The Great American Story: The New Deal
The Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast
Hillsdale College
4.6 • 621 Ratings
🗓️ 3 June 2026
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of The Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast, Jeremiah and Juan discuss the legacy of President Franklin Roosevelt before introducing Wilfred McClay.
Americans have overcome many challenges throughout our history, including the American Revolution, the Civil War, the Great Depression, two World Wars, and the Cold War. Studying the great stories from our past inspires us to preserve the blessings of liberty in our day. Now you can study these stories with Hillsdale College.
Hillsdale’s free online course, “The Great American Story: A Land of Hope,” explores the history of America as a land of hope founded on high principles. In presenting the great triumphs and achievements of our nation’s past, as well as the shortcomings and failures, it offers a broad and unbiased study of the kind essential to the cultivation of intelligent patriotism.
In the midst of the Great Depression, Americans turned to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his New Deal. The bevy of programs and new government agencies created under FDR did not solve the problems resulting from economic depression.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Hillsdale College Online Courses podcast. |
| 0:11.3 | I'm Jeremiah Regan. |
| 0:12.8 | And I'm Juan Davalos. |
| 0:13.8 | We're back with the Great American Story, A Land of Hope. |
| 0:16.8 | On to Lecture 18, The New Deal. |
| 0:19.0 | In FDR, who was the architect of the New Deal, we see the progressive |
| 0:22.7 | philosophy improved and modified, whereas TR and Woodrow Wilson openly attacked the principles |
| 0:30.4 | of the founding. FDR adopted the language of the founding, even using the language of the |
| 0:34.2 | Declaration of Independence with some important changes to advocate for |
| 0:39.3 | his new position. He recounted the social compact from the Declaration of Independence, which |
| 0:43.9 | says that all men are created equal, and they're endowed with inalienable rights by their |
| 0:47.9 | creator, and that they institute government to secure these rights. FDR uses very similar |
| 0:52.6 | language, except he says the relationship is such that |
| 0:56.1 | people agree to give government power and government agrees to give people certain rights. |
| 1:02.6 | It's interesting that you started with that point because as you can probably tell from my |
| 1:08.3 | accident and my name, I did not grow up in the States. |
| 1:13.0 | I became a citizen a few years ago. |
| 1:20.8 | However, the view of people that are not as informed on American history, myself included in that, |
| 1:24.8 | used to be that, of course, FDR was a great precedent. |
| 1:26.0 | It's fantastic. |
| 1:29.5 | That's, you know, the very superficial knowledge of who FDR was. |
| 1:35.5 | But then once you start studying him and what he actually said, then you discover what you're saying. |
... |
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