The Secret of Charisma
Listen to the original audio · Transcribed with NVIDIA Parakeet · Timestamps stay in sync with the live audio
This is Hidden Brain, I'm Shankar Vedantham. In the 1930s, an unlikely man from rural Louisiana rose to political stardom. Huey Long appealed to working class Americans with fiery speeches and a populist agenda. He promised free textbooks, better infrastructure and redistribution of wealth.
That while we might have millionaires and men worth two million and men worth three million maybe and men worth maybe five or six million but that nonetheless there must be a limit on how big any one man could get. Thousands gathered to hear him speak. His promise to make every man a king soon earned him a nickname, the Kingfish. But Huey Long also made powerful enemies along the way. Critics saw him as a dangerous demagogue.
They warned that he was crooked. cunning and completely unconcerned with checks and balances. He fired those who opposed him, took over state agencies, and appointed loyalists. When Louisiana State University published a newspaper article criticizing him, Huey Long saw to it that the seven students who wrote the piece were expelled. Huey Long wasn't just popular,
We already have this episode, so unlocking it is cheap and permanent: the full transcript (94 minutes, 13,291 words), segment and word-level timestamps, and .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like, forever.
No account needed, we create one from your checkout email. With credits it is 1 credit; packs start at 10 episodes for $5, and monthly plans are cheaper still.