Interesting that none of them picked the sitting president. Not sure if that was due to their dislike of the New Deal, or if that’s a reflection of a pre-WWII American view that their leaders play second fiddle to Europe.
As much as I believe universities are great and important things, pretty much before the 1950s the majority of colleges were just for lack of better term, “practice country clubs” that doubled as training for the idle rich to learn to be porks.
So FDR, who still had problems, was utterly profane to porky and the piglets in university at the time. I wouldn’t be surprised if Adolf Hitler was the most beloved person among (white) Amerikkkans until the US entered WW2.
Amerikkkans memory holed that shit real quick once Germany declared war.
…It also includes a piece of a speech by Fritz Kuhn, the leader of the German-American Bund (the American wing of the Nazi party), in which he rails against the “Jewish-controlled media” and says it’s time to return United States to the white Christians who he says founded the nation. At one point during the speech a 26-year-old plumber’s helper from Brooklyn named Isadore Greenbaum charges the stage and yells, “Down with Hitler.”
He is beaten up by Bund guards and his clothing is ripped off in the attack before New York police officers arrest him for disorderly conduct. (In court that night, the judge said, “Don’t you realize that innocent people might have been killed?” Greenbaum responded, “Don’t you realize that plenty of Jewish people might be killed with their persecution up there?”)
I feel like it would be too easy to draw a parallel here to a CURRENT, ongoing genocide and the way protestors trying to stop the current murder machine are treated…
I’m pretty sure that much of the most progressive stuff in The New Deal were concessions made to labor unions. FDR didn’t do it from the kindness of his heart.
You’re exactly right. This is outlined in “The S Word” by John Nichols. He was pressured by ardent socialists/communists and actually LISTENED to that pressure. Leading to setting up some of the most important safety nets in US history.
Imagine if socialists/communists ACTUALLY had a chance to take the reins and go further
