GOING BIG

A political autopsy describing how Democratic presidents abandoned the progressive legacy of Franklin Roosevelt and allowed economic inequality to deepen.

Kuttner, co-founder of Economic Policy Institute and The American Prospect, opens with an urgent assessment of our current political landscape: “Joe Biden’s presidency will be either a historic pivot back to New Deal economics and forward to energized democracy, or a heartbreaking interregnum between two bouts of deepening American fascism. We are facing the most momentous threat to the American republic since the Civil War.” The touchstone for his sharp analysis is the New Deal, “a model of progressive policy and politics” that was committed to economic justice. While Harry Truman left FDR’s legacy intact and Lyndon Johnson expanded it with his war on poverty and civil rights legislation that attended to issues FDR had ignored, Jimmy Carter initiated a retreat that has continued for four decades. A quarter-century of prosperity had ended, and the Democratic Party tacked to the right. Following Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama championed economic growth, Wall Street prosperity, and global trade, catering to college-educated workers and the wealthy rather than addressing racial and economic equality for the working class. Once again, economic policy was delegated to Wall Street insiders. Given this historical context and Biden’s centrist credentials, his progressivism came as a surprise, and an expansive legislative agenda and revival of the New Deal coalition of labor, the poor, and racial minorities have resurrected values neglected by previous Democratic administrations. Kuttner sees “grounds for hope” that Biden’s presidency can reverse “the hyper-concentration of capital and…the steady weakening of labor” and enable progressivism to triumph. It will do so, however, only when Democrats occupy the White House, gain majorities in Congress, and tightly regulate finance capitalism. Some readers may wish for more discussion of progressivism from below: grassroots organizations, state and local governments, and democratic socialist political movements.

A cogent reminder of the importance of federal policy, presidential leadership, and the elusiveness of economic justice.