US Elections

FDR and ALL

By Lauren Haumesser in Sydney, Australia

11 August 2011

Much has been made of the parallels between Presidents Barack Obama and Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Democratic presidents, elected in times of crisis, with twin mandates to save the economy, both of whom championed a flurry of big-spending legislation. What has been less explored — but is equally worth investigating — are the similarities between the presidents’ respective oppositions.  

As with Obama and the Tea Party, one source of opposition to Roosevelt came from outside of Washington, from the American Liberty League (ALL). The ALL is not a perfect historical analogue for the Tea Party, but its ideology and its demise can illuminate the Tea Party’s appeal and its path forward following last month’s debt ceiling debate.

The ALL, like the Tea Party, built its ideology on the American creeds of local control and respect for the Constitution. One pamphlet called on Americans’ abiding localism in opposition to the National Recovery Administration (NRA), crying, “There can be no defense of the policies which seek by subterfuge to usurp the rights of the States!” ALL members also shared the Tea Party’s proclivity for appealing to the Constitution in their campaign against a growing government bureaucracy. These ideologies, among others, drew in a large number of supporters — registered American Liberty Leaguers numbered over 125,000 by mid-1936.

If the ALL successfully appealed to certain basic American political instincts, why did support for the organization wane?

The ALL failed to maintain its influence for one fundamental reason: its ideological rigidity led the organization to advocate against legislation that sought to help struggling Americans. The ALL opposed popular bills that sought to protect Americans and mitigate economic woes, from the creation of the NRA to a reformed and more flexible Federal Reserve.

It is to this fact, above all others, that the Tea Party must pay attention if it hopes to retain its sway in American politics. Reaction to the recent debate over the debt ceiling indicates future trouble for the Tea Party. The Tea Party-supported candidates’ inflexibility in the debt debate turned off many Americans. An early August New York Times/CBS News poll showed 40 per cent of Americans characterized their view of the Tea Party as “not favorable,” compared to only 18 per cent in April 2010. The debt ceiling debate was a political battle in which the Tea Party seemed willing to hurt Americans to conserve their own ideological purity. This time, the Tea Party averted disaster. But if the Tea Party continues to champion ideology over the common man, it may well go the way of the ALL — into the annals of American history as an extreme group that could not learn the American tradition of compromise.

Tags: All, American Liberty League, Barack Obama, Fdr, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Guest Post, Tea Party

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