In my last post, I responded to something someone put up at Daily Kos. In it, he referred to himself as "an FDR Democrat." I told him he wasn't, and said he had no idea what that meant. I meant that he was referring to the myth that has grown around Roosevelt. When you look at the actual record of the man, those progressives who are complaining about Obama right now should not be lionizing FDR to the extent they do. I've already discussed Obama's record at length, and I've placed a list here. Let's look at FDR's actual record, or some of it, anyway.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a great president; I will never deny that. He came in during the worst circumstances in the history of the United States, and turned the country around economically in many ways. He instituted regulations that were necessary at the time to steady the financial markets and to let people know they could be trusted again, and he helped create the Social Security program, and such agencies as the Securities and Exchange Commission, to keep markets honest, which is the key to a thriving economy.
But was FDR really a liberal? When you listen to the lionization of FDR, you sometimes get the impression that Roosevelt was a far left liberal icon; a stellar example of what all progressives should aspire to be.
But how liberal was FDR, especially by today’s standards? There is no doubt that he was a progressive on many levels, but to those who consider themselves worthy of deciding who is and isn’t “progressive enough,” would FDR pass muster? Let’s see…
The first thing to consider is that FDR was nothing if not a pragmatist. He spent much of his early career going after the abuses of Tammany Democrats, who were almost as corrupt as Republicans today. But when it came time to run for Governor of New York, and then President, he embraced Tammany in order to win election. In other words, FDR knew that the only way to get things done was to get elected to the office, and the only way to get elected is to appeal to as many people as possible. Sometimes, a candidate has to embrace points of view you don’t always agree with. That doesn’t mean you’re adopting their views; it means that you’re flexible, and willing to try to build a consensus.
This actually makes a lot of sense, and it's actually a show of principle, not a betrayal of principle. If you believe strongly in your principles, then you will do anything possible to make sure you can act on them. If you have to give up a little to get 80% of what you want, a person of principle will take the 80%, then continue working for the other 20%. Only an unprincipled person would give up the 80% because it’s not 100%. FDR understood this concept.
During his run against Hoover for president, FDR took what some progressives might find to be surprising positions. One of his main complaints against Hoover in the 1932 campaign was the Republican's “huge budget deficits.” Given that most latter-day progressives, myself included, would like to see more stimulus to get us out of our current economic mess, which is not nearly as dire as FDR faced when he was running, doesn’t it seem strange that a presidential candidate who is seen as a “liberal icon” of sorts by today’s progressives, complained about budget deficits when more than a quarter of the population was unemployed? That sounds more like a Republican than a Democrat, doesn't it?
That is not to say FDR didn’t have some great progressive ideas, even during his campaign. In a speech he gave before the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco in September 1932, he made the following dire statement:
Our industrial plant is built; the problem just now is whether under existing conditions it is not overbuilt. Our last frontier has long since been reached, and there is practically no more free land.
Not a very progressive statement, to be sure. Very depressing. But later in the same speech, he also said the following:
As I see it, the task of government in its relation to business is to assist the development of an economic declaration of rights, an economic constitutional order. This is the common task of statesman and business man. It is the minimum requirement of a more permanently safe order of things.
Every man has a right to life; and this means that he has also a right to make a comfortable living. He may by sloth or crime decline to exercise that right; but it may not be denied him. We have no actual famine or death; our industrial and agricultural mechanism can produce enough and to spare. Our government formal and informal, political and economic, owes to everyone an avenue to possess himself of a portion of that plenty sufficient for his needs, through his own work.
Every man has a right to his own property; which means a right to be assured, to the fullest extent attainable, in the safety of his savings. By no other means can men carry the burdens of those parts of life which, in the nature of things afford no chance of labor; childhood, sickness, old age. In all thought of property, this right is paramount; all other property rights must yield to it. If, in accord with this principle, we must restrict the operations of the speculator, the manipulator, even the financier, I believe we must accept the restriction as needful, not to hamper individualism but to protect it.
Very progressive ideas, to be sure. But as I said, while FDR was advocating for the above, he was also smacking Hoover around for his “fiscal irresponsibility” in running such huge budget deficits. So, which is it? Was he a progressive, or was he not? By today’s standards, according to some quarters of the progressive movement, he should have been written off, because there simply can be no talk of deficits while the country is reeling, right?
Even if you don’t think his railing about deficits during a depression disqualifies him from “good progressive” status on its own, you should know that Roosevelt campaigned on the Democratic platform in 1932, which, among other things called for "immediate and drastic reductions of all public expenditures," (huge spending cuts), the abolishment of "useless commissions and offices” and the "[consolidation] of departments and bureaus (small government) and “eliminating extravagances" (again, huge spending cuts). He also campaigned on a balanced budget, although he fell short of calling for an amendment to the Constitution.
Okay, so what do we have so far? We have a guy who’s running as a deficit hawk during a depression, who advocates for a balanced budget and smaller government.
Sounds a lot like Ben Nelson or Joe Lieberman to me, and we all know how much the far end of the progressive spectrum loves “Blue Dogs.”
