Great history lesson! It's important that we remember the past.

Not to mention how Eugene Debbs was treated

This brings back memories from my childhood. My mom was raised in a Republican household, and my dad was one of the family whose own father came to the USA at age 13 from Poland. My Dad was a Democrat. I still remember the two of them discussing politics. I listened to a lot of these conversations and found that I was more like my dad than my mom in politics.

Not just a good historical analysis. Kuznick gives us a great one.

Excellent coverage, thanks.

You should do another series of this with Peter Kuznick.

Can you label these as part 1 and 2 etc. as you post them. I find it fascinating and want to follow.

Most people like Morning Joe blame the excessive protectionism of Smoot-Hawley for the bad economy of the 1930s, and that's partially true, but that bad economy was primarily the first fearful reactionary capital flight from the tech boom following the first world war. The excessive protectionism was a reaction to that capital flight. It was the wrong reaction because it was so excessive that it greatly exacerbated problems, but the root of the Great Depression was global capital flight. Remember FDR confiscated corporate gold during that time for the same reason. Similar forms of capital flight hurt economies today. Offshore tax havens hurt economies while also reducing tax revenue. Crypto shows how much cheaper and faster finance can be without banks middlemanning everything, but it's also a capital drain that wastes power to increase energy costs for everyone. Investment in real estate makes living in the area more expensive. Precious metals do nothing but remove capital from the economy. None of these means of saving or investing does anything productive like investing to develop good ideas or harness natural resources. Developing technology is how we all advance. It is among the great shames of Western civilization and capitalism that we have usually developed technology on a large scale only to fight wars.

Truman didn't want to understand their relationship with Soviet Russia.

But didn't Wallace become a Cold Warrior, repudiate his previous stances, and support Republicans....

Great job and looking forward to the next chapter in this series.

Real News, thanks for Peter Kuznick's concise exposé of our recent history. The history of the 20th century is a dense prologue to what we face. I took a course in it four years ago at a CSU. It was very weak on ideas and analysis but chocked with data, dates, people and places.

And to make the emperor give up his godhood

Not to beat a dead horse but I want this guys take on how does the Left make it’s way back to an FDR Left (vs a Clintononian). I know their strategy is to let the right go crazy until people chose as Clinton wants (“they have nowhere else to go”)....and as such would have no need to reform

Thank you for this. It helps show the persistent struggle of forces acting for noble and nefarious interests has been ongoing. The balances fell heavily onto the wrong side and it didn't happen just yesterday. No matter the nuisances, the present day results and current attitudes show this history is largely valid.

The Warsaw Pact was “freely governments”?

It is confusing as shit trying to find pt. 1 of one of these discussions. Continuity in naming is a thing.

Perfect. cold war is trumans and big money's creation. why would i expect anything otherwise?

The New Deal refers to a collection of domestic policies enacted 1933-38. New Deal initiatives stopped when the GOP won big in the 1938 midterms. Parts of the New Deal were overturned by the SCOTUS during the 1930s, and this had nothing to do with Truman. The only significant Truman era action that can be interpreted as an "undoing of the New Deal" was the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, which became law over Truman's veto. I am surprised that there never was a concerted effort to repeal Taft-Hartley during Truman's second term, or under JFK or LBJ. Henry Wallace was put on the ticket in 1940 when Middle America was not paying attention. He was taken off the ticket in 1944, when Demo insiders learned the truth about FDR's health. That truth meant that the Demo Veep elected in 1944 would very likely become POTUS. The Cold War made a leftish dove like Henry Wallace unelectable.