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Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) was considered a "traitor to his class" because, despite being born into immense wealth and privilege, he implemented New Deal policies that severely restricted the power and wealth of the American upper class to aid the poor and working class during the Great Depression. Wealthy elites accused him of being a socialist/communist who destroyed American individualism, violated property rights, and "betrayed" his own patrician upbringing.
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Key ways FDR betrayed his class:
- Targeting Financial Elites: His administration challenged corporate power, increased regulations on banking, and raised taxes on the wealthy to fund relief programs.
- Empowering Labor and the Poor: He supported unionization and created jobs through massive government spending, which favored workers over shareholders.
- Disrupting Capitalism: He brought the government into the marketplace, a move that was seen as a radical overreach by the upper class, though historian H.W. Brands argues it was a calculated move to save the capitalist system from collapse.
- Social Security and Public Projects: FDR championing the creation of social safety nets, such as the Social Security Act, that fundamentally altered the relationship between the government, the wealthy, and the working class.
- The University of Texas at Austin
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The wealthy's hatred was so intense that in 1936, media reports described them as feeling a sense of "burning bitterness" towards him, a sentiment detailed in H.W. Brands' biography, Traitor to His Class. ###