While he may have been called a demagogue and a counterfeit Mussolini, Huey Long had some darn tootin' good ideas—mainly taxing the rich into oblivion. Strange Country cohosts Beth and Kelly talk about Long's rise to populist power in the 1930s and the corruption in its wake, but also how much a 65% tax increase on the rich makes a whole lotta sense. Like Long said "We only propose that, when one man gets more than he and his children and children's children can spend or use in their lifetimes, that then we shall say that such person has his share. That means that a few million dollars is the limit to what any one man can own."

Theme music: Big White Lie by A Cast of Thousands

Cite your sources:

Burns, Ken, director. Huey Long. PBS, 1985.
 
Ganz, John. "Swamp Creature." When the Clock Broke : Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked up in the Early 1990s, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024, pp. 1-42.
 
"Governor Huey Long: Kidnapper." Medium, 21 November 2021, https://medium.com/historys-trainwrecks/governor-huey-long-kidnapper-52b69644141c. Accessed 15 November 2025.
 
Kolbert, Elizabeth. "The Big Sleazy." The New Yorker, The New Yorker, 12 June 2006, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/06/12/the-big-sleazy. Accessed 15 November 2025.

White Jr., Lamar (April 2, 2018). "Huey P. Long wasn't assassinated"Bayou Brief. Archived from the original on June 9, 2020

White, Richard D. Kingfish : the Reign of Huey P. Long. Random House, 2006.

Rss Apple Podcaster
Podden och tillhörande omslagsbild på den här sidan tillhör Strange Country. Innehållet i podden är skapat av Strange Country och inte av, eller tillsammans med, Poddtoppen.