Ten years ago, the Democrat of the future looked more like Bill Richardson than Barack Obama, and I don’t mean that in terms of skin color. The “New Democrat” of the 1990s was basically a Vichy Democrat who accepted the political spectrum that Reagan had made and sought to appease a center-right nation by governing from the center-left. Bill Clinton’s declaration that “the era of big government is over” was at one time believed to be the writing on the tombstone of liberalism, probably in the same way that Nixon’s statement that “we’re all Keynesians now” was considered the obituary of conservatism.
Oh, how times have changed.
Just as nobody saw the New Right coming after Goldwater’s 44-state loss in 1964, I’m sure that few of us would have taken seriously just five years ago the notion that a man of the New Left would be the hottest candidate of 2008, and would garner more raw votes than the top two Republican vote-getters combined in the primaries of dark red South Carolina. Yet that’s exactly what has happened. Instead of a New Democrat bringing millions of new voters into politics, what we have instead is a groundswell for a New Liberal. James Antle of The American Spectator sees the writing on the wall as well:
I also think Barack Obama is a good and decent and honorable man. I think he represents liberalism at its best, rather than its worst. To a certain extent, I would view his triumph over the awful Clinton machine as a triumph of all Americans of good will. I am as proud of him as I am ashamed of the Clintons. Nevertheless, I think Obama’s candidacy is a threat to conservatives in a way that the nauseating Clintons are not. He has the potential to revive liberalism that is as strong as the Clintons’ ability to discredit it entirely. He is every bit as wrong on the issues as they are, if not worse. Should he somehow slay the giant and win the Democratic nomination, conservatives must oppose him with all their might.
Just when liberalism was thought dead and buried, it appears to be rising like a phoenix from the ashes. The new version is not your father’s liberalism, to be sure. It’s post-racial, optimistic, and it’s not ashamed of America nor her greatness. Like I said before, Obama is liberal, but he’s not angry about it.
So why are millions of disaffected Independents and Republicans, as well as millions of new voters, embracing a liberal candidate, even one of a Liberalism 2.0, given the failures of liberalism in the past? The answer can’t be fully described in a single paragraph. A changing world combined with neither a Republican nor a Democratic establishment capable of addressing those changes effectively has much to do with it. On foreign policy, the failures of Iraq, combined with the fact that the failures of Vietnam have been all but forgotten by now, have leveled the playing field between the two parties for the first time in forty years. On economics, the center of gravity in the U.S. and throughout the Western world has shifted leftward over the past few years due to middle class economic angst caused by globalization, which requires up to a decade of post-K-12 education in order to remain economically competitive as an individual, as well as to the rising costs of health care and declining fertility rates that threaten entitlements and retirement security. And culturally, while most people just want their government to implement practical policies that help families, such as making sure marriage isn’t punished in the tax code, the fact that many “pro-family” social conservatives continue to rail against gays and Hollywood has left many families thinking that these folks are concerned more about their own pathologies than about the actual concerns of most families. And, thus, the search begins for a new approach to governance.
I don’t think Obama can win this year. The Clintons have the numbers on their side in the big Super Tuesday states. But I do think that Barack has opened Pandora’s Box by demonstrating that there exists a form of liberalism that can not only win, but dominate. It won’t be long before some smart politician somewhere figures out how to harness that formula to take the nation.
January 27th, 2008 at 11:42 am
You may be right about Obama not being able to win this year (but after SC, I wouldn’t bet against it). However, if he is nominated and if we nominate McCain, you are looking at a landslide of Reagan v Mondale proportions. And that’s not in our favor, in case I wasn’t clear.
January 27th, 2008 at 11:43 am
Another endorsement for Romney: Eugene Scalia, Antonio Scalia’s son, came out in support for Mitt. Maybe if we get enough of these little endorsements, it will make up for the big bomb that McCain got. OR IF WE GOT JEB!!!
