How The New Deal Remade Parties And The Presidency

A national emergency remade American politics—and we follow the fault lines from the Great Depression to the digital age. With Dr. Sidney Milkis, we unpack how Franklin Roosevelt turned crisis into a lasting partisan realignment and built the modern presidency as an institution with its own staff, strategy, and voice. From Social Security to the Executive Office of the President, the New Deal didn’t just add programs; it rewired how citizens see power, how parties compete, and how leaders communicate.

We explore why the Democratic coalition surged during the 1930s and held for decades, how labor and civil rights movements reshaped the map, and why both parties eventually embraced a stronger executive. Media sits at the heart of this story. Theodore Roosevelt leveraged investigative magazines to rally reform, while Franklin Roosevelt perfected radio’s intimacy with the fireside chats, speaking plainly about bank panics, recovery plans, and war aims. That direct line to the public set the template for television-era persuasion and today’s social media bursts, shifting attention away from party organizations and toward a single national voice.

There’s a cost to that success. When the presidency becomes the main interface with government, local democracy can wither. Turnout spikes for presidential races while state and municipal contests lag. Drawing on Tocqueville and family stories of precinct work, we make the case that neighborhood-level engagement—school boards, councils, party committees—still matters for a resilient republic. The path forward isn’t to dismantle national capacity but to restore civic practice where people live: better civic education, stronger state and local institutions, and party infrastructure that invites participation rather than gatekeeps it.

If this conversation sparked ideas for your classroom, community, or study group, share the episode, leave a review, and subscribe so you never miss new chapters in America’s democratic story.

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Transcript

Guest Intro And Credentials

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Today's guest is Dr. Sidney Milkis. Sidney Milkis is the White Briquette Miller Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia and interim director of the program on constitutionalism and democracy. He is an award-winning educator and a leading scholar of the American presidency, political parties, and democratic development. Professor Milkis is the author or co-author of numerous influential books on American politics, including works on the presidency, reform movements, and the evolution of constitutional democracy. He is also the co-founder of UVA's project on democracy and capitalism, which examines the relationship between self-government and markets. Welcome back to Civics in Year. If you have not listened to the previous episode with Dr. Milchis on the progressive era, I really think that you should. I could listen all day long. But we're kind of moving forward here to the New Deal. And Dr. Milkus, again, thank you so much. I I loved talking about Teddy Roosevelt. And now we get to talk about income Roosevelt. So what did the New Deal do to realign party coalitions in the 1930s?

The Great Depression Opens A Door

Building The New Deal Majority

SPEAKER_01 1:59

Yeah. Well, thank you for saying you could listen to me all day. Uh I don't academics don't hear that very often. I really appreciate it, Liz. So as we we talked about the progressive year, we said both parties were were affected by this more direct form of democracy where presidents become the major representative and the appeal is directly to public opinion. That affected both the Democratic and the Republican parties, but it's neither party completely embraces it because it weakens their organizations. And in particular, the Republican Party resists it. And so we get a reaction to the progressive era in the 1920s, as the president elected in 1920, Warren Harding put it, there's a retort return to normalcy. And a lot of things we talked about that were prevalent in the 19th century, efforts to restore power to the states and localities, put boundaries around the national government, restore the authority of uh states and localities in the party organization. That takes place in part during the 1920s. And so you become uh you you you you have the Republican Party, neither party is really committed to the kind of progressivism we describe, big government, presidency. But the Republican Party particularly resists it. And Herbert Hoover, who's the third Republican president in the 1920s, is elected in 1928 with a campaign uh credo of we have to advance rugged individualism. But that all changes with the Great Depression. And I don't know if your students can fathom how what a bad, terrible episode this was. It was an unprecedented national emergency, national crisis in American politics. And I didn't live through it, but my dad did. And he regaled me with tows about 30% unemployment, over 50% in cities, the banking industry had shut down, the stack, the stock market had collapsed. And that that created an opportunity for Franklin Roosevelt and the Democratic Party to become the vanguard of a major partisan realignment in American politics. The Republican Party had been the majority party since the Civil War with the really important interruption which we talked about in the previous segment of Woodrow Wilson. So Franklin Roosevelt broke the two-term tradition, was elected to four four terms. He'd probably still be president if he had not died in 1945. My mom told me that the American people had just grown so accustomed to Roosevelt being president that when he died, it just was a tremendous shock to the nation. That long, Roosevelt's long presidency in the midst of this domestic crisis, which then was reinforced by an international crisis, World War II, led to uh to a major realignment in American politics. And the Republican Party had been the dominant party since the Civil War. By the end of Roosevelt's presidency, he had he had forged a, with the help of labor unions and civil rights and the civil rights movement, he had forged a national democratic majority, which would prevail up until the late 1960s. And this consolidated, if you will, Liz, the progressive ideal. And so we're what happened in the first two decades of the 20th century is really consolidated during the New Deal period, and we get the welfare state, we get the national security state, and at the and at the top of that is this modern presidency, which is now is which now becomes not just an office, but an institution, because one of Franklin Roosevelt's reforms was to oversee the enactment of legislation which created the White House office, which which I guess was made famous by a pretty popular television show called The West Wing.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

And then as part of that, and that was part of the executive office of the president, which also created, which was also, which included important staff agencies like the Office of Management Management and Budget, which is now very much in the news because it's a very important part of President Trump's program. So we get a consolidation of the presidency, which both Democrats and Republicans buy into. But for a long time, that the Democratic Party and its conception of the modern presidency, which is dedicated particularly to the welfare state, Social Security is at the center, the core program of the New Deal. It's still the largest program in American politics. So this leads to a major transformation from ideas that emphasize the importance of individual responsibility.

