I'm John Thatcher with David Petrucia.

His new book is Roosevelt Sweeps Nation, FDR's 1936 landslide, and the triumph of the liberal ideal.

The Communist Party of the United States of America, the Socialist Party, they have figures that lead them,

and they're important figures because of their connection to previous successes.

The Socialists had been successful since all that century, since the earliest vote, 1912, I believe.

David helped me. Was 1912 their top or was 1920 their top? I can't recall.

1920 is when they top about 900. Well, it depends how you measure it.

1920, they get the highest number of raw votes. 1912, they get the highest percentage.

And even as late as 1932, Norman Thomas, who was their

perennial candidate at this point, following their previous perennial candidate, Eugene V. Debs,

is still drawing 845,000 votes and drawing hundreds of thousands of votes in the, in a recent

New York City mayoral election.

So the socialists represent theory and book learning and classicism,

but they also appeal to what we would say is the proto-union faction in the large city of New York.

Roosevelt regards them as a challenge because they can

pick off pieces of New York State, pieces of the electorate in New York City in particular,

and might cost him those electoral votes. The communist part of the USA is harder to imagine

being a threat today, but at the time, it was led by a man

named Earl Browder. And importantly, David, you've come up with a fact as to why Browder was

still the head of the party. He was Stalin's choice. Why? Two reasons, actually. One, he wasn't

Jewish.

Stamund did not want a Jew representing the American Communist Party USA.

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