January 27th, 2008 at 11:47 am
DaveG. . . I think there’s a big difference between today’s rise of the New Left and yesterday’s rise of the New Right. When Goldwater lost, the conservative mantle was carried on by Reagan, who continued (and improved) the conservative IDEAS that Goldwater gave us. Obama, by contrast, has offered few ideas but instead runs on a simplistic message of hope. Now, “hope” is a nice message on paper, but “hope” doesn’t solve anything. Obama has offered very little in the way of HOW to achieve any of the liberal agenda, nor has he shown us how he plans to fix the problems facing this country. Ironically, and this may be the GOP’s saving grace, it’s Hillary who has actually been very forthcoming with ideas and plans of action, albeit with outrageous pricetags. The GOP, then, will find itself facing one of two possible candidates: One with nothing but “hope” to offer, and one offering enough ideas to bankrupt a nation.
January 27th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Because he’s not perceived as a liberal candidate. Look at Obama’s current base: Blacks and youth. The former are voting for him because the Clintons are creating a race war in the Dem party and the young are voting for him because he represents some yet-undefined “change.” This perception is abetted by the fact that the Clintons are trying to present him as a Reaganite.
The county isn’t any more liberal than it was in 1987. And while individuals can confirm partisan re-alignments, they rarely have anything to do with political realignments.
As for dominating, he is kicking butt in the Dem primaries, but that isn’t translating to the general election (and again, this is with the Clintons trying to define him closer to the center). Last I checked, McCain was leading Obambi outside the margin of error in swing states like MN, PA and NM, and within the error margin in Wisconsin, Virginia and Massachusetts(!!!). He’s trailing by a few points in California, Maryland and New York (with more than one polls showing NY very close). Do I think this is going to last until November? Probably not.
Regardless, once he’s President, “the audacity of hope” ain’t going to cut it anymore. He’s going to have to actually govern, and if he governs from the left, he’s toast. America hasn’t changed substantially in the past 20 years. I’m not scurred.
January 27th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Off-topic, but it occurs to me that another endorsement that might potentially shift votes in Florida, other then Jeb Bush, is Tom Gallagher’s endorsement. He was the “conservative” in the 2006 gubernatorial primary. Any word if he’s considering endorsing?
January 27th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
The “new liberal” finds him/herself up against barriers that the old liberals could not have dreamed up.
I disagree about economies moving to the left in the last few years, and even if is has to a minor degree, the central theme of the Reagan revolution remain not only in place, but unchallenged by the left. Capitalism works and socialism does not. Global economic competition has made it difficult for government to over tax or over regulate because it drives off the private sector investment which is the only thing that creates jobs. Even the French are starting to figure it out.
Capitalism has triumphed and whatever short term problems that the shortcomings of the Bush administration has caused will not change that.
The left has still not figured out how to deal with capitalism. They still use the rhetoric of socialism and their base responds to that rhetoric, but their leaders know better.
Margaret Thatcher sold off Britain’s nationalized industries, no one in Labor even proposed nationalizing them again.
The liberals in the US yack about free trade, but no one has proposed significant politcy changes. They won’t, because Robert Rubin will tell them it will be a disater if they do.
January 27th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
#3 exactly right
January 27th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
The “Audacity of Hope” really isnt that audacious. Its not audacious enough to propose tarriffs to increase the cost of Chinese goods becuase of the impact on consumer prices. It is not audacious enough to repeal the patriot act and strip law enforcement of the tools it needs to fight terrorism. It is not audacious enough to even propose a return to the 60s and 70s era catch and release doctrine in criminal law. It is not audacious enough to propose the re-regulation of airlines, trucking, natural gas and oil production.
Its nothing more that trimming around the edges of Reaganism to pander to leftist constituancies.
January 27th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
I actually see Obama’s potential in a general election campaign and as president as quite different from even his voting record, which is liberal. I think ultimately Obama would want to live up to his claims of national unity by agreeing to comprises with conservatives. I see his healthcare plan and his rejection of Clinton’s individual mandate as an example. He also voted for the energy bill that Clinton voted against. In other words, there is more to Obama than “hope” just as there was more to Ronald Reagan than his quick wit and effervescent (sp?) personality. Personality and hope is the means, not the ends. And with all cults of personality, they tend to end with the singular figure.
I would therefore contend that the GOP should favor Obama because he will indeed be less polarizing and willing to give a voice to the most likely minority party in congress.
January 27th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
DaveG continues his fine analysis.
My observations – where I disagree w/ him-
1) I think that Obama could win both the Dem nomination and the general election.