SPEAKER_00 7:00

Dr. Milchis, you know, we talked about Teddy Roosevelt, again, my favorite president to study. And now we're talking about Franklin Roosevelt, who, in his own right, is incredibly interesting. They had two very different techniques of talking to the public. Can you kind of talk about how media and what Teddy Roosevelt termed as the bully pulpit influenced political parties and the way they interact with people?

Media’s Rise And The Bully Pulpit

SPEAKER_01 7:25

Yeah. The development of a mass media list is really a critical part of this development of the uh the direct connection that's formed between the modern presidential office and public opinion. So that becomes the main focus rather than the political parties. Uh and Roosevelt uses uh Franklin Roosevelt, I gotta be careful. Gotta we gotta talk about which Roosevelt we're talking about. And they were fifth, they were cousins, you know. Franklin Roosevelt is Roosevelt's fifth cousin, and was inspired by him and and and sought to complete what you know this advance of progressivism that was interrupted by the 1920s. So an important part of this of this real democratic realignment, where the Democratic Party establishes, becomes established as the majority party until the late 60s, uh, is Roosevelt's remarkable ability to communicate with the public. So Theodore Roosevelt had taken advantage of what he called the muckrakers, which was these uh these this investigative reporting that emerged with the explosion of popular magazines like McClure's uh during the Progressive Ear. And that's how he communicated with the public through these stories talking about uh his his what he wanted to accomplish and what what his obstacles to that were. Franklin Roosevelt pioneered the technology of the radio, which was really the most important form of communication until the television came on board in the 1950s. And he Calvin Coolidge had used the radio, he was the first one to use it, but for main mainly for formal speeches, what Franklin Roosevelt did, Liz, was to develop the fireside chat. And my dad talked about the fireside chats as well. Franklin Roosevelt gave two or three of these a year, and he did so when when there was really a very important thing to talk about. My father said when he when he was given a fireside chat, everybody listened because they never they knew they were going to hear something important. The first fireside of chat uh was March 12th, 1933, and it was Roosevelt's first uh personal appeal to the American people about dealing with this great crisis of the uh depression. Uh, and that was and his and his topic in that first fireside chat was the bank crisis. There was a raid on the banks and the banking system was collapsed, and he declared a bank holiday and told the American people why he was going to call that. And that was the beginning of restoring confidence in the American people. And what what was so important about these fireside chat, Liz, is that Roosevelt, if you listen to them, and your students can find them online, if you listen to them, you see he's it's almost like he's sitting in your living room talking to you. These are not that just as you and I are sitting here having this fun conversation about the procrastinator and the New Deal, it was as though Franklin Roosevelt was having uh a direct uh conversation with the American people. And so we spoke in very, in very plain but serious terms about the major developments that occurred during his presidency, ending, of course, with World War II.

Fireside Chats And Public Trust

SPEAKER_00 10:36

Yeah. It's interesting that you say that because I think the first time I experienced a presidential speech, or I mean, my generation's version of a fireside chat is listening to Reagan's challenger speech because I was in elementary school. You know, we had watched, we had watched the challenger and unfortunately, you know, watched the tragedy that it became. And I remember watching that speech and feeling like President Reagan was speaking to me. So when you say that, I mean, that's kind of where I went is, and you know, we've listened to them, the fireside chats from Roosevelt in class, and that's such a powerful way to give information. I think today we take for granted we can get information quickly, like right at the touch of our hands. But, you know, if we're talking about the 1930s and the 1940s, information didn't move as quickly. Do you think that mass media then, especially as Franklin Roosevelt used it, had an impact on how political parties then afterwards engaged with the public?

SPEAKER_01 11:43

I well, I I do. And I and what I think it really accentuates, Liz, is this focus on on the presidency. Uh as you know, go back to Theodore Roosevelt's phrase as a steward of the public welfare, because it's hard for Congress and it's more and it's difficult for party uh organization leaders to communicate with the public in that way. And and so the the development of the mass media, first with these popular magazines, then with the radio, then with television, and now with X, with the social with social media, it really plays to the advantage of the presidency and has accentuated this change in our politics from where we started in the 19th century to now, where the main focus is not to the party system and to the Congress and the state governments, which were such a central part of the traditional party system. Now the main relationship, for better and worse, I think there's some problems with this. For better and worse, the the main relationship of the American people with their government is through the presidency. And the the president has almost become synonymous with with government for for a lot of people. And I think that's a problem, Liz, because I mean there's great advantages up to it. It's hard to see, for example, how you know you can think of the great triumphs of the modern presidency, with Franklin Roosevelt, of course, addressing in a way that the people felt responsive to the Great Depression, our victory in World War II. Think of the civil rights movement that Lyndon Johnson advanced. You mentioned Ronald Reagan and the our victory in the Cold War. These are great triumphs. But I think uh somewhat at the cost of the vitality of our democracy, because I don't think a large and diverse country of 300 million people can invest as much political trust as our as our citizenry has in the presidency in the White House and still say we have a vibrant form of self-government. I think the states and localities, the party organization played an important part of that. I'm I'm a little biased towards this because my keep talking about my family, but my students, my students like my stories about my family.

