The New Deal turns 75

This month marks the 75th anniversary of The New Deal. Kind of timely, as we're looking for a way out of another depression.

And just like 1929, we're looking at another economic downturn caused by a generation's worth of conservative economic policies of deregulation and Wall Street running free of public safeguards like labor, environmental and consumer standards.

You surely won't hear about this milestone from our media conglomerates. The legions of rightwing commentators dominating cable news have spent the last 28 years glorifying the corporatist scheme of conservative economics that began with Ronald Reagan.

Recalling FDR's policies might not be something they'd want to have burst their Gipper-idolizing bubble.

What's even more disturbing is the lack of mention given to the anniversary by Democratic Party leaders. You'd think the most popular president in the party's history (and one who frequently makes the top 3 in historians' greatest presidents lists) might be someone they want to look up to and learn from.

But after a generation of leadership by the conservative Democratic Leadership Council and its "me, too" approach to pandering to big business, the party has been running away from Roosevelt's sensible policies. Abandoning FDR-style liberalism led to the loss of both houses of Congress for the first time in 40 years. Still there are apologists for the conservative approach like James Carville and the Clinton team of advisers who try to scare the rank-and-file into shying away from the values of the Left.

Thankfully, with the rejection of Hillary Clinton's candidacy, it looks like things might be swinging back to a grassroots approach to Democratic politics.

The Nation has an excellent piece on Roosevelt's legacy and why The New Deal still matters:

Poll after poll, after all, shows that Americans are ready for more government of the kind the New Deal represents--more caring, more equitable, more willing to counterbalance the private power of corporations and concentrated wealth--and they are, frankly, tired of GOP pieties (and invective) about high taxes, big government and endless deficits. (Quick quiz for your conservative relative: who was the last Republican President to actually balance the budget? Answer: Eisenhower.) By twenty-point margins or more, voters are telling pollsters they trust Democrats over Republicans to tackle the big issues of our time.

This tectonic shift in public opinion today isn't the only good reason for celebrating what Roosevelt did. Most historians, after all, rank him as the greatest of our modern Presidents. And for Democrats, constantly fretting about "electability," he is the only President to have been elected four times. So he must have done something right--something we can learn from and use in this new century.

Historian Howard Zinn says The New Deal was a result of nationwide organizing at the grassroots level and calls for another such effort.

How refreshing it would be if a presidential candidate reminded us of the experience of the New Deal and defied the corporate elite as Roosevelt did, on the eve of his 1936 re-election. Referring to the determination of the wealthy classes to defeat him, he told a huge crowd at Madison Square Garden: “They are unanimous in their hatred for me–and I welcome their hatred.” I believe that a candidate who showed such boldness would win a smashing victory at the polls.

The innovations of the New Deal were fueled by the militant demands for change that swept the country as FDR began his presidency: the tenants’ groups; the Unemployed Councils; the millions on strike on the West Coast, in the Midwest and the South; the disruptive actions of desperate people seeking food, housing, jobs–the turmoil threatening the foundations of American capitalism. We will need a similar mobilization of citizens today, to unmoor from corporate control whoever becomes President. To match the New Deal, to go beyond it, is an idea whose time has come.