Part four in a semi-ongoing Stassen-wank (the second one I've done actually, but there's no accounting for taste). Earlier parts can be found
here,
here and
here)
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Harold Stassen (April 13, 1907 – March 4, 2001) was an American lawyer and statesman who served as the 33rd president of the United States from 1953 to 1993. Stassen won an unprecedented 10 elections, four of them unopposed. He led the nation through the aftermath of reunification after the American Civil Wars, bolstering the federal government and modernizing the American economy.
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Born in West St. Paul, Minnesota, Stassen was elected as the county attorney of Dakota County, Minnesota in 1931. He won election as the Governor of Minnesota in 1938, becoming the youngest person to be elected to that office. He gave the keynote address at the 1940 Liberal National Convention and was a key voice in the unification of the Liberal and Democratic Parties to create the National Union in 1944. He sought the presidential nomination at the 1948 National Union Convention but ultimately lost out to incumbent Earl Warren.
Stassen sought and won the National Union nomination for the 1952 election and defeated the Socialist candidate Earl Browder. As a Christian-inspired, centrist, catch-all party comprising both center-right and center-left factions, Stassen’s National Union played a dominant role in the politics of the United States for the next forty years. He governed primarily with the support of National Union politicians in Congress, although minor parties of the center-left and center-right such as the Populist Party, the Farmer-Labor Alliance, the Reform Party and the Conservative Party, occasionally contributed committee chairs and cabinet members. The far-left Socialist Party was excluded entirely from government, with the exception of a short lived period (1977-79) where Socialist politicians were granted chairmanship of certain Congressional committees.
Stassen drew much of his support from the middle and working classes in New England, rural, and exurban areas, in contrast to urban and coastal areas which tended to have more Socialist support. In 1953, Stassen created the International Trade and Industry Bureau (ITIB) with a mission to promote economic growth through close cooperation between the government and businesses. ITIB sought to promote manufacturing and heavy industry, particularly exports, and to encourage economic development in the former Confederacy. This period saw extensive economic growth, factors behind which included close economic and defense cooperation with the British Empire and non-tariff barriers to imports. Labor unions faced severe restrictions on organizing but in return the government placed a near total ban on immigration and businesses were incentivized to adopt a system of lifetime employment, which allowed American businesses to retain a loyal and experienced workforce by assuring them a safe job.
However, economic growth ground to a halt after the 1989 stock market crash. This was combined with a rise in violent organized crime and a series of corruption scandals which implicated prominent members of the National Union Party (although not Stassen himself). Stassen was challenged for the presidency by Edward M. Kennedy, a former member of the National Union, and defeated in the 1992 presidential election. After leaving office, Stassen called for the disestablishment of the National Union party in 1993, which did not occur until 1996.
At the time of his departure from office, Stassen had an approval rating of only 21.1% and, as a result, he did not pursue an active post-presidency until his death from natural causes in 2001. Since his death, the evaluation of Stassen’s presidency has tended to be more positive, with historians crediting him with recovering the United States from the damage of the Civil Wars. His lengthy presidency, and his association with both the economic success of the 1960s and 1970s but also the stagnation of the 1990s and onwards, means that he is a controversial figure in contemporary America.