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Franklin Roosevelt



  • The "Dead Hand" on the Supreme Court

    by Ronald Brownstein

    The Supreme Court's conservative majority has been nominated by presidents and confirmed by senators who represent rural, white, Christian conservatives in an increasingly diverse country. Court historian Jeff Shesol says this dynamic has threatened the court's legitimacy in the past. 



  • Historian Harvey Kaye: Biden has Never Wanted to be FDR

    Entering office in 1933, Franklin Roosevelt was confident that mass social movements would build support for systemic political and economic change. Joe Biden does not seem to be drawing similar lessons from social protest today. 



  • Stephen Vladeck: Bring Back the Second Part of FDR's SCOTUS Reform Plan

    by Stephen Vladeck

    As the Supreme Court adopts a posture of governing by injunction before lower court appeals run their course, should revive FDR's proposal that cases seeking to throw out state or federal rules be heard by special panels, not single judges chosen through jurisdiction-shopping. 



  • TNR Editor: Actually, Biden Was Elected to Be an FDR

    If Democratic moderates want their president and their party to succeed, they need to grapple with the political decisions that have destroyed public investment and transferred the nation's wealth upward to the rich, and think of the present as a crisis comparable to the Great Depression. 



  • Has Biden's FDR Dream Hit the Rocks?

    Joe Biden must have expected unified Republican opposition and betrayal by Democratic moderates, but probably not so quickly. 



  • Wartime Wisdom to Combat Inflation

    by David Stein

    Today, monetary policy controlled by the Federal Reserve is the only tool commonly used to control inflation, pitting controlling prices against full employment and wage growth. The history of the World War II Office of Price Administration reveals other possibilities. 



  • What is Left of the New Deal?

    by Michael Kazin

    Eric Rauchway's book on the New Deal stresses that FDR believed democracy could survive only if people accepted, and government supported, their mutual dependence on one another. Preserving the New Deal political order means recognizing and celebrating its tangible achievements. 



  • FDR’s Second 100 Days Were Cooler Than His First 100 Days

    by Jordan Weissmann

    The first 100 days of the New Deal could be described as disaster response. The second 100 days, according to historians William Leuchtenberg, Erich Rauchway and David Kennedy, were when the administration took steps that transformed labor relations and birthed a modern social welfare state. 



  • Joe Biden Wants An ‘FDR-Size Presidency.’ What Does That Even Mean?

    The proposed dollar value of spending in Biden's recovery plan isn't the best measure of comparison to the New Deal. Does the plan assume the society is basically sound and in need of "bailing out" or unsound and in need of restructuring? Historian Eric Rauchway explains. 



  • The Original Sin of America’s Broken Immigration Courts

    A decision made by Franklin Roosevelt to move immigration services from jurisdiction of the Department of Labor to the Department of Justice laid the groundwork for criminalizing immigration and for abusive practices that came to light in the most recent administration.