You know, I talk a lot about how parties have changed throughout the years on this blog. Party realignments are a huge part of my paradigm insofar as viewing political cycles, and a huge part of how I view politics going forward. A huge goal of mine is explicitly to cause a party realignment that brings the democrats back to the left, like they were under FDR. However, speaking to many self described democrats and liberals, there really isn't a lot of support any more for FDR or his politics.
I personally consider FDR to be one of the greatest presidents we've ever had. This is not to say he's perfect. As a matter of fact, even the best American presidents are often very flawed people. And if I wanted to be super critical of all of them, I'd start sounding like Howard Zinn. But obviously, while I believe Zinn has a point, I try to avoid going full on Marxist in my analyses of the country, and I would think "liberals" would have some appreciation for at least the best presidents, especially someone who has been so influential to the democrats over the years.
But whenever FDR comes up, most liberals I come across these days seem to HATE FDR. As in, FDR doesn't represent their politics, and they don't want him back. These contentions seem to come down to primarily two things. First of all, racism, and second of all, his refusal to abide by "established norms" as they call them. And honestly, these are such weird, milquetoast centrist things to say.
First, racism. Let's just clear the air here. I do NOT want to repeat FDR's legacy on race. FDR presided over the country in the 30s and 40s. Jim Crow was a thing, the country as a whole was extremely racist as fudge, and on social issues both republicans and democrats were so out of synch with 2021 standards that you can't really compare the two. Social progress is something that has evolved significantly over American history, and will continue to evolve. And past presidents are going to look like dinosaurs in a modern context. The founders owned slaves, Abe Lincoln wanted to deport black people back to Africa, and FDR worked with southern racists and interned the Japanese. Yes, yes, we know. It would be nice to have a conversation about FDR these days without some holier than though modern day SJW screaming about how he interned the Japanese. Yes, we get it, it was crap, I'm not defending it. No one defending FDR these days would defend it. It just sounds like this stupid superficial contrarian thing to do to throw out a figure like FDR because someone from the 1930s sucked on social issues. Of course they sucked on social issues. The political realities of the day dictated he would suck on social issues. If he was a morally pure SJW by modern standards, he would be like an alien and he would never get elected. He might at best find a place in the socialist party and the likes of Eugene Debs. And while I have nothing but respect for the old school socialist parties, they never had a legacy in office because they never won an election.
The fact is, I believe we can respect FDR's economic legacy while divorcing ourselves from his social politics. After all, his economic policies and ideology are still relevant, his social policies were always some sort of deal with the devil or necessary evil due to the times in my opinion. Most people back then were racist, and America was a deeply racist country. I just feel like past leaders sometimes need to be graded on a curve especially as far as social issues go. I think if you grade past leaders by modern standards you'll find that there are no heroes and everyone before 1960 (and even many after) was a giant racist jerk.
So, okay, racism bad. FDR's internment policies bad. Working with southern democrats to maintain jim crow bad. We get it. Don't need to be reminded of it every 5 seconds. For the record I believe the future of progressivism should be more closer to Bernie Sanders or something which is basically FDR's economic legacy combined with modern social policy. I don't believe we need to necessarily choose between one or another, unless the neolibs try to force such a choice on us to get us to support their crappy platforms. Which happens disturbingly a lot. When I discuss my plans on trying to win back some disaffected Trump supporters in the rust belt, they seem intent on keeping them out of the party. Once again, because racism. They believe in order to achieve social equality democrats must abandon economic ambitions and be centrist. And I just find that unacceptable.
Second, the authoritarianism. FDR broke a lot of norms. He threatened to pack the courts, and he ran more than twice. He fought his party a lot. Mainly because his party was full of the same corrupt establishment people who still exist today more or less. He also fought a system hostile to his politics. And that meant playing hardball. That means when the supreme court threatens to shoot down his new deal legislation or make the minimum wage unconstitutional, he basically threatens to pack the court. Basically, he said, look we need these for the good of the American people, america's institutions are falling apart without them. If you oppose these wildly popular measures by taking a strict constitutionalist stance on politics, I'm gonna flood the court with justices that WILL allow it to pass. And because he had control of congress and the presidency, the courts backed down.
The fact is, if FDR played by the rules, he wouldn't get anything done. But the modern democrat so glorifies rules and decorum and being completely and utterly worthless, the idea of FDR comes off as a tyrant to them. They LIKE worthless democrats like Biden or Clinton. They like these nice sounding people who sound presidential but push comes to shove, are like "I can't do that'. Like Biden. A lot of pressure is being put on him to forgive all student debt by executive fiat, and he's refusing to. He's also refusing to consider a nationwide mask mandate and instead settling on asking citizens nicely to wear masks and maybe calling some governors and getting them to do something (and they won't, because they're republicans and don't answer to you, Joe). Now, would Biden potentially face a constitutional challenge if he tries to do this stuff? Sure. But that's up to the courts to decide. I feel like a past democrat like FDR or Truman would've tried and then fought it in the courts later, and if they lost, they lost. Biden won't even try.
Here's my big issue here. This comes off to me as a conservative position (see constitutional conservatism). Just a few years ago, republicans were obsessed with the idea of executive overreach. They were the ones obsessed with the constitution and rule of law. And while in a moderate sense it is good to be respectful of such things, I also think there are times when democrats should fight. And I believe when you got a major crisis going on that you can solve, but you refuse to, much like Biden and modern democrats are doing, you must as well be republicans to me. To me, in a two party system, it's good for the right wing party to play the referee in terms of the rule of law and stuff, and for the left to push for things. Ideally the two constructively improve on the other where the right keeps the left in check but the left keeps the ball of progress toward a better future rolling. But when the left starts doing the right's job, progress grinds to a halt and no one is going to solve any problems. That said, Biden, and modern democrats that like him, are essentially conservative to me, and we got two conservative parties.
This is not good. I've been kind of fearing a party realignment in which instead of the democrats moving left and re-embracing FDR in the form of Bernie Sanders or Andrew Yang or something, that we would get a right wing realignment in which the neolibs win. As such, democrats are not just abandoning the politics of FDR but look back at him with contempt. They are so lost that they view him as a tyrannical racist who has more in common with Donald Trump than the modern democratic party. This is the worst timeline electorally in my opinion. Because with the upcoming trump coalition looking more like fascism than anything FDR was, and the democrats being the new constitutional conservatives, where does that leave the left? Up a creek, where it belongs if you ask the rich and powerful in this country.
We are losing the fight for the soul of this country. By we I mean the left. People who believe in progressivism and improving our social institutions to make them work for the people. People who believe in FDR's economic vision for America, or something close to it. These attitudes among democrats alarm and disturb me. Because I still believe the democrats are the only thing that stands in the way to right wing control of this country. And rather than fight the right and change our institutions for the better they focus more on being stewards and playing by the rules, becoming complicit to the right's ideological supremacy. Maybe Howard Zinn is right after all. Something to think about. If so, no wonder so many other anti establishment progressives are drinking the socialist kool aid as of late.
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