important contributions to how |
| 0:24.7 | the president Franklin Roosevelt saw his campaign ahead. The first is Francis Everett Townsend, born |
| 0:32.5 | 1867, a senior figure who is a physician and he comes forward with the Townsend plan. |
| 0:39.3 | This is in the time of great want and doubt for the people who are elderly in America. |
| 0:47.9 | At that time, that was considered 60 years plus was elderly. |
| 0:52.5 | David, Francis Townsend looks to be an amateur, and the fact that he |
| 0:58.2 | enters into politics at all is so unlikely. What do we need to know about how Roosevelt thought |
| 1:03.8 | of Townsend? Well, Townsend was this old geezer doctor who writes a letter to the local paper saying we've got to have this plan which is |
| 1:13.6 | going to give $200 a month to everyone over 60 and they will have to do two things for it. |
| 1:21.9 | One, not work anywhere and two, spend it all in 30 days he thinks this is going to be create a velocity |
| 1:29.6 | of money with sort of like prime priming the pump getting the economy up and running um he's |
| 1:37.7 | pretty dull fellow otherwise but millions and millions of people join these Townsend clubs around the country, |
| 1:47.3 | and they start electing congressman. |
| 1:50.4 | Now, Franklin Roosevelt, well, first off, one thing about Franklin Roosevelt is, for all his big |
| 1:56.2 | spending, hates the dole. |
| 1:59.0 | He hates the idea of people just sitting around and giving a government, |
| 2:04.3 | getting a government check. This is one reason why we have so many remnants, relics, |
| 2:11.5 | artifices of the New Deal still around today. He built all those post offices and dams. He wanted |
| 2:16.7 | people to do things for them. |
| 2:19.0 | And the Townsend plant is just a giveaway. And it's a giveaway based on a use tax, which is, you know, |
... |
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