MANDATE FOR THE UNELECTED NEW DEALERS, 1936: 2/8: 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
🗓️ 18 February 2025
⏱️ 9 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.
1936 FDR
Transcript
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| 0:48.0 | I'm John Nacher with David Patricia. His new book is Roosevelt Sweeps Nation. FDR's 1936 landslide in the triumph of the liberal ideal. Roosevelt is without his best advisor. |
| 0:56.5 | Louis Howe is gone. |
| 1:02.6 | Roosevelt now faces Al Smith, his old mentor on his right, with the American Liberty League, preaching is the Constitution for Sale and other provocative remarks that |
| 1:08.0 | irritate the president. |
| 1:09.4 | He is very sensitive, although he's always laughing when you see him in the newsreels. |
| 1:13.8 | That is a style that Louis Howe approved of. |
| 1:17.3 | Just keep them laughing. |
| 1:19.0 | However, the president has to deal with the fact that he sits upon a Democratic Party |
| 1:23.6 | that has been solid since the Civil War and before as what is politely known at the time |
| 1:31.5 | as the way things are. |
| 1:33.9 | We would call it today unacceptable racism, vast and crushing. |
| 1:39.7 | The Jim Crow laws were the beginning of it. |
| 1:42.0 | Roosevelt knows this. |
| 1:43.6 | He also knows that he can be challenged |
| 1:46.0 | from the South by two men, and we're about to meet them. One, his name is Huey Long, from |
| 1:54.0 | Louisiana, who is a character beyond belief except for he's real. And the other is Herman Talmadge from Georgia let's start |
| 2:03.3 | with Long David what is long is gone by 36 but what he represents challenges Roosevelt what is |
| 2:12.3 | what was it that was most worrying to the president that could be revived. |
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