JD Vance made headlines a few weeks ago by invoking Huey Long while addressing a crowd in Middletown, Ohio. Long, a Depression-era Democratic senator and governor of Louisiana, was known for a folksy and fiery speaking style that combined traditionalism, populism, and socialism. He sought to mobilize the common man by promising massive economic redistribution and denouncing wealthy elites. Vance called Long “a great southern populist” whose goal was to make “every man a king.” The vice president then argued that for everyone to be a king, they and their property must be protected. From there, he launched into his usual law-and-order routine, denouncing “illegal aliens” and claiming people often get mugged going to dinner.
On the surface, Long appears to have more in common with the Democratic Socialists of America than with JD Vance or President Donald Trump. But the similarities become more apparent once we move beyond specific policy proposals and focus on style, political strategy, and attitudes toward executive power. Most obviously, Long’s bombastic rhetorical style, his condemnation of elites, and his ability to speak in accessible and appealing language all resemble Trump’s. Further, populism rooted in cultural traditionalism and distrust of elites is the core appeal of both Long and MAGA. There are more substantive similarities as well. As governor, Long concentrated power in the hands of the executive and used that authority to reward allies and punish opponents through the political machine he controlled. Even in economic policy, where Long and the current administration differ, they play on the same resentments and false narratives to generate working-class support.
Long, Concentrated Power, and Economic Redistribution
Long was governor of Louisiana from 1928 to 1932, at the height of the Great Depression. He ran for Senate in 1930 and won, but did not take his Senate seat until 1932, so he could finish his legislative agenda and handpick his gubernatorial successor. For quotable details, we rely on Alan Brinkley’s authoritative history, Voices of Protest, which won the National Book Award in 1983.
Long took on tremendous power in the state of Louisiana, becoming almost a dictator. Appealing to class divisions, Long claimed to be the tribune of the people and set about destroying the systems of checks and balances within the state. According to Brinkley, “More systematically than any politician in American history, Long was destroying the normal functions of basic democratic institutions, turning a government founded on the principle of checks and balances into one directed by a single man.”
Long’s enemies were “almost irrational in their hatred of him,” and they had good reason. Once Long consolidated control of the statehouse, he used state regulations to strip his enemies of power. If they were already powerless, Long wielded his influence “to inflict humiliation and exact revenge.” For example, Alexandria, a small city that opposed Long, “woke up one morning to find its mayor and most of its other municipal officials unceremoniously removed from office by an act of the [Long-led] legislature, their successors to be appointed by the governor.”
Long undermined institutions and used his power to relentlessly attack his political opponents. He saw himself as the manifestation of the will of the people and denounced the separation of powers as undemocratic because it restrained his ability to serve the interests of those who elected him. Long was the very type of political leader that James Madison and the Founders feared would come to power if the United States were a pure democracy. The great satirist HL Mencken denounced Long as “simply a backwoods demagogue of the oldest and most familiar model — impudent, blackguardly, and infinitely prehensile.”
Initially a supporter of President Franklin Roosevelt and his New Deal, Long became disillusioned with the thirty-second president and set his sights on the White House. In 1934, Long lost thirty pounds and attempted to present himself to the American people as “sober, responsible, and statesmanlike.” He published an autobiography titled Every Man a King in which he depicted himself as “sincere and selfless” and his “every thought and effort” as being “directed toward aiding the common people of America.” The book was decried by the literary elite, with one reviewer exclaiming that Long was “imbalanced, vulgar, in many ways ignorant, and quite reckless.”
Almost a century before Trump launched Truth Social, Long tried to reach the people directly by resuming the publication of his own newspaper, the Louisiana Progress, which he retitled American Progress. It allowed him to bypass the established press in Louisiana and around the country. The paper was “an unabashed advocate of the career and programs of Huey P. Long” and focused primarily on “the broader issue of redistribution of wealth.” Long sent the paper out, at no cost, to anyone who showed interest. The audience averaged around 300,000 but at times it swelled to around 1.5 million. By 1934, according to Brinkley, “Long had established the foundations of a genuinely independent communications network.”
In addition to his autobiography, his newspaper, and his direct mail network, Long brilliantly used radio to speak directly to the people. By early 1935, he was frequently on NBC and was one of the network’s largest draws. Long’s “radio speeches would bring his voice to millions of Americans so that, using his considerable broadcasting skill, he could soothe their fears about him and exhort them to ever-greater efforts on his behalf.” Much as social media enables politicians to bypass traditional gatekeepers today, Long used newspapers, direct-mail campaigns, and radio broadcasts to communicate directly with supporters.
In late 1934 Long unveiled the “Share Our Wealth” plan. He argued that while the United States had great wealth, it was limited and “each citizen had a basic right to a decent share of what wealth there was.” Unfortunately, according to Long, “for too long, a few rich men had been permitted to own so large a proportion of the nation’s assets that they had not left enough for all the others.” In short, although the United States had a large pie, that pie was fixed, and if the Rockefellers had a lot, that left less for everyone else.
