IB History Impact on Party Politics Notes

Party politics: The Depression created a New Deal electoral order

Republican dominance collapsed

1. Republicans entered the crisis as the governing party. Herbert Hoover won the 1928 election with 444 electoral votes and support across much of the country.
   1. The crash attached economic failure to Republican leadership. Unemployment, bank failures, and visible hardship damaged claims that prosperity would return through voluntary cooperation.
   2. Democrats won the 1930 midterm elections. The result weakened Republican control before Roosevelt became the presidential nominee.
   3. Hoover's public image deteriorated. Terms such as Hoovervilles and Hoover blankets turned material suffering into partisan criticism.
   4. The Bonus Army clearance intensified the damage. The use of federal troops against veterans in 1932 reinforced the idea that Hoover lacked sympathy.

The 1932 election marked a decisive transfer of power

1. Franklin D. Roosevelt promised a new deal for the American people. The phrase allowed him to campaign for experimentation without committing to one fixed programme.
2. Roosevelt won 472 electoral votes. Hoover carried only six states and 59 electoral votes.
   1. Democrats also secured congressional majorities. Unified control made rapid legislation possible during the First Hundred Days.
   2. The election rejected Republican crisis management. But voters did not yet endorse every later New Deal programme because many had not been designed.
   3. The result created political opportunity. Economic emergency allowed Democrats to redefine federal responsibility and party identity.

The New Deal coalition united different interests

1. The coalition was broad rather than ideologically uniform. Groups supported Democrats for relief, labour rights, farm policy, urban patronage, or loyalty to the South.
   1. White southern voters remained central. The Solid South had supported Democrats since Reconstruction and gave Roosevelt reliable electoral votes.
   2. Urban working-class voters moved toward the Democrats. Relief programmes, union rights, and city party organizations connected federal policy to local needs.
   3. Catholic and Jewish voters strengthened Democratic support. Many lived in industrial cities and viewed the party as more responsive to unemployment and discrimination.
   4. Farmers in the West and Midwest backed agricultural relief. Price supports and credit assistance gave rural voters material reasons to remain in the coalition.
   5. Progressive reformers supported regulation. They saw New Deal agencies as a way to restrain finance and stabilize capitalism.

Organized labour became a Democratic force

1. The Wagner Act of 1935 protected collective bargaining. Federal recognition encouraged unions to organize mass-production industries.
   1. The Congress of Industrial Organizations mobilized industrial workers. The CIO organized workers across skill and ethnic divisions in steel, automobiles, rubber, and other sectors.
   2. Union leaders linked workplace rights to electoral politics. Labour organizations provided money, campaign workers, and voter mobilization for Roosevelt.
   3. The 1936 sit-down strike wave reinforced political alignment. The Flint strike against General Motors showed that federal neutrality could matter during industrial conflict.
   4. Labour support was not automatic. Some craft unions resisted the CIO, while employers and conservative workers opposed New Deal labour policy.

African American voting shifted unevenly

1. African Americans had traditionally supported the Republican Party. The party of Abraham Lincoln retained symbolic loyalty after emancipation.
2. The Depression hit Black communities especially hard. Discrimination in hiring and relief made unemployment more severe.
   1. New Deal programmes provided some assistance but preserved inequality. Local administration, occupational exclusions, and southern influence limited access.
   2. Northern Black voters moved toward Roosevelt. In the 1936 election, a majority of African American voters in northern cities supported the Democratic presidential ticket.
   3. The shift reflected practical calculation. Relief, appointments, Eleanor Roosevelt's advocacy, and access to the governing party outweighed Republican tradition.
   4. Southern disfranchisement limited national representation. Poll taxes, literacy tests, intimidation, and white primaries blocked many Black citizens from voting.

Women gained visibility without equal power

1. Women voted in every presidential election after the Nineteenth Amendment. The Depression did not remove formal suffrage, but economic policy often assumed a male breadwinner.
   1. Frances Perkins became secretary of labor in 1933. She was the first woman to hold a US cabinet post and helped design Social Security and labour reform.
   2. Eleanor Roosevelt widened political access. She held women-only press conferences, travelled widely, and supported civil rights and relief causes.
   3. Women organized through party networks. Molly Dewson strengthened the Democratic Party's women's division and expanded campaign participation.
   4. Representation remained limited. Women held few senior offices, and married women's employment faced public hostility and legal restrictions.

