The Birth of Modern Conservatism | Court Packing and the New Deal Reaction
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- Опубліковано 18 жов 2024
- In this episode, we talk about the birth of modern conservatism in reaction against the New Deal.
The New Deal was broadly popular, but it wasn’t popular with everyone. Some people had real problems with New Deal programs individually, and with the New Deal philosophy of government generally. The New Deal was truly a constitutional revolution providing the government with new powers it had never exercised before and creating a flurry of new institutions and programs unlike anything the federal government had before.
Then there were the inevitable controversies, missteps, blunders and abuses that always happen when people exercise power. The AAA was destroying food at a time in which Americans were going hungry. Roosevelt had instituted a new punishing tax rate meant to target just one man he did not like, John Rockefeller. Yet nothing was as controversial than the implementation of the National Recovery Act.
The NRA had charged powerful corporate and labor interests with writing comprehensive rules managing the details of every industry in America. Naturally, some seized the opportunity to craft rules meant not to benefit America but to benefit their own businesses while punishing rivals. Then there were the private policemen accountable only to those interest bashing down doors at night looking for code violations. Or the NRA posters businesses had to display in their windows like loyalty posters to fend off the threat of government led boycotts. The stories of abuses eventually got bad enough the government had to create a review board under the leadership of Clarence Darrow. Darrow’s reports were so blistering and filled with stories of abuse the administration had to bury them in embarrassment and abolish the review board entirely.
But things really came to a head with the Court-Packing Scheme.
It was inevitably that people would challenge the constitutionality of these New Deal programs in court, and around the middle of Roosevelt’s first term they reached the Supreme Court. It was little surprise when the Supreme Court, following pre-New Deal precedent, started striking programs down. Then in one day in 1935, the Court struck down several New Deal programs-including its crown jewel the NRA.
FDR reportedly now decided the Court was his enemy and the chief obstacle to his New Deal. He put together a bill allowing him to appoint a new justice for every justice over seventy, which would give him a new majority. The backlash in his own party was immense. When the Court suddenly began to switch its votes to moot the necessity of the bill, FDR had to drop it before it passed-giving him the constitutional revolution he sought. But at great cost.
Now a core group of Democrats, thinking the FDR and his New Deal had now gone too far, reached out to anti-New Deal Republicans in Congress. They formed an information coalition dedicated to stopping the New Deal. It was called the Conservative Coalition.
This Conservative Coalition would lodge essentially two arguments against the New Deal. That it was an assault on liberty. And that it was “Unamerican,” essentially meaning it was undercutting traits of character, or virtues, the American republic needed to survive and thrive.
These two ideas, liberty and virtue, were coming together to form another new ideology. That ideology is modern conservatism. The New Deal hadn’t just created one new political ideology. It created two.
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I wish your channel was more popular. Your videos are amazing.
Thanks!
I discovered your channel while searching for the Taft/Eisenhower rift. Really well done.
"A Poultry business that ran afoul"...
The Anti-New Dealers didn't really take control of the Republican Party until Barry Goldwater's 1964 Convention speech where they trounced Nelson Rockefeller's Moderate/Reform New Deal position. The merger of Social Conservatism and Anti-New Dealism happened from there onwards.
I'd say the Rockefeller Republicans and Movement Conservatives were both philosophically against the New Deal. Their fight was really over tactics. The Rockefellers like Dewey and Ike thought the big battle was lost and their job was therefore to work within the new order and fight further expansion. The Movement Conservatives like Taft, and then under Buckley, Goldwater, and Reagan, wanted to reopen the fight they lost under FDR. It was more a tactical dispute than philosophical. They all agreed what FDR did was bad and would undo it if they could. They question was how to get there while not losing every election like they did under FDR.
How was supporting safe working conditions and care for those who can’t take care of themselves seen as a threat to liberty? Can you give some specifics? This seems like mere rhetoric, but did they have specific arguments?
Now Trump is destroying that alliance. I wonder how you think the capital riots will affect this. To me, the parties are united around cultural issues but divided on economics when it used to be the other way around.
I see the exact opposite, both parties are embracing economic populism, the left is just more extreme in that sense leaning into socialism. But they are completely againts each other's cultural ideologies. The right is turning into a somewhat civic nationalistic economically populist party and the left is turning into a social progressive economically populist party
@@hdhhdbdhhd6444 I meant that the parties are internally united by cultural issues.
Do you have any recommended books about FDR and packing the Courts or FDR and abusing powers?
My favorite history on FDR is still Schlessinger. He was writing close to the events and is very readable. As for abuses specifically, John Flynn's The Roosevelt Myth is very good because Flynn was a New Dealer turned opponent and is writing a political polemic to take down FDR. So he is trolling looking for abuses to explain why FDR is wrong. As for Court Packing specifically, there are a lot of great books just on that topic. James Simon's FDR and Chief Justice Hughes is a pretty interesting read on the FDR judicial battles. I believe a lot of people also like Jeff Shesol's Supreme Power.
@@FrankDiStefano thank you for the suggestions! I am a freshman’s in college and I just want to learn more. I have been reading about Calvin Coolidge lately and looking to start reading about FDR (and not just books that adore FDR).
the words liberty & virtue did little to resolve the issues the nation faced and once the crisis was abated 'they' proceeded to try and dismantle what little gains working people had earned... and when did the idea that virtue was a political issue to be voted on sounding more like some calvinist ministers sermon... and now here we are 80+ years later trying to deal with even greater issues and the old drum keeps getting banged on with empty platitudes and obstructing every policy except less taxes for the top 20%....
History Rhymes
Is it just me or does Conservatism here sounds like its just opposition to the new deal with unrelated concepts (Liberty,Virtue) tacked on to distract from that?
Barry Goldwater summed it up best. "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." - Barry Goldwater 1964 Republican Convention.
@@12KevinPower Nice words,but wasn't he against civil rights?
@@emperoremperor1486 Goldwater argued against the Civil Rights of 1964 under the idea of Libertarianism in which the Government shouldn't enforce anti-discrimination laws on private property. He was actually pro-civil rights on Public/Government property. As a result, Southern States which have always voted Democratic, switched to Republican because they didn't like the New Deal's Social Progressive agenda. Oddly enough, Barry Goldwater's position is ironic today because now Republicans want to use Government to enforce anti-discrimination and pro-all speech on private platforms of technology companies.
@@12KevinPower That view kinda wrecks of wilful ignorance if you consider any amount of US history.
I do have to give you that he at least did have a kinda coherent ideology for doing it tho.
@@emperoremperor1486 ua-cam.com/video/tacJtYPHKiE/v-deo.html Here is the video in which Goldwater explains his vote against the bill. It connects back to this video in which Goldwater argued that extent of government's interference into the lives/private property of citizens was "unconstitutional".
ua-cam.com/video/JJyWWM9OHKA/v-deo.html is another example, where he argues that Civil Rights Act interferes with public accommodations similar to how FDR's National Recovery Act interfered.
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