2) I think his appeal has much more to do w/ her personality, than it does with his beliefs. Much in the same way that HRC’s lack of appeal has much more to do w/ her personality, than it does with her beliefs.
January 27th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
9, you say: I think ultimately Obama would want to live up to his claims of national unity by agreeing to comprises with conservatives.
What do you think the leftist blogs would do to Obama if he makes any accomodation with the conservative minority in Congress?
Did you see what they did to Lieberman?
January 27th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
In the important battleground state of Florida, the newest poll from Strategic Vision reveals that, for the first time in two years, a plurality of all Floridians (45%) now oppose a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq within the next six months. Forty-two percent do support such an immediate withdrawal.
In contrast, just four months ago, a majority of likely voters in the Sunshine State (54%) favored an immediate withdrawal of United States military forces from Iraq, within the next six months; with only 34% opposing such a precipitous pull out back in September.
Hillary and Obama are currently preaching to the choir in their calls for withdrawal from Iraq. In nine months time, however, as the strategy of the ‘surge’ continues to yield undeniable success, and coming at the expense of less and less American blood, the position that they, in their bubble, perceive as wildly popular will be a politically untenable one to maintain entering a general election.
If the Democrats feel obligated to stick to their obsolete script, which they still read off of today to appease primary voters on the far left, come November, they will have earned their “defeatist” label in more ways than one.
January 27th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
You’re a smart cookie DaveG…keep it up.
January 27th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Dave G., you forgot the general population’s hatred of Bush and all of his cronies. People see what Bush has done to their lifestyle and don’t like it. They see job losses with CEO’s getting million dollar golden parachutes. They see their gas prices going up and the cost of their groceries skyrocketing because of it. They see how he took the Patriot Act and used it to beat down the Constitution. They see American being looked at, not the the leader of the Free World as it used to be, but as a thug bullying it’s way around. They are tired of Bush and want a change. Clinton is seen as being just a Democratic Bush, part of the political machine.
In the beginning I didn’t think Obama had a chance, now I’m not so sure. Especially after I heard on NPR how many Republicans actually like Obama. SC was just the frosting on the cake.
January 27th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
That sounds like something out of John McCain’s book.
“We’re having less of our boys killed. This war rocks then!”
January 27th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
14, environmentalism has more to do with high grocery prices than does the price of gas.
I am from AR, all of the fields that you to be planted with soybeans and cotton are planted with corn. Corn for ethynol because of a mandate for enthynol production insisted on by environmentalists.
So now farmers the world over are planting less wheat and other foodstuffs and corn production is being used for ethynol.
Hell, they are even chopping down the rain forrest to plant corn. Silly environmental wackos.
January 27th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
#14. . . NPR told you Republicans like Obama? Now that’s funny. I don’t know where to start.
January 27th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Why are people embracing Hussein Obama? Cause the country has gone soft on Islamo-Fascism. We’ve forgotten 9/11, so much so, in fact, that we’re willing to embrace a guy with known radical ties to Louis Farahkan and the Nation of Islam. A guy who spent 4 years of his early childhood studying at a Radical Muslim Madrassa in Indonesia.
Americans have gone soft. They’re no longer like their parents and grandparents of the Great WWII days. Nope, they’re cushy politicall correct Girlie Men.
January 27th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Brett Passmore, come out come out whereever you are. Are you and Paul still calling for Huckabee? Calling where? FL? Too late. MO? Huck is beginning to fade.
You should start calling in AR. There was a straw poll last week in the biggest Republican primary county in the state, and Huck finished THIRD. In AR.
January 27th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Why is Rudy Guiliani for GOP nomination still trading at 8.5 on InTrade?
In FL, which is a must win, he is at 3 in InTrade. He trails McCain in NY in some polls.
Rudy is toast. 8 free bucks on InTrade are waiting for you.
January 27th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Whoa. Who let this Dondero freak out of the basement?
Please Republicans. Make this race easy for us Dems. Put this slime front and center for your party.
January 27th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
QuacknHack, re #11. The liberal blogs are already angry at Obama for a number of things including his rejection of mandates, his opposition to quotas and of course his comments on Reagan. He is apparently willing to anger the leftist base.
