Oct 25, 2026 · 11 min
How pro-business politics paved the way for the New Deal
A New Approach
The episode connects the rejection of Progressive Era protections after 1920 to economic crisis and the government reforms that followed.
- 1The 1920 Republican victory marked a retreat from Progressive Era regulation and public protections.
- 2Pro-business policies encouraged speculation and helped set the stage for the 1929 stock market crash and mass unemployment.
- 3Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal answered the crisis with public jobs, financial regulation, workers’ rights, and a social safety net.
Don't miss
The episode’s central turn comes when the New Deal is presented as a deliberate response to the failures of the post-1920 economic order.
The brief
Heather Cox Richardson places the 1920 Republican landslide in a country exhausted by World War I and the Spanish flu epidemic, with Warren Harding promising a return to normalcy.
The new Republican order rejected Progressive Era ideas that government should regulate business and protect workers and consumers, shifting power toward pro-business policies.
Richardson traces how that approach encouraged speculation, culminating in the 1929 stock market crash and mass unemployment rather than the stability its supporters promised.
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal becomes the episode’s counterpoint: public jobs, financial regulation, workers’ rights, and a social safety net offered a new approach.
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