Election Issue in 1932
As part of our stumping and eating series which looks at the role of food and politics, we turn today to the Great Depression. During the Great Depression jobs for the unemployed and help for farmers served as the number one election issue in 1932 followed by Jim Crow segregation. Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) and his campaign advisors advocated a New Deal for voters. Similarly, in 2020 progressives in the Democratic Party have championed a New Green Deal). Critics argued that people did not vote for FDR but against his opponent, incumbent Republican Herbert Hoover. The election resulted in a political realignment as African-Americans voters departed from the Republican Party of Lincoln in droves.