Dondero,
Why not argue facts instead of promoting smears already proven false. CNN and NBC investigated the school Obama attended and it was not a madrassa at all much less a radical one. And he was 10. But frankly I am personally jealous that I did not attend school abroad even if in Indonesia or Iran although I attended an international boarding school in the US. I learned more about the world from my classmates (I had one roommate who was Persian, a best friend who was Venezuelan, and another who’s father was in our embassy in Tanzania) than I did in class. Contrary to Clinton, who did not think much of Obama’s stint overseas, I think its a positive experience.
January 27th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
greg, Im with you. Im calling for Romney from home today.
Others interested can email callathome@mittromney.com
January 27th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
I think a lot of you are losing sight of the nature of the electorate.
The American people are not conservative or liberal in the manner of all the pundits and advocates.
Ronald Reagan was not elected by some great conservative wave. He was merely viewed as a credible candidate at a time when the voters were in the mood to reject the incumbent president.
Reagan managed to move the country to the right because things got better while he was president.
If Obama wins, it will not be because the American people will have moved to the left – it will be because they judge him to be a credible candidate, because the Republicans seem deserving of a rebuke, and so they will give the guy a chance.
Obama will have the opportunity then to move the country to the left if things get better while he is president.
IRRESEPCTIVE of the ideological nature of his policies.
Thats the way it works. All of us here are political junkies and political-philosophy junkies, who tend to view the world in terms of our ideas about politics. That is not the way the average person responds.
I remember well all the polls in 1984 which showed the American people supported the Democratic policy positions over Reagan’s, right down the line. But they reelected Reagan in a landslide. It was not an ideological decision, although the Republicans smartly imposed such a reading on it. Reagan was reelected because he was seen as a trusted figure, and because things were getting better, and people were feeling better.
Obama’s great strength for the left is that he probably will have a good shot at making America feel better about itself over his first term. If his actual policies turn out to work fairly well, then he will be reelected possibly in a landslide, and that fact will be the thing that defines a new liberal era.
January 27th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
24, free market economics have triumphed all over the world.
There will be no new liberal era because Robert Rubin, Obama’s secretary of the Treasury, and each of Obama’s appointments to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve will all agree with me on economics.
January 27th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
It looks like the New York Times has admitted that their guy is a liar:
“The charge appears to be misleading. The McCain campaign pointed to remarks Mr. Romney made last year in which he said he believed that President Bush and Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq should have “a series of timetables and milestones†that they discussed among themselves but did not announce publicly.
But Mr. Romney has not called for setting a date for withdrawal. Mr. Romney has said he supports the president’s current strategy, although he has said he anticipates more and more American troops moving into a support role in Iraq in the next year — similar to what Gen. David H. Petraeus outlined in his testimony before Congress last year.”
Somehow, I think they’ll find a way to back him anyway.
January 27th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Quack,
I was going to respond to your first comment in this thread, but figured that you were just too far out there to make any connection to.
I think you seriously misunderstand what liberalism is all about. You sound like someone who has so drunk the far right kool-aid to have lost all touch with reality.
There is no such thing as a socialism-capitalism dynamic in modern America. American liberalism has been securely based in capitalism ever since the triumph of FDR. In fact, the mid-century liberals defined what American capitalism is all about. It is not pure free-market, gilded age, laissez-faire capitalism, but rather a capitalsim with appropriate governmental policing of the marketplace (regulation) combined with a safety net for those who do not fluorish in the competitive arena.
Ever since then, the arguments have been about the details. All rhetoric aside, the dynamic is between the advocates for a little less regulation, with bigger holes in the safety net, vs. a little more regulation with a more secure safety net.
You should stop listening to talk radio, or wherever it is that you get these wacky ideas that somehow we are reenacting 1918 in Moscow all over agian.
January 27th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
alaska jake, NPR didn’t tell me that Republicans liked Obama. They set up 2 phone lines one for Reps and one for Dems and they went back and forth between the two. They would ask who they supported and what they thought of the “other side”. Obama got massive support from the Republican callers, they found him fresh and hopeful and far more willing to work with their party than the other Democratic candidates. They said that if he were the Democratic nominee they would be fine with it. (This is paraphrasing a lot of different phone calls). I was totally surprised by there reaction.
