Blog for Our Future | 29th October 2008 | article by Robert Borosage
An Institute for America’s Future op-ad in Tuesday’s New York Times calls on us to “remember who we are,” comparing the present crisis with that our parents and grandparents faced at the dawn of the New Deal.
If, as seems likely, Sen. Barack Obama is elected and Democrats win greater majorities in both houses of Congress, will we witness a new era of bold progressive change, a 21st-century Green New Deal? Certainly many of the elements are present:
• Moment: Events force change. Franklin D. Roosevelt famously campaigned in 1932 on a balanced budget and resisted laying out a bold agenda. But the scope of the economic collapse required bold action. Similarly, Obama began his campaign intentionally vague about his “change” agenda. But the scope of the financial collapse, the deepening global economy downturn have already forced what was unimaginable only months ago.
• Mandate: Herbert Hoover’s failure and the speculative excesses and crimes exposed in the stock market crash discredited the Gilded Age policies of that conservative era, giving FDR a mandate for a very different direction. Similarly, President Bush’s catastrophic failures have discredited modern day conservatism. Sen. John McCain has helped define the scope of Obama’s mandate, with his closing argument that the election poses a choice between Reaganism—smaller government and lower taxes—and “socialism.” At this point, socialism is winning. Obama is far from a socialist, but he too has framed his closing argument as a choice of a new direction or the “failed philosophy” of trickle-down economics that scorns government, lowers taxes on the rich and increases insecurity for the many. He will be elected with a clear mandate for a change in direction, not simply a change in parties.
• Majority: Roosevelt’s overwhelming victory… Read the Full Article
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