Obama: An FDR progressive, whether hard-lining progressives believe it or not

A few days ago, in this space, I referenced, in partial defense of Barack Obama's economic policies, for which he's often taken a sound drubbing from the left, FDR's similarly cautious progressivism as perceived conservatism (and referenced again in this morning's column).

Indeed, some of Roosevelt's policies, notably the National Industrial Recovery Act, which created the much-criticized and Supreme Court-outlawed National Recovery Administration, were unabashedly "corporatist."

For this effort I received, via email, considerable grief. FDR, I read more than once, was a man of the people, he fought for the little guy, he was a true progressive in finest form and I'm an idiot, and so on and so on.

There was a disconnect: I never denied FDR's progressivism or his historical place among "the people"; I was only pointing out that he approached it with ingenious caution -- at the time, the intellectual left labeled it insufferable "conservatism" -- much as Obama is doing today.

The New Deal, as radical 1960s historians rediscovered but disapproved of rather unenchantingly, was indeed strategically conservative in its progressivism. Because to move quickly, FDR was forced to rely on the (hoped-for) good intentions of those being regulated, whether they were banks, businessmen, farmers, or state relief agencies, while circumnavigating as best he could a prodigiously conservative, Southern Democratic Congress.

In general, FDR's Depression policies came to be seen by historians as a "holding operation" (as Cambridge University's American scholar Anthony Badger put it in his 1989 recap perspective, The New Deal).

Roosevelt could not have known this in 1933, but what he was holding for was the Second World War, which really did fundamentally alter the relationship between the federal government and the citizenry: war-production full employment, huge profits for big businessmen, the secure entrenchment of trade unions, new job opportunities for women and African Americans, and massive defense spending in the South (and West) that launched a regional face-lift.

I myself tend to view FDR's New Deal as a trifle more radical than Badger and others have, but there's one aspect of it that cannot be disputed: The hard left, at the time, detested much of it as an unconscionable sellout to the powers that be.

Sound familiar?

Comments

[Kevin Schmidt]

Still, the give away to the upper 1% plutocracy and Wall Street so far is ELEVEN TRILLION DOLLARS!!! Plus our manufacturing base continues to leave the US because of Free Trade.

But Main Street gets a bone in the form of liberal mortgage refinance programs and a million temporary construction jobs. For that you want to compare Obama to FDR???

HA!

Obama and the rest of his gang of DINO Neocon-Fascists have proven themselves to be just more of the same by continuing to back the old rich white guy status quo. That's the non-change you can believe in and take to the bank too big to fail!

[Marc McDonald]

Maybe I'm just not that well-informed, but can someone enlighten me on something: what, exactly, has Obama done that is "progressive"?

Maybe there are a few minor, window-dressing type things he's done. But I haven't seen anything progressive yet (if "progressive" means helping ordinary working-class people---or at least not stealing their hard-earned money and giving it to the likes of Halliburton and other political-connected corporations).

The gap between rich and poor continues to widen. The rich and powerful continue to rake in trillions in corporate welfare, stolen from the working class.

In other words, it's all just biz as usual in America.

Actually, I don't really blame Obama. The problem is far bigger than anything he is capable of fixing. The problem is not any specific politician or even political party.

The SYSTEM is the problem. It is corrupt and rotten to the core.

Only a people's revolution is going to ever fix things. That may sound extreme. But it is the only real solution. Everything else is just idle parlor room chatter.

[Realist]

Sure FDR did some "corporatist" things. The Business Plot told him that he had to keep those fascists on the gravy train lest they stray off the reservation again.

But FDR did more for the average person than Obama seems willing to do. I find this most ironic, for being wheelchair-bound, FDR walked his talk far better than the very ambulatory Obama. Maybe someone should pull FDR's wheelchair out of storage and put it in the Oval Office where Obama will be constantly reminded which predecessor he needs to emulate (Hint: it's not Buchanan).

[Dan Best]

FDR was challenged by a more vocal left. The socialist party actually claimed a percentage of the electorate. There were actual republican progressives in the north that FDR could count on. Where does any of that fire exist in America now? FDR was president for over three terms. Obama isn't even 6 months in. Let's be patient, but let's be vocal as well. FDR may be a progressive hero now, but that was not the impression in the 30s.

[Ken Duerksen]

FDR "cautious"? Sure, maybe if compared with Che Guevara, but his speeches were full of labels like "economic royalists" to identify the same kind of people that Obama calls his "economic advisors". Those speeches were harsh, and he followed up on them with action.

[Tom Purcell]

FDR's programs saved my great-grandfather's dairy farm. Because they had a box wagon and a team of horses, my grandfather was able to get $5.00 a day to work on local roads. Even with Obama's "progressive" programs, it is likely I'll lose my home - I got a $60,000.00 mortgage in 1998, when I was making over $30,000.00 a year. Thanks to 8 years of Bush-o-nomics, I'm now making just over $14,000.00. I'm 54, and having been unemployed almost two years before finding my current job, my entire life savings are gone. I am certain I'm not alone in this; as certain as I am that the spineless Democrats and the still-merciless Republicans in Congress will do nothing - not for people like me, and definitely not for the millions who are even worse off.