New_Deal_Coalition | TriviaQuestions.online

⭐ In the context of the Presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the New Deal Coalition is considered a significant development because it…

The New Deal Coalition brought together groups that had not previously aligned politically, such as labor unions and Southern whites, and this alliance dominated American politics for decades, defining the era’s liberal movement.

⭐ Core Definition: New Deal Coalition

The New Deal coalition was an American political coalition that supported the Democratic Party beginning in 1932. The coalition is named after President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs, and the follow-up Democratic presidents. It was composed of voting blocs who supported them. The coalition included labor unions, blue-collar workers, big city machines, racial and religious minorities (especially Jews, Catholics, and African Americans), white Southerners, and intellectuals. Besides voters the coalition included powerful interest groups: Democratic Party organizations in most states, city machines, labor unions, some third parties, universities, and foundations. It was largely opposed by the Republican Party, the business community, and wealthy Protestants. In creating his coalition, Roosevelt was at first eager to include liberal Republicans and some radical third parties, even if it meant downplaying the "Democratic" name. By the 1940s, the Republican and third-party allies had mostly been defeated. In 1948, the Democratic Party stood alone and won both the White House and both congressional houses with a mandate, surviving the splits that created two splinter parties.

The coalition made the Democratic Party the majority party nationally for decades. From 1933 to 1968, Democrats only lost control of the White House when Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected president in 1952 and was then reelected in 1956 due to his broad popularity. The Democrats typically controlled both Houses of Congress before the 1990s. The coalition began to weaken with the collapse of big city machines after 1940, the steady decline of labor unions after 1970, the bitter factionalism during the 1968 election, the turn of northern white ethnics and southern whites toward conservatism on racial issues, and the rise of neoliberalism under the presidency of Ronald Reagan, with its opposition to regulation.

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👉 New Deal Coalition in the context of Presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933–1941)

The first term of the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt began on March 4, 1933, when he was inaugurated as the 32nd president of the United States, and the second term of his presidency ended on January 20, 1941, with his inauguration to a third term. Roosevelt, the Democratic governor of New York, took office after defeating incumbent president Herbert Hoover, his Republican opponent in the 1932 presidential election. Roosevelt led the implementation of the New Deal, a series of programs designed to provide relief, recovery, and reform to Americans and the American economy during the Great Depression. He also presided over a realignment that made his New Deal Coalition of labor unions, big city machines, white ethnics, African Americans, and rural white Southerners dominant in national politics until the 1960s and defined modern American liberalism.

During his first hundred days in office, Roosevelt spearheaded unprecedented major legislation and issued a profusion of executive orders. The Emergency Banking Act helped put an end to a run on banks, while the 1933 Banking Act and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 provided major reforms in the financial sector. To provide relief to unemployed workers, Roosevelt presided over the establishment of several agencies, including the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Public Works Administration, and the Federal Emergency Relief Administration. The Roosevelt administration established the Agricultural Adjustment Administration to implement new policies designed to prevent agricultural overproduction. It also established several agencies, most notably the National Recovery Administration, to reform the industrial sector, though it lasted only two years.

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