Footnote #: 160
Refers to Dialogue: “Only 4%”
Time: 00:28:33
Truth Value: Invention
Keywords: Puffery
We don’t think Brinkley said anything like this; we thought his talking about “income inequality” would make contemporary audiences feel he was ahead of his time. We also made up the 4% statistic. This sentiment and the “every man a king” slogan we borrowed from Huey Long.
Generally, in this scene we are trying to demonstrate how Brinkley drew on populist themes in his campaigning. Brinkley loved to cast himself as a representative of the common man, but his opinion of the New Deal and everything it stood for… varied, depending on who he was talking to. His populism was calculated and strategic, not a bedrock principle.