If someone like that were running today, the same folks who hold FDR up as the mythical "progressive" now would trash him mercilessly, and hand Hoover another term (see 2004). He didn’t run as a full-on progressive, because you can’t run that way and win a national election, or even a statewide election in most states. Even FDR, in the depths of the Great Depression and running against the worst president in history (until George W. Bush came along), only managed 57% of the vote and lost six states. But he also got more than two-thirds of the House and Senate, which means he could ram through pretty much everything he wanted for a while. There simply weren’t enough Senators working as a solid enough bloc to stop everything from going through.
When you look at what FDR did with that majority, a lot of things changed, and changed for the better. He and Congressional Democrats reformed the banking and financial services industry, instituted child labor laws and a minimum wage. Eventually, he would finally usher through the Social Security Act, as well. He created a lot of public works programs to get people back to work and making a living. In other words, he spent a lot of money on infrastructure. It’s called “pump-priming,” and any decent economist will tell you, that is how you get the economy flowing again.
Gosh, no wonder he’s a progressive hero, right? He used the federal government to bring more prosperity to the people. That’s what government’s supposed to do, right?
Well, not so fast…
While he was doing all of that, he was also consciously trying to keep the deficit from going out of control. He did that, in large part, by cutting the defense budget by nearly one-third. Now, before you start jumping up and down and screaming, “See? He’s a progressive!” you should know that the cuts included a 40% reduction in veterans’ benefits, which he accomplished by taking away the pensions of a half million veterans and widows, and reducing the pensions of the others. He also cut research and education funding, and slashed the salaries of federal employees.
Think about that the next time you scream about how much President Obama has “caved” in dealing with the Republican Party. FDR had a virtual veto-proof majority in the House and Senate, and he still slashed benefits for “our troops” and he cut the pay for the working men and women in the government.
FDR remained a deficit hawk from the time he took office in 1933 until World War II forced a change, even as the country dipped into a serious recession in 1937. While the debt had risen from 16% of Gross National Product (GNP) in 1929 to 40% of GNP in 1933, it never rose above 40% of GNP until 1941 and the beginning of World War II. What that means is, FDR never passed anything close to the stimulus Obama saw was passed, and he surely didn’t pass anything close to the $2-3 trillion (which would be about 15-20% of GDP) most of us would like to see passed right now to get us out of this hole faster. Most of the money FDR spent before the war was offset by massive spending cuts elsewhere.
Like I said; can you say “Blue Dog”?
And what about the other things we progressives supposedly care so deeply about? FDR had an opportunity to create a massive welfare system for the poor, but his concern about budget deficits trumped that throughout 3 terms in office. He had a huge majority in Congress; he could have pushed through some civil rights legislation, and started the civil rights movement a little early, but he didn’t. Though his wife Eleanor Roosevelt was a strong voice on civil rights for blacks and women, very little was actually done by the president himself to turn those words into action. In part, this is because politics is the art of the possible, and pushing such "radical" concepts would have cost him, politically, and much of the agenda he did pass would have suffered. Hell; it took Truman (with a healthy assist from Jackie Robinson, who did more than play baseball) to end segregation in the military, several years AFTER World War II. Abortion was illegal almost everywhere, and women had little or no property rights, even though they were recruited to do “men’s jobs” during the war. His administration proposed the Wagner National Health Act of 1939, but FDR himself refused to fully support it, thus possibly denying us a 70 year head start on a universal national health care system.
More random facts:
- The minimum wage law didn’t pass until well into his second term, and after another very deep recession in 1937.
- When the Supreme Court unanimously rejected the National Recovery act in its entirety, FDR tried to pack the court to give him a majority.
- FDR nominated Hugo Black to the court, who was later found out to have been a member of the KKK.
- He secretly commissioned the building of a fleet of submarines with the intent of blockading Japan.
- And those of you who rag on Obama for failing to close Gitmo, I have three words: Japanese Internment Camps. (Thanks to JT for reminding me.)
Now, I don’t want anyone to think I’m trying to trash FDR; the opposite is true. FDR was an amazing president, who did a lot for the country during a very difficult time. Can it be argued that he could have done more? Of course, including some things he probably should have done. But no one’s perfect; not him, and not President Obama. That FDR was a flaming liberal and a near-perfect progressive president belies reality. Such a person can’t get elected in this country.
If you are a progressive who lionizes FDR as the greatest president ever, while simultaneously trashing President Obama for not being pitch perfect on nearly every issue, you’re missing the greater point, which is that presidents are shaped by the time in which they serve, not the other way around. Obama came into office with an economy that was seriously tanking. If he hadn’t acted boldly, we would have been looking at a Great Depression redux. Unfortunately, presidents only get to act boldly so many times, especially in today’s world, in which everything said and done is instantly scrutinized, evaluated and opposed. Politically speaking, you only have so much political capital, and when you spend it on an unprecedented stimulus and the beginnings of a universal health care plan, you have to give a little to get a little more. FDR understood that, and so does Barack Obama.
FDR was a great president, not perfect, and his record is actually much like Obama’s. Therefore, when you trash Obama, you trash FDR. When you say Obama is just like Bush, you’re essentially saying that Bush is just like FDR, which is absurd.
In reality, when you look at the facts, Obama and FDR are very much alike, albeit from different eras. Likewise, Bush and Hoover are also very much alike, although I give Hoover more credit for competence than I would Bush.
All I’m saying is, evaluate all of these men honestly, and don’t rely on the myths that surround them to make a point.