They also, almost as one, despised Clinton.
January 27th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
28. . . I’m really not at all surprised that NPR would present Republicans with “massive support” for Obama. Consider the source.
January 27th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Perhaps the Republicans that listen to NPR are far more liberal than the ones that listen to other Talk Radio stations. Just as the people that come to this board are probably more politically aware and concerned than their next door neighbors.
January 27th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
30. . . Yeah that’s where I was going with that. NPR isn’t exactly known as a politically objective source. Their left-leaning stance leads me to believe that most of their Republican listeners are of the liberal/indy type.
January 27th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
27, you just made my point. Time was when liberals were not a squishy or cowardly as you. In the 50s the 60s 70s and 80s, they wanted more than tinkering on the edges of capitalism.
No Democrat has proposed rolling back the deregulation of the 80s and they have only proposed tinkering around the edges of the trade agreements.
Reagan’s economic views have captured the center. Your view that this was all settled in the 1950s is silly. As late as the 1970s, the government SET air fares and the rates for all shippers. For an air line to changes its price, it had to ask permission from the governement. Government set the price of natural gas, and tried to do so with oil prices. You had to get permission from the government to set up a trucking company. These are just a few of the regulations that were rolled back.
You should exercise a little caution in your tone TANO, because you are an idiot who doesn’t know what you are talking about. Since I just called you an idiot, I will demonstrate why:
PAUL KRUGMAN says:
“The odds are that the great swing back toward laissez-faire policies that took place around the world beginning in the 1970s would have happened even if there had been no Milton Friedman. But his tireless and brilliantly effective campaign on behalf of free markets surely helped accelerate the process, both in the United States and around the world. By any measure—protectionism versus free trade; regulation versus deregulation; wages set by collective bargaining and government minimum wages versus wages set by the market—the world has moved a long way in Friedman’s direction. And even more striking than his achievement in terms of actual policy changes has been the transformation of the conventional wisdom: most influential people have been so converted to the Friedman way of thinking that it is simply taken as a given that the change in economic policies he promoted has been a force for good. But has it?”
Keep in mind that is PAUL KRUGMAN.
YOU say that “American liberalism has been securely based in capitalism ever since the triumph of FDR. In fact, the mid-century liberals defined what American capitalism is all about.”
Paul AND I agree that beginning in the 1970s great swing back toward laissez-faire policies and listed deregulation and other policies which I listed in my original post. YOU, IDIOT, say its been static. When leftist Paul Krugman and a right winger like me agree on something that you disagree on, it makes you an idiot.
The point that I made was that there has been a great swing towards free market policies since the 1970s, and that NO DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE HAS PROPOSED A SIGNIFICANT ROLLBACK in what Paul Krugman calls a great swing of the pendulum towards free markets. Paul Krugman calls for such a pendulum swing back, but Clinton, Obama, and even Edwards do not. Because they know what I know, and what all of there economic advisors know: Reaganism works. They wont admit it publicly, but Robert Rubin, and any prospective economic advisor in a “liberal” adminstration will agree with me, this why why there will be no new liberal age.
You should reserve your sarcastic tone for those few instances when you are debating with others who are even more uninformed that you are.
January 27th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
A cite for the Krugman article:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19857
Krugman is a liberal who does not join Tano, Edwards, Clinton and Obama in cheerfully accepting Reagan’s vision of the economy.
January 27th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Quack,
“No Democrat has proposed rolling back the deregulation of the 80s”
Once again, you need to get your head out of the ideological pits and look at the real world.
The deregualtion of the 80s began in the 70s – with Jimmy Carter, no less.
Regulation is not an end in itself in the liberal world. It serves a function. If it becomes stifling in some case, then no liberal has any problem with easing up on it. If a particular market is too chaotic, then no liberal has a problem with imposing regulation. The underlying principle is pragamatic.
As opposed the the conservative approach, at least in its rhetoric, which is to oppose regulation as a principle.
Of course, when in power, they tend to leave in place a lot of regulation that the acknowledge is necessary.
“As late as the 1970s, the government SET air fares”
Perfect example. Now, go do your research and discover who it is that deregulated the airline industry.
