John Moser

Yeah, that's a great question.

I think the fact that there was such a long small-r Republican tradition probably did that.

I mean, you think about the case of the Weimar Republic.

There were not

deep democratic roots in Germany.

Uh, there were, there were plenty of people around who wanted the Kaiser back in the, uh, in, in the 1920s.

So there was this sense that, that from the start with a huge chunk of the German population, that the Republic was illegitimate.

Now, looking at the American version, I don't think there was ever any scenario where a dictator was going to take over.

But under FDR, the presidency became more powerful than it ever had been before.

I'm not calling FDR a dictator, but that's what dictators do, right?

They take on most of the power of the federal government.

He had, certainly for the entirety of his first term, he had a very pliable Congress.

Congress gave him whatever he wanted.

The Supreme Court

He did not have on his side, the Supreme Court struck down some of his big initiatives of his first term.

But in 1937, FDR suggested that he wanted to expand the size of the Supreme Court, that these guys were too old, their course load was too heavy, and so he wanted to add more members.

Right.

people was, wait a minute.

We see what you want to do.

You don't like the current makeup of the Supreme Court, so you're going to pack it with people who support you.