This is Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast. More of what
you here weekday afternoons on the drive, you might open up the newspaper or
a news site today and get the idea that there might be some very powerful
forces that are allying themselves to determine who will become the next president. Well,
Ben Bolan, who is the host of the Popetar, a podcast on
iHeartRadio called ridiculous History and stuff they didn't want you to know? And Alex
French, senior writer and iHeart Podcasts are here to say it's nothing new,
isn't it. Guys, that's all right, Yeah, that's absolutely rightly.
Yeah, We've been working on a show that is out now called Let's Start
a Coup, And it's entirely about how back in the nineteen thirties, very
powerful business interests came in secret to a hardcore marine war. He wrote named
Smedley Butler and said, Hey, this America thing is going okay, but
what if we did it our way and you helped us lead a private army
to take over Washington and overthrow democracy. Well, Biggie and Alex, what
was the main beef? Why did they want to start this coup. Uh,
Well, they really didn't like FDR. They didn't like the New Deal.
They didn't you know, the New Deal is, in its own way
sort of was a version of socialism and it didn't work for them. They
were going to be you know, they were already heavily taxed, but it
was going to be more. They were going to be restrictions on child labor,
you know, unemployment insurance, stuff like that that they just really opposed.
Um, you know, it made making money harder for them. Ben
Bowland, Alex French, we're talking about the iHeart podcasts called Let's Start a
Coup? And Ben, how do they decide they were going to go about
it? Well, that's part of that's part of the tricky questions, something
that we spend a lot of time on in the show. There is a
web of alleged conspirators and from what we understand, or at least what they
said to Smedley Butler, they planned to get together a private army of a
bunch of people from veterans organizations, from some other activist organizations who could call
them, and they were going to supply these folks with money and with arms
from the Reming team company, and they were going to have Butler, who
was a war hero again at the time, lead this army into Washington to,
as Alex said, oust President Roosevelt and institute an entirely new fascist form
of government, entirely new for America, I should say, at least because
they were keeping a close eye on the events across the Atlanta at this time.
I was going to ask what influences those had, Alex. Things were
brewing about this time in Italy and Germany. Yeah, it was, you
know, Mussolini was um, you know, I mean, as we say
in the podcast actually, or as Ben says, you know, this was
a period in time where fascism really still had a new car smell. Um.
You know, Mussolini and Hitler were not viewed in the then in the
way that we view them now that you know, things were actually going pretty
well in Italy. You know, Mussolini had set up a welfare state,
as they say that the trains were running on time. Um. You know,
he was providing um, you know, um infant you know, in
infant care for for new mothers, um and people. You know, people
in America saw that, you know, we were in the middle of this
like endless depression. Um. You know, I think there was like,
what was it, like twenty five or thirty percent unemployment in America and that
was not happening in Italy at all. And so people are like, hey,
like, you know, maybe there's something to this fascist thing, you
know, the fascism thing, Maybe we ought to give it a try,
um. And so yeah, I mean they were those those leaders, um
were not reviled in the way that you know, we revile them now and
ben I I've even read that many of Mussolini's policies were copied by Hitler,
not the other way around, which a lot of history tries to teach,
Well, there's actually you know a lot of Mussolini's policies were actually you know
sort of uh, you know, undercover incorporated into New Deal policies. You
know, we talk about you know, Mussolini's form of economics was known as
corporatism, and that was part of like corporatism was like part of the you
know, was like a mainline, you know, like ingredient in some of
you know, FDR's New Deal policies. And these these were I guess what
we're left over from the robber Baron era of the Teddy Roosevelt administration. Yeah,
I mean go ahead, Oh yeah, this a lot of a lot
of those same forces that existed, you know, during that sort of Robert
Baron era. They were still around, right, and they still had their
own aims and interest And what we have to understand is, like Alex was
saying, people, people in the United States at the time then as now,
you could argue most people didn't really care about getting into the nuts and
bolts of foreign policy. You know, they're saying, I'm never going to
travel to this far flung country. I know things are bad here, so
I want someone that looks like they're getting things done. And the average person,
you know, they just want stable job, they want a good place
to live, they want better opportunities for their children. And if someone comes
along and says, hey, I have a new effective way to do that,
especially when people are desperate, they're more likely to say yes. Democracy
is sort of a continual exercise in being accountable, right, and democracy is
also quite a fragile thing. That's one thing I think we have to take
away from stories like this. Ben Boland is with us along with Alex French,
senior staff writer. I'd Heart podcast. Their new podcast is called Let's
Start a Coup and Alex this was going to be a coup in the and
every sense of the word. This was going to be a military style takeover
of the government, not a superfunded political action committee going around making sure people
are voting registered to vote, or manipulating ballot harvesting laws in the country.
Yeah. Correct, I mean the idea was, you know, you take
five hundred thousand out of work veterans, you march them to Washington, DC,
surround the White House. Smedley Butler walks through the door, says to
FDR You're going to kiss babies and dedicate bridges, but I'm going to make
all the decisions that you know. That's that's that's ostensively what the coup potters
had in mind. Um, you know, and Smedley would have taken his
sort of his orders from you know what, you know what has become known
as sort of like the Morgan interests. Um, they would have been,
you know, they would have been in charge. And Ben bolan O.
The name of the podcast is Let's Start a Coup. At any point,
did FDR no, this was brewing beneath the service. Uh, this is
something that we talked a little bit about on the show. Just a teaser
for folks to tune in here. Lee, there is a point at which
we believe FDR had a private conversation with at least one person when this all
came out to the American public and to Congress. We don't know the substance
of that conversation, but we do know the rabbit hole goes much much deeper
than it sounds even now, and they go down the rabbit hole in their
podcast, which is called Let's Start a Kubin Bowlin Alex French. It's a
fascinating story, and thanks for bringing it to us. Thanks for listening to
Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to
The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to seven and Ihearts Media Presentation