Who Was Huey Long, The Depression-Era Populist Democrat Vance Just Quoted?

Interesting crime, immigration, jd vance, ohio admin August 22, 2026 0 Comments

Who Was Huey Long, The Depression-Era Populist Democrat Vance Just Quoted?

Vice President JD Vance reached back nearly a century for a slogan Friday, borrowing from one of Louisiana’s most combustible politicians to make his case on crime.

Speaking at the Cleveland-Cliffs Middletown Works steel plant in his Ohio hometown, Vance told the crowd about a figure he suspected most of them had never heard of, according to a video of the event.

“His name was Huey Long, and he once said, ‘every man a king’ was the goal of his political program. But no man is a king if their castle is under siege by criminals. No man is a king if they can’t take their family out to dinner without being mugged or having their car jacked,” Vance said in the remarks. (RELATED: JD Vance Roasts Neocon Pundit: ‘Obvious The Man Has Never Missed A Burrito’)

The vice president tied the line to immigration enforcement, crediting the administration with reversing what he called the Biden border invasion over the previous 18 months. Fox News reported the Friday speech leaned heavily on Vance’s family story, including his grandfather’s belief that the Democratic Party had once been the party of union men.

Long himself was a Democrat, but the man behind the slogan bears little resemblance to the security message Vance built around it.

Born in Winnfield in 1893, Long trained as a lawyer and made his name fighting Standard Oil before winning the governorship in 1928, according to the Louisiana Secretary of State. He reached the office at 34, then pushed through free textbooks, new roads and social programs funded by taxes on the wealthy, according to Britannica.

The “Every Man a King” phrase came from his Share Our Wealth plan, launched in 1934, which promised a minimum income of $2,500 per family through the redistribution of wealth during the Great Depression, according to History.com. Long meant it as an economic promise, not a pledge on public safety.

He nicknamed himself the “Kingfish” and broke with President Franklin Roosevelt, positioning himself for a 1936 White House run that threatened the president’s reelection, according to the Long Legacy Project.

An assassin shot Long inside the Louisiana State Capitol in September 1935, and he died two days later at 42, according to the Louisiana Secretary of State.