One of the pleasant aspects of crisis is that it helps clarify, which side your on. WWI was one of those moments as well as Vietnam, Iraq and recently the bailout of the banks (with hindsight as a crutch I am 3 for 4-I waffled on the bailout but now see it as a horrible idea). This election has also shown that Democrats basically want the status quo and the Right would like to de-regulate and de-tax more so that the entire civilization can crumble under debt and the "business cycle!" To many on the Right it all started to go bad with Roosevelt, Teddy that is and communism ensued with the New Deal.
Read this nugget from Michael Barone of the centrist faction taking on the New Deal. He's no Grover Norquist but it shows how even the mildest forms of social democracy are seen as a threat by the plutocracy.
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Michael Barone can be written off. One quote about the New Deal does it: "The political verdict was negative. New Dealers were whalloped in the 1938 off-year elections." Here is someone who knows absolutely nothing about history.
Paul
They were walloped in 38' however. What do you mean?
If there was a referendum on the New Deal, it was 1936, and it was the greatest landslide ever. In 1938, the Democrats maintained a big advantage -- and that was after an attempt to throw the election through a virtual abandonment (except for FLSA) of the progressive agenda of 1935. Even after generations of well-funded attacks, the people's verdict on the New Deal has never been negative. The political class has tried ever since to avoid offering so popular an agenda again -- it energizes and engages the citizenry. It proves to the electorate that it is possible to get what they want out of government and inspires reformers to challenge the power of the party machines. The danger to party machines of this kind of activity is obvious. This is something to be avoided at all costs. That's why FDR packed in the New Deal before the 1938 elections. That's why to suggest that the political verdict on the New Deal was negative -- unless you're not talking about the electorate but rather the parties.
Paul
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