SPEAKER_00 14:01

I love them. They make it more relatable.

Media Shifts Power To Presidents

SPEAKER_01 14:04

So much that you know, I'm running out of family members to talk about in my class. But my grandfather, who owned a small grocery store in Jenkentown, Pennsylvania outside of Philly, also was a Republican committeeman, which meant he was a local party leader who went out into the neighborhoods and really gave the Republican Party a name and a place, you know, a place that the people could identify in the neighborhoods. And when he passed, I found some letters at some Republican congressmen who were elected in 1974 against the Watergate scandal, thanking him for his help in connecting with the people and helping them survive the politically survive the crisis. That kind of that kind of phenomena, my grandfather out there in the neighborhoods, has really declined in American politics, Liz. And I think that's at the cost of the vibrancy of our democracy.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

It's funny that you mentioned that because we just finished up a series on Alexis to Tocqueville and one of the, and I have never read Democracy in America, um, and I learned so much. And one of the things that I learned is that, you know, those politics should be local. Like that's where the power, you know, comes from, and that's where change comes from. And I don't know if it's the advent of social media, you know, this this is a kind of big thought experiment for me is where did it, when did it all of a sudden become this national thing? Because I know, you know, a lot of people vote in presidential elections, but they don't necessarily vote in their state and local elections. So it's it's been a theme in the most recent podcasts. And I'm glad that you mentioned it too, that local politics does matter. And, you know, back in the days of our grandfathers and grandmothers and greats and whatever else, that was the way that things happened.

Costs To Local Democracy

SPEAKER_01 15:54

Yeah. I taught TOCO yesterday in my graduate class, and I also teach it in my undergraduate class, and you're right, he his argument is that patriotism rises up from the provinces. People have to have a direct connection to the government and see it and participate in it for it really to mean something to them. And I think that begins to change dramatically with the New Deal. It and it and it and it's become even more pronounced. The change has become even pronounced with the 60s and 70s when the national government expands beyond matters of security, to almost every feature of our life. The personal is now political. And there's reasons for that, but but I think citizenship really was developed in American politics at the states and localities. These were the homes of uh, these were the these were the great schools of American democracy. And with their decline, and you're you're pointing to the lower turnout in congressional and local elections, is really, really important. That was not the case in the 19th century uh when parties were strong. I think we have to figure out figure out a way to revitalize that the civic culture that was in that was really uh cultivated by that kind of politics that Tocqueville talked about. Now, you know, it was no golden age, we can't go back there. But there were certain things that were valuable in that kind of politics, we need to think about revitalizing.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

Dr. Milkis, I can talk to you forever, and I do want you to know now that I am going to be asking you to do more of these with me because it it is, I appreciate that you talk about your family because it makes it relatable. And, you know, these changes in political parties, and you know, the episode we did before on the progressive era and the New Deal and kind of moving forward, those did change things. But especially in this America 250, I think that it all comes back to citizens and the things that we can do to make our, you know, again, local, state, and our national government better and kind of, you know, to take from the constitution more perfect as we continue to move along. So genuinely thank you so much. This has been so much fun.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Yeah, I love doing these things. You know, in the summer, I I do a summer institute here at UVA where we teach high school teachers about democracy and capitalism because I'm co-founder and co-director of a program on democracy and capitalism. And I love teaching. I love teaching. I s I love doing public events for for people of your dad's generation, as I mentioned. But I also my second, another one of my favorite audiences is high school, is teachers, public school teachers. Yes. Uh yes, keep truth rule. They're because they're teachers, they love they're so fun to teach.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

Right. Yes. That summer institute, is that something that teachers can find online? Because I am more than happy to put that in our show notes and make sure that you know teachers know about that.

Tocqueville, Citizenship, And Turnout

SPEAKER_01 18:57

Yeah, and you know, we'd have an in-person Summer Institute, but we also put stuff online they would find valuable. Yeah, absolutely. Just I think you could find it all just by Googling. Uh well, I'll see if I can find you a link, I'll send it to you.

SPEAKER_00 19:12

And teachers, I will put that in show notes. I, you know, as somebody, I've been to James Madison, I've been to Monticello. I've done these place based professional developments. And I mean, I think UVA's campus is absolutely beautiful. But there's something about place based T D that is just, I think, amazing.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

Yeah, I love doing it. It's a lot of a lot of fun.