Your Krugman reference is kinda odd. What do you think it proves? As I stated, the dynamic in America is between those who advocate for a bit more regulation vs. those who want more. All that takes place deeply and securly within the parameters of modern American capitalism, as initially laid out under FDR.
You are not agreeing with Krugman. Go find me a reference to him defining his views as “socialism”. All he is saying is that the right moves things in the direction of less regulation, and the left in the direction of more.
It is hard to understand how you can hold your wierd ideas in one head. Krugman, Rubin, Lloyd Bentsen, Dukakis, go down the line of all the Democratic leaders at the presidential level or just in the economic field. They have been, and all are capitalists. You seem to understand that, and acknowledge that, and yet you persist in trying to pretend that “the left” is somehow anti-capitalist.
You are being completely incoherent.
January 27th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Carter, with the help of Breyer and Kennedy started the dergulation of air lines, based on the views of Alfred Khan’s book The Economics of Regulation. You should read it, you MIGHT learn something. Reagan carried out, expanded and embraced it, while the RHETORIC (but not actions) of many liberals now reject it, and have rejected it for a long time. There is was (and still is) broad consensus in support of what Krugman says is a “great swing back toward laissez-faire policies”.
My original point which you are too idiotic to comprehend is that a “new liberal era” will not happen if no liberal leaders have the courage to even propose a great swing of the pendulum back towards the left. While the rhetoric of Clinton, Obama and Edwards all condemn Reaganism, none propose any significan reversal of his policies.
What Krugman proves is that you assertion that all of this was resolved mid century is silly. What Krugman describes as a great swing of the pendulum is dismissed by you as a blip towards the right. The difference in government establishment of prices and free market pricing is more than a blip. Perhaps what you really meant to say is that Obama will usher in a blip to the left. How inspirational.
Its always amusing to see a leftists like you defending himself as a capitalist at the same time as other liberals are using sweeping rhetoric about how much “change” is going to happen in economic policies when a liberal replaces Bush. If all of these leaders are as capitalist as you say, the change will be minimal, if any. That doesn’t sound like a new liberal era to me.
January 27th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Quack,
So now we are arguing over how to describe the swing of the pendulum?
The pendulum swings, within a context. The context is the mixed economy – capitalism with some abount of regulation and a safety net, that was defined during the New Deal.
Your original point, which you seem to have either forgot, or are running away from, is:
“The left has still not figured out how to deal with capitalism.”
because, presumbably:
“Capitalism works and socialism does not”
If this is actually not a point you are willing to defend, if this is not what you were driving at, then please forgive me for my idiocy of taking your words at face value. Wont make that mistake again.
I am glad though that you, at the same time, realize that the change that Obama would bring does not really amount to socialism. For some odd reason, you seem to think that is some sort of a revelation – and that pointing to it you are percieving some discrepancy between what liberal say and what they really will do.
But the discrepancy really exists between your perception of what liberalism is, and the real world.
Despite the Limbaughian rhetoric that you seem to enjoy, no leftist has advocated socialism since Henry Wallace lesft the scene.
January 27th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
[...] as Dave over at Race42008 points out, Obama’s kind of liberalism – he refers to it as Liberalism 2.0 – is [...]
January 27th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Tano, How can you possibly claim FDR was a capitalist? FDR experimented with more Soviet-style, command-economy centralization than anyone before him. In fact, I would argue the FDR was the individual who turned classical liberalism of the 18th and 19the centuries inside out.
He set wage and price controls on a whim. He made it possible for the federal government to tell every single land owner in the nation which crops to grow and livestock to raise. He launched us on the road to ever expanding entitlements that many say have wrecked traditional family ties and reasonable personal responsibility to plan and save for retirement.
FDR believed that the little people were far too stupid, grubby, and boorish to be able to make decisions on their own, preferring instead government oversight from cradle to grave.
I don’t hate FDR, and even admire him for guiding the unwilling nation into and through the war. But he was also the most socialist-inspired, pro-Soviet president this nation has ever had.
January 27th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
[...] as Dave over at Race42008 points out, Obama’s kind of liberalism – he refers to it as Liberalism 2.0 – is seductive to [...]
