Episode 2492: Daniel Bessner on how Trump is a natural outgrowth of FDR

Liberals won’t like it, but according to the Seattle based historian and podcaster Daniel Bessner, Trump’s wannabe imperial presidency is a “natural outgrowth” of the centralized power of the FDR presidency. In a provocative Jacobin piece, Bessner contends that executive power has been expanding since FDR, with the U.S. President increasingly becoming an "elected monarch." The leftist Bessner criticizes American liberals for both obsessing over the fictional specter of fascism and for failing to address the economic inequality that enabled the rise of Trump. And he expresses pessimism about meaningful reform, arguing that 21st century capitalism has become too entrenched for significant changes without some dramatic external shock.

5 Takeaways from the Bessner Interview

* Trump's presidency represents a continuation of American traditions rather than fascism, with his immigration policies echoing historical patterns like the Palmer Raids and McCarthyism.

* The significant shift under Trump is his aggressive tariff policy against China, which represents a departure from decades of neoliberal economic approaches.

* Presidential power has been expanding dramatically since FDR (who issued over 3,700 executive orders), creating what Bessner calls an "elected monarch" with increasingly unchecked authority.

* The failure of liberal leadership, particularly Obama's inadequate response to the 2008 financial crisis and insufficient economic redistribution, created the conditions for Trump's rise.

* Bessner expresses deep pessimism about the possibility of meaningful reform, suggesting that capitalism has become too entrenched globally for significant democratic changes without some external shock like climate disaster or war.

Daniel Bessner is an historian and journalist. He is currently the Anne H.H. and Kenneth B. Pyle Associate Professor in American Foreign Policy in the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington. He previously held the Joff Hanauer Honors Professorship in Western Civilization and is also a Non-Resident Fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, an Associate of the Alameda Institute, and a Contributing Editor at Jacobin. In 2019-2020, he served as a foreign policy advisor to Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign; in 2024, for unclear reasons, the Russian government sanctioned him. Daniel is an intellectual historian, and his work has focused on three areas of inquiry: the history and contemporary practice of U.S. foreign relations; the history and theory of liberalism; and, most recently, the history and practice of the entertainment industry. He is the author of Democracy in Exile: Hans Speier and the Rise of the Defense Intellectual (Cornell, 2018), which you may order here. He is also the co-editor, with Nicolas Guilhot, of The Decisionist I