Wartime Politics
Before World War II, during the Great Depression of the 1930s, the main political concerns in the United States involved social and economic issues. During the war, which lasted from 1939 to 1945, the key issues driving U.S. political debates and election campaigns were foreign policy and national defense. The two main political parties in the United States, the Republicans and the Democrats, held to their traditional ideas of how the nation should be governed. The Republicans favored the idea of a relatively small and limited federal government, whereas the Democrats preferred the federal government to take a leading role in providing services and protections for the nation's citizens. During World War II Americans reelected President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945; served 1933–45), a Democrat, to an unprecedented third term and fourth term. Franklin Roosevelt is the only American president who served more than two terms, and he greatly influenced U.S. politics during the war.
Politics Before the War
During the mid-1930s, as Germany and Japan were busy building large militaries, the United States concentrated on domestic issues. The nation was in the depths of the Great Depression, an economic crisis that began in the United States in late 1929 and spread throughout the world during the 1930s.
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