The Second New Deal! | FDR Turns Populist to Stop the Rise of Huey Long

In this episode, we talk about how Franklin Roosevelt pivoted to a Second New Deal to head off the populist challenge of Huey Long.

Roosevelt by 1936 was under assault from a populist backlash to his First New Deal. Many traditional Democrats, mostly working people, had come to believe Roosevelt’s progressive First New Deal program was a sell-out to corporations and national elites that didn't actually help people like them. They had come to see Roosevelt as another rich man in league with his wealthy friends, and his New Deal program as useless. The found a champion in Louisiana Senator Huey Long.

Long was a strident populist who had overthrown his state’s political and social elites to become Louisiana’s political boss with a ruthless political machine subject only to him. He eagerly used his office to punish perceived opponents and seize wealth from those he despised, where he then showered it on the working people of his state. He created a staggering public works program with hospitals, roads, and schools funded by attacking wealthy elites. Now in the Senate, Long was taking his program national.

A Democrat and originally a New Deal supporter, Long was now attacking Roosevelt at every chance he got with his own relief program he called “Share Our Wealth.” In contrast to the technocratic First New Deal, Long proposed caps on the income to millionaires, a national income, and free tuition. He claimed it would make “Every Man a King.”

Nor was Long alone. Another former New Deal supporter, the popular radio priest Father Charles Coughlin, was also now attacking Roosevelt on the radio to his millions of listeners with similar complaints. There was also a doctor in California, Francis Townsend, who had become a national celebrity proposing a national old age pension program he called the Townsend Plan. When Roosevelt failed to embrace it, Townsend had turned against him too.

Roosevelt and his New Dealers started to get worried as the next election loomed. They anticipated Long was gearing to challenge Roosevelt for the presidency, and given this national popular backlash to his administration they feared he might actually win. It was time to pivot to a new program, a populist Second New Deal to head off Huey Long.

The First New Deal had been a progressive program to manage the national economy. The Second was a populist one. It included things like a new agency, the Works Progress Administration, putting people directly to work. An old age pension program called Social Security modeled on the Townsend Plan. An order that corporations pay out profits as dividends. A tax bill with a punishing high rate of 79% meant to target just one man, John D. Rockefeller.

It worked. Roosevelt won renomination and another term in the presidency in 1936. But now he presided over a very different Democratic Party, one with a novel party philosophy. It combined the progressive ideals of the First New Deal with the populist ones of the Second, forged into a a new party ideology we call New Deal liberalism. Over Roosevelt’s years in office, this new philosophy settled into a new party ideology where has remained ever since.

We usually just call it liberalism.

[marcl]

I'm eagerly waiting for the next episode ! I came across your channel because, as a french man mostly unaware of American politics, I wanted to understand how the party of Lincoln became the party of Trump and why the Dixiecrats. now I know a lot about the founding fathers, Andrew Jackson, the Whigs, the Progressists from both sides...
thank you for your much appreciated work !

[theoshouse]

I just watched every one of your videos in like 3 days. Thanks a ton! I hope you put out a video soon on our next political system. There's so much to think about. I'm also a little curious about your own political views after watching these videos. In our next political system, what would your ideal party support?

[tracyfrazier]

Always excited to see a new post from you.

[BFNgaming]

Rest in peace Huey Long. Every man a king!

[rforrist]

Hi frank. Great videos, but I think your commentary is lacking in the effects policies had, particularly the new deal era’s social security, unemployment, infrastructure spending, antitrust and pro-labor policies. These policies had bipartisan consensus for decades and helped create the middle class in mid 20th cent. You seem to skip over these almost entirely and you just say “the new deal was broadly popular, but some people disagreed...and you just frame it as a generalized freedom vs despotism argument. More context needed.

[heideggersbeingandtimeavid]

Frances Perkins made it a condition of her working for FDR that he support an old age pension plan. its kind of misleading to say this came about just as reaction to Townsend et al.

[emperoremperor]

To summarize, socialist ideas are popular and the Dems adopt them and the new deal starts working and Roosevelt goes to win 4 terms as president.
So surprising./s

Also the Long fears are pretty hypocritical considering the 4 terms.