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As OpenLefties know, many progressives are comparing the current economic situation to the 1930s. While the hardships of this recession do not (yet) compare with what our country faced in the Great Depression, there is no question that these are tough times.
The idea that we are reliving the Depression or something like it is part of a larger argument that the U.S. is undergoing a leftward political realignment similar to that of the '30s. The hope is that the Democratic Party will rediscover its New Deal heritage and a new progressive coalition will come together around issues of health care, income inequality, corporate power, etc.
However, even if we assume that Barack Obama and his allies are potential New Dealers with good progressive instincts (and I don't assume anything of the sort), we should recognize that the political landscape of today is missing many of the forces and actors that made the Roosevelt era so ripe for change.
In the 1930s, the possibility that American society would be upended by a genuine social revolution, while probably very remote, was a real fear of some people. As FDR put it: "I was convinced we'd have a revolution in [the] US and I decided to be its leader and prevent it. I'm a rich man too and have run with your kind of people. I decided half a loaf was better than none - a half loaf for me and a half loaf for you and no revolution." Roosevelt was half-bullshitting as politicians always do, but there was some truth to that statement.
Consider the times:
In those years, Huey Long, a terrifyingly ambitious populist from alligator-haunted Louisiana, had the political establishment (and many on the left) shitting bricks with his crusade to radically restructure the American economy.
During this same period, important sectors of the labor movement advanced an explicitly anti-capitalist line. Also, many prominent artists and intellectuals affiliated with the Communist Party, or with Trotskyism, or with the Socialist Party of Norman Thomas.
Left-wing newspapers developed respectable circulations and wide appeal, with sports pages, comics and all. Homeless people, tenants, farmers and other burdened groups organized themselves into associations and managed to cause considerable trouble.
Today we have to ask ourselves, where is our radical labor movement? Where is our EPIC? Where is our Farmer Labor Party? Where is our Daily Worker? Where is our Huey Long?
Maybe the social conditions of this economic downturn will produce similar anti-systemic left/populist movements, but right now I don't see anybody arguing for anything beyond the mild liberalism of MoveOn. I'm all for MoveOn and we'd be lucky to get the MoveOn agenda realized, but I believe progressive politics is the art of backing up maximalist demands with credible threats ... and MoveOn isn't nearly scary or threatening enough for the task at hand.
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