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<\/a>Beyond the collapse of capitalism in the Great Depression, the United States from the 1930s through the 1950s confronted grave crises marked by four acute sources of fear: the disintegration and decay of liberal democratic politics in Europe, East Asia, and Latin America; the exponential growth of sophisticated lethal weaponry before and after World War II; Cold War suspicions about disloyalty; and, throughout, the racial oppressions and animosities of the Jim Crow South. All four sources of widespread fear deeply affected political understandings and actions. As America struggled out of the Great Depression and showed that its institutions could enable a new governing order at home and abroad, the rumble of deep uncertainty and a sense of proceeding without a map remained relentless throughout. The anxieties of our time are perhaps not of the same magnitude, yet we have much to learn from how the New Deal dealt with fear-inducing threats decades ago.<\/p>\n
A Longer Trajectory<\/h3>\n
Many previous accounts of the \u201cNew Deal order\u201d have cut the story short at the start of World War II, but I extend the period under consideration through the Truman Administration, so we can better understand how various fear-inducing trends reinforced one another as the postwar U.S. national state emerged. That new national state had two distinctive faces. One might be called procedural government, as the federal government established new rules of access that enabled interest groups to clash. The public interest was not identified in advance, but arrived at through shifting interest struggles. The U.S. state\u2019s other face was that of global crusader, symbolized by an immense Pentagon that became a permanent fixture after starting out as a temporary wartime headquarters. The global face of U.S. power was deployed in myriad ways, through widespread military outposts, clandestine subversion, and efforts at cultural education.<\/p>\n
New Deal Governance in International Perspective<\/h3>\n
The politics of America\u2019s New Deal cries out to be situated in global context. Contemporary European dictatorships in Rome, Berlin, and Moscow offered their own answers to the era\u2019s economic, social, and military challenges. Fascist and Communist regimes did not have to navigate entrenched parliamentary procedures influenced by party divisions, ideological polarization, or the influence of money in politics. In the United States between the election of November 1932 and Roosevelt\u2019s inauguration the following March, a jarring debate waged about the need for comparable emergency powers. The country\u2019s leading journalist, Walter Lippmann, called for \u201cstrong medicine\u201d and proposed extra-Constitutional measures to bolster the president\u2019s authority and “suspend temporarily the rule of both houses\u201d of Congress.<\/p>\n