It was the height of the Great Depression, and there was a sense that he was moving the country in a dangerous direction, especially among the moneyed interests. Sally Denton: My book focuses on the year 1933, his first year in office, and there was great alarm throughout the country. How did business interests react to his presidency at the time – and to the significant changes he was bringing about with the New Deal? He remains one of the most popular presidents in the public’s imagination. Joshua Holland: Today, we think of FDR as a heroic figure.
Below is a lightly edited transcript of our discussion. On Saturday, the 79th anniversary of Roosevelt’s death, spoke with Denton about this poorly remembered history. It was a time, she writes, in which radicals of various stripes questioned the viability of American democracy and a group of bankers went so far as to plot to overthrow the president. Investigative journalist Sally Denton details a darker reality of that period in her 2011 book, FDR, a Nation in Crisis, and the Rise of the American Right. Kaye told Bill Moyers how FDR created a progressive generation that helped change American society in dramatic ways. Eighty years after it was signed into law, the Social Security Act, arguably Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s signature piece of legislation, still is under attack from the right.
Every new addition to the safety net has been met with a concerted campaign by conservatives and the business establishment to undermine it. This piece originally appeared on .Įvery baby step toward guaranteeing American working people a minimum of economic security with new social insurance programs has been greeted with howls of horror and outrage - and predictions that the end of the Republic is near.
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