Today I learned about the Business Plot of 1934, a political conspiracy in the United States to overthrow the government of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and install Smedley Butler as dictator. Retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler asserted that wealthy businessmen were plotting to create a fascist veterans’ organization with Butler as its leader and use it in a coup d’état to overthrow Roosevelt. However, the businessmen were not punished because they were too powerful. The plot was uncovered by the McCormack-Dickstein Committee in November 1934, but the businessmen involved denied the allegations and no charges were filed. This event highlights the influence of wealthy businessmen in American politics and the potential for corruption and abuse of power.

I learned about this watching Everything Is a Rich Man’s Trick - Full Documentary

  • Ertebolle@kbin.social
    1111·
    1 year ago

    My impression has always been that the actual risk was vastly overstated; per Wikipedia:

    Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. said in 1958, “Most people agreed with Mayor La Guardia of New York in dismissing it as a ‘cocktail putsch’”.[51] In Schlesinger’s summation of the affair in 1958, “No doubt, MacGuire did have some wild scheme in mind, though the gap between contemplation and execution was considerable, and it can hardly be supposed that the Republic was in much danger.”[10]

    Historian Robert F. Burk wrote, “At their core, the accusations probably consisted of a mixture of actual attempts at influence peddling by a small core of financiers with ties to veterans organizations and the self-serving accusations of Butler against the enemies of his pacifist and populist causes.”[7]

    Historian Hans Schmidt wrote, “Even if Butler was telling the truth, as there seems little reason to doubt, there remains the unfathomable problem of MacGuire’s motives and veracity. He may have been working both ends against the middle, as Butler at one point suspected. In any case, MacGuire emerged from the HUAC hearings as an inconsequential trickster whose base dealings could not possibly be taken alone as verifying such a momentous undertaking. If he was acting as an intermediary in a genuine probe, or as agent provocateur sent to fool Butler, his employers were at least clever enough to keep their distance and see to it that he self-destructed on the witness stand.”[8]