The 1936 election consolidated realignment

1. Republicans nominated Kansas governor Alf Landon. He accepted some reform but criticized New Deal spending and administration.
2. Roosevelt won 523 electoral votes. Landon carried only Maine and Vermont.
   1. Democrats dominated industrial cities. Workers, immigrant communities, and relief recipients helped create large urban majorities.
3. The Literary Digest poll failed badly. Its sample relied on telephone and automobile lists that underrepresented poorer voters.
   1. The landslide demonstrated coalition strength. But it also encouraged Roosevelt to overestimate support for later institutional battles.

The coalition contained major contradictions

1. Southern Democrats supported federal spending while defending segregation. Their congressional seniority gave them power over committees and legislation.
2. Labour reform excluded key occupations. Agricultural and domestic workers, many of them Black or Latino, were omitted from major protections.
3. Urban machines traded services for loyalty. New Deal funds strengthened some local Democratic organizations without eliminating patronage.
   1. Farm programmes could aid landowners while displacing tenants. The same policy could stabilize prices and deepen inequality.
   2. Coalition management required compromise. Roosevelt often avoided civil rights measures that threatened southern support.

Opposition reorganized Republican and conservative politics

1. The American Liberty League formed in 1934. Business leaders and conservative Democrats attacked regulation, taxation, and federal expansion.
2. Republicans portrayed the New Deal as wasteful and centralizing. They struggled to overcome association with the initial collapse.
3. The 1937 court plan divided Democrats. Roosevelt's proposal to add judges for older justices appeared to threaten judicial independence.
   1. A conservative coalition emerged in Congress. Southern Democrats and Republicans increasingly cooperated against labour and welfare expansion.
   2. The 1938 midterms weakened Roosevelt. Republicans gained 81 House seats, and conservative Democrats resisted further reform.

Third-party and populist pressure shaped debate

1. Huey Long proposed Share Our Wealth. He called for limits on large fortunes and guaranteed household income.
   1. Francis Townsend demanded old-age pensions. His movement helped make economic security for older people a national political issue.
   2. Father Charles Coughlin used radio to attack banks and Roosevelt. His movement combined monetary reform, populism, and later antisemitic rhetoric.
   3. The Communist Party organized unemployed and tenant groups. Its electoral support remained limited, but activism influenced labour and anti-eviction campaigns.
   4. Pressure from outside the major parties affected policy. Roosevelt's 1935 Second New Deal responded to demands for stronger welfare and labour protection.

Specific programmes built lasting Democratic loyalty

1. Relief became an electoral relationship. Federal programmes tied recovery to the Democratic administration, so many households judged party competition through visible access to work, food, housing, and credit.
2. The Emergency Banking Act restored political confidence. Roosevelt's rapid response in March 1933 associated Democratic government with decisive action after years of banking panic and Republican hesitation.
3. The Civilian Conservation Corps reached young voters and families. Its wages supported dependants at home while camps made federal relief visible in rural districts and small towns.
4. The Works Progress Administration deepened local loyalty. By 1936, millions had received jobs through projects administered under a Democratic president, creating a durable link between public employment and party support.
5. Social Security created a long-term policy constituency. Old-age pensions and unemployment insurance made federal welfare commitments part of ordinary political expectations after 1935.
6. The electoral legacy extended beyond Roosevelt. Democrats won five consecutive presidential elections from 1932 through 1948, demonstrating that the Depression had produced a durable national party system.

Historians debate the depth of realignment

1. Realignment historians emphasize durability. They argue that 1932 and 1936 created a party system centred on Democratic federal activism.
2. Policy-centred historians stress material benefits. Voters supported programmes that delivered relief, employment, pensions, and labour rights.
3. Race historians emphasize unequal inclusion. The coalition expanded Black political influence in northern cities while protecting southern segregation.
4. Institutional historians stress coalition constraints. Southern committee power and conservative alliances limited how far reform could go.
   1. A balanced judgement separates electoral from social transformation. The party map changed sharply, but power and citizenship remained unequal.

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