January 27th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
Whenever a leftist is confronted with the failure of state managed economies, they say “I am a capitalist and all Democrat leaders are capitalist” and “by the way there are no real capitalists, most favor a mixed economy and just differ on what the mix should be”.
You minimize the difference between left and right when protesting that you are not socialists, yet in almost every public policy debate you embrace a government managed solution rather than a market based solution. You seek to maximize the difference between right and left when proposing these governmental solutions.
The principles of Reagan are now in the center, as shown by the fact that neither you nor any of the Dem candidates propose any significant departure from them.
Just keep promising the big change when you have yet to offer the blip that you really propose.
January 27th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Liberal 2.0 is a liberal who has figured out that liberal 1.0 was wrong on economics and crime.
Liberal 2.0 is an ex 60′s generation hippy who enjoys the material wealth that capitalism provides, realizes how young and stupid they were when they wanted to empty the “rehabilitated” from the prisons, but still wants to smoke dope and run their mouth about equality. The new kind of equality, in which their superior incomes are justified because they earned it, not the old hippy commune notion of equality.
January 27th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Quack, it’s interesting and telling that Hillary once said in a debate many months back that she didn’t see herself so much as a “liberal,” but instead as a “progressive.” In the same context, Clintonites like John Podesta (Center for American Progress, I think) have become the doctrinaire proponents of hard-core Liberal 1.0 ideology.
Frankly, I’d consider Liberal 1.0 to be modern conservatism: the classical freedom-loving liberalism of the 18th and 19th centuries. FDR would mark version 2.0 for me, when liberalism was turned inside out. It remains to be seen where Obaman liberalism would go, whether or not it would be a totally new direction.
January 27th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
“Tano, How can you possibly claim FDR was a capitalist?”
Because he obviously was a capitalist? What world are you living in?
FDR SAVED capitalism in the Western world.
Pure, unregulated, robber-baron type capitalsim does not work.
It works well for a few owners, but at the expense of a miserable life for everyone else.
One could write the history of the 20th century as a long series of experiments in trying to find some alternative to pure capitalism, because just about everyone understood how problematical it was.
Why do you think that movements like communism, socialism, fascism, syndicalism, and god knows how many more, each managed to capture, at least for a time, the hopes and aspirations of millions of people? Because they all knew that something new and different was needed.
FDR (and of course, it was not him alone) managed to work out a system in which the core of capitalism was retained, and the government was deployed to police the marketplace, to smooth out inefficiencies, to address necessary issues that the markets could not (either because they required to much capital, or were not profitable in the time frames necessary for business, or were social goods – like care for the elderly and infirm – that would never be profitable). Regulation and a safety net – that is what has made capitalsim work so well over the past 3/4 of a century.
Perhaps you beleive that you live in a socialist country, and that America has been so all this time. IF so, then you are speaking a whole other language than anyone else.
But the truth is, that after 16 years of FDR, this was still, and remains to this day, a capitalist country.
Maybe you just are buying into the nonsense that any non-market intervention is inherintly socialistic or “soviet”, but that, of course, is just the ahistorical bs of overheated ranters.
January 27th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
“The principles of Reagan are now in the center”
And what exactly do you percieve those principles are, and how are they so revolutionary with respect to the FDR model?
Reagan cut taxes. The national debt tripled.
Both he, and his successors were required to raise all manner of other taxes in order to prevent a complete meltdown.
What regulatory agencies did Reagan shut down?
Some industries were deregulated to some extent, building on Carter’s work, and that was good.
Others, like the Savings and Loan industry, were deregulated under Carter, and then purposly left unregulated by Reagan as their freedom to engage in banking was expanded, and the results were a disaster – leading to a taxpayer bailout of several hundred billion dollars.
Reagan moved the pendulum a little bit to the right. It had some effects – making the rich richer, and causing the great middle to stagnate, for the first time in decades. Not much was actually accomplished in terms of changing the government regulatory regime.
A few of the ideas were good and are retained. Not much more than what comes out of any presidency. A lot of his innovations were bad, and had to be reversed.
No, Obama, or hillary, will not raise the red flag over DC. They will innovate in a liberal direction, and someday, so me new conservatism will undo some of their mistakes. Such is the dynamic of American political life.
January 27th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
#24 I bet there is some truth in that Tano. bravo