New Deal Era in the United States

Republican Party: The New Deal Era

Introduction to New Deal Era

The Great Depression, which began during Hoover’s administration, destroyed America’s belief in that dream of unlimited prosperity and its faith in the Republican Party. The disastrous economic collapse and extraordinarily high unemployment that followed made a mockery of Republican claims. The slow and limited response of the Hoover administration was ineffective and seemed to indicate too much indifference to the people’s suffering. The Democrats made full use of the depression as an issue, capturing the presidency by a large margin in 1932 and winning the election of 1936 by one of the greatest landslides in history. The New Deal coalition, headed first by Franklin D. Roosevelt and later by Harry S. Truman, remained in power for a generation, the Republicans losing five presidential elections in a row. So great was the reaction to the depression that the Republican Party controlled Congress for only 4 of the 48 years between 1932 and 1980. The Republicans did win the presidency four times during that period-in 1952, 1956, 1968, and 1972-when the Democratic Party split or when some unusual combination of circumstances occurred. From the 1930s through the 1970s, however, the Democratic Party was the dominant party in the United States.

The response of the Republicans to this new situation was confusion, anger, and much infighting as they sought a way to rebuild their national following. They vigorously condemned the New Deal policy of deficit spending and argued against government intervention on behalf of poorer elements in the society. In foreign affairs the party as a whole did not usually differ markedly from the Democrats, although Republicans generally tended more toward isolationism before World War II (1939-1945) and were apt, at least in their rhetoric, to take a stricter anti-Communist line during the Cold War period. From the late 1930s on, Republican factionalism exploded again between liberals or moderates-mainly in the East-who were willing to accept many of the New Deal reforms, and conservatives, who saw nothing good about them.” (1)

Resources

Notes and References

• Information about New Deal Era in the Encarta Online Encyclopedia

Guide to New Deal Era