Long had a zero-sum view of wealth. Like FDR, he believed that the focus should not be on economic growth but on economic redistribution. In Long’s vernacular:
God invited us all to come and eat and drink all we wanted. He smiled on our land and we grew crops of plenty to eat and wear. He showed us in the earth the iron and other things to make everything we wanted. He unfolded to us the secrets of science so that our work might be easy. God called: ‘Come to my feast’ … Rockefeller, Morgan, and their crowd stepped up and took enough for 120 million people and left only enough for five million for all the other 125 million to eat. And so many millions must go hungry and without these good things God gave us unless we call on them to put some of it back.
Citing dubious sources from the Wilson administration, Long claimed that “two percent of the people owned 60 percent of the wealth” or in another iteration that “about 85 percent of the wealth is owned by five percent of the people.” The solution was the “Share Our Wealth” plan and its severely confiscatory taxes. The goal was to strictly limit the amount of wealth that anyone could accumulate and leave to their heirs. Every person could own capital worth up to one million dollars. After that, they would be required to pay a sharply increasing “capital levy tax.” Brinkley describes how the tax would work: “On the second million, the rate would be one percent; on the third, two percent; on the fourth, four percent; on the fifth, eight percent; and so on.” Once someone’s fortune got to eight million, the tax became 100 percent. The tax would be levied each year.
The plan also called for massive income taxes on high earners. For instance, “once a man makes the net sum of one million dollars in one year, that he gives the balance of what he makes that year to the government.” As for inheritance, Share Our Wealth called for the confiscation of “all inheritances of more than a million dollars.” Long insisted that his plan would “injure no one” — even millionaires. As he put it: “I’d cut their nails and file their teeth and let them live.” The goal was to prevent anyone from accumulating what he viewed as an obscene fortune.
According to Long, the revenues generated from the plan would enable government to provide “guaranteed subsistence for everyone in America.” He promised every needy family would receive a “household estate” of $5,000 ($116,800 in 2026 dollars), which would be “enough for a home, an automobile, a radio, and the ordinary conveniences.” But the plan didn’t stop there. The government would also guarantee a minimum income for each family of around $2,000 to $2,500 ($58,000) enough to “maintain a family in comfort.”
In addition to the “Share Our Wealth” plan, Long proposed government support for education, old-age pensions, increased benefits for veterans, more federal subsidies to farmers, an acceleration of government-funded public works, federal regulations to decrease working hours, and more.
Unintended Consequences and Long’s Legacy
Long, who didn’t graduate from high school and likely never took an economics course, didn’t consider that the wealthiest Americans’ assets were overwhelmingly in factories, real estate, and other investments that could not be easily liquidated. Long also didn’t acknowledge that his plan would disincentivize industrious citizens from being entrepreneurial, expanding their businesses, serving new markets, and producing jobs for other working Americans.
Even without those complications, the math didn’t add up. Just as is the case today, there simply weren’t enough millionaires to pay for it all. Brinkley cites the findings of a 1935 scholarly survey: even if all the wealth of everyone worth more than one million dollars were confiscated, “the recipients would receive only a little more than $400 each.” Furthermore, the redistribution could not be repeated. Another analysis found that “for every family to receive the minimum $5,000 homestead Long promised would mean that no family could retain more than about $7,000 in wealth.” Brinkley concludes that “to effect the sort of reallocation of resources Long promised would have required a process far more drastic and painful than he admitted or realized.”
At first glance, Vance invoking far-left Long, whom he described as “kind of a crazy guy,” appears to make very little sense. Yet a closer inspection of the name-drop suggests otherwise. Both Long and Vance are populists whose careers were propelled by their professed concern for the little guy, the working man.
Although Long’s economic vision embraced much more redistribution than anything proposed by the Trump administration, both view free markets with suspicion and believe government should play a much more active role in directing economic outcomes. Like Long, Vance and Trump have embraced policies that will harm the economy (including tariffs, industrial policy, and partial government ownership of corporations). And like Long, they sow division to build support, portray the United States as “in decline,” and insist that only drastic interventions can save the country. Perhaps most importantly, both show disdain for the institutions and civic norms that are the foundations of a free society.
Long never got the chance to challenge FDR at the ballot box. He was fatally shot by an assassin inside the Louisiana State Capitol on September 8, 1935 and died two days later. Publicly Roosevelt condemned political violence, but private reports suggest he was relieved. According to one of Roosevelt’s closest advisors, the president concluded that it was a “providential occurrence — one more sign that he himself moved under a star.”
The most radical of Long’s proposals died with him, but FDR had already adopted Social Security and other welfare legislation that continues to pose challenges to the fiscal health of the nation today.
The Trump administration may target different beneficiaries, but its governing instinct would be familiar to Huey Long and his fans. Both suggest economic revival can be accomplished with public spending and political control, and that the forgotten American needs far more subsidy and government “help,” regardless of whether the math checks out. The populist generosity becomes a smokescreen for gross expansions of government power — not to mention the debt left behind.
