Episode 72 — Franklin D. Roosevelt: New Deal Nerve, Wartime Resolve
pplpod · pplpod
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Show Notes
pplpod Episode 72 follows Franklin D. Roosevelt’s long arc—from Hyde Park heir turned reform-minded politician to the only four-term president who steered America through depression and world war. We trace the polio that remade his empathy and grit, the 1932 mandate, and a first-hundred-days blitz that reset the federal toolkit: bank holiday and FDIC, CCC, TVA, WPA, Social Security, and the fireside chats that made policy feel personal. Then the pivot to a dangerous world—Neutrality Acts to Lend-Lease, the Arsenal of Democracy, Atlantic Charter principles, and a commander-in-chief balancing Churchill, Stalin, home-front production, and civil liberties under strain. Inside the fights: court-packing, recession within the Depression, labor’s rise, and the political coalition that redefined the map. We close at Yalta and Warm Springs—legacy, limits, and how FDR fused optimism with experiment to change what government could do.