Coughlin himself was a darling among Capitol Hill Democrats, particularly the Progressive bloc—the liberals to the left of FDR who pushed him for ever more aggressive reforms.

In 1933 the administration was under considerable pressure to include Coughlin in the U.S. delegation to a major economic conference in London. Ten senators and seventy-five congressmen sent a petition declaring that Coughlin had “the confidence of millions of Americans.” The vast majority of the signatories were Democrats.

There was even a groundswell among Progressives for FDR to appoint Coughlin treasury secretary. -Jonah Goldberg

As the presidential election loomed, Coughlin threw all his weight behind Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The left-wing theocrat swore that the New Deal was “Christ’s Deal” and that the choice Americans faced was “Roosevelt or Ruin.” Meanwhile, he wrote the Democratic candidate, Roosevelt, grotesquely sycophantic letters explaining that he would change his own positions if that’s what the campaign needed. -Jonah Goldberg