The mood so changed (twice)

The mood so changed between 1926 and 1932. Critique of the system and related iconoclasm became au courant. Prohibition was so stupid and “nobody paid any attention to it.” Plutocracy was rampant. And then the stupid system crashed. What a farce; get rid of it. Things shifted radically left.

Lefter and lefter 1932–1942.

Then the mood changed again between 1944 and 1948. Why?
. a new appreciation of the military strength and significance of the Soviet Union as it held off the Germans
. a new attunement to the “revolutionary tide” rhetoric of the Communist International, in combination with news re: “Communism on the march,” an actual manifesting revolutionary tide in Asia and Eastern Europe
. new attunement to press stories about Stalinist totalitarianism during the 1930s
. stories about Americans who were sympathetic to Communism and to Moscow; people in high places acting subversively (and it was true)
. infiltration of the Democratic Party; Eleanor Roosevelt seemed awfully left-wing
. fears among the power elites about calls for nationalization of the economy
. disturbance among the populace re: the increasing prominence of left-wing critiques of the system, critiques which seemed to generalize to “our whole American way of life;” especially how Communism was atheistic, anti-religious

The Democrats still solidly won the House and the Senate in 1944, as they had for over a decade. By 1946 there was an enormous reversal.