FDR explained how the Democratic Party would destroy itself, but the Democratic Party--and its voters--refused to listen. And now our freedoms of speech and liberty are at extreme risk.

Above: Part of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, DC. The inscription warns against oligarchy. Photo by Carol M. Highsmith, courtesy of the Library of Congress.

"A Democratic Tweedle Dummer"

In 1939, President Franklin Roosevelt said: "The Democratic Party will not survive as an effective force in the nation if the voters have to choose between a Republican Tweedle Dum and a Democratic Tweedle Dummer. If we nominate conservative candidates, or lip-service candidates, on a straddle bug platform, I personally, for my own self respect and because of my long service to and belief in, liberal democracy, will find it impossible to have any active part in such an unfortunate suicide of the old Democratic Party." ("Advice to the Convention of Young Democratic Clubs of America. August 08, 1939." American Presidency Project, University of California Santa Barbara.)

FDR did not believe the above scenario would happen for the 1940 election; and he was right, winning a third term. But his overall prediction has now come true. The Democratic Party--under the leadership of the Clintons, the Obamas, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, etc.--rejected the economic populism of the New Deal (indeed, the words "New Deal" have become dirty words in the Democratic Party) and embraced neoliberalism instead, and all the corporate money that came with that embrace; and now the Democratic Party is almost completely powerless. 

The Democrats' plans to tax the rich were timid; they failed to aggressively pursue an expansion of Social Security (or better still, a return to full retirement benefits at 65); they were silent on how terrible 401k's are compared to fixed-pension plans; they participated in the offshoring of manufacturing jobs and joined in the failure to address the resulting devastation; they refused the concept of Medicare-for-All, and President Obama even turned his back on the public option; and, Dear Lord, the list goes on and on and on.

In place of economic populism, the Democratic Party went full-steam ahead on identity politics - the dreadful socio-economic approach that leaves most people in the dust, while the supposed best & brightest of each race and gender take their rightful place as executives making gargantuan sums of money. Identity politics also has the bad habit or grouping people and ranking their misery; with white poverty--especially white male poverty--frequently put on the low end of the spectrum, if not dismissed altogether.

Democrat voters share the blame too. They've had 20+ years to demand a return to the New Deal, but instead continued to vote for "conservative candidates, or lip-service candidates, on a straddle bug platform." Some even dismissed the New Deal as hopelessly racist, despite the significant--but admittedly imperfect--strides the New Deal made towards racial equality. Apparently, if the New Deal did not end hundreds of years of racism in ten years or so, well then, it just wasn't worthy of replication (how utterly ridiculous is that?).    

(Straddle-bug: "A politician who is non-committal or who equivocates" (Oxford University Press). Equivocate: "to speak in a way that is intentionally not clear and confusing to other people, especially to hide the truth" (Cambridge University Press).

And so now we're all going to pay a terrible price for the Democratic Party's rejection of the New Deal, and the voters' refusal to demand a modern New Deal. The Republican Party controls Congress and has handed legislative and funding authority over to Donald Trump and Elon Musk. The Supreme Court has granted Trump broad criminal immunity, and Congressional Republicans will never impeach him no matter how many laws he breaks, even if engages in mass violence. Trump is putting revenge-minded people in charge of the Defense Department, the Department of Justice, and the FBI. Trump has pardoned people who attacked police officers and is now firing the people who held them accountable for attacking police officers. 

A wickedness has taken control of the nation and, mark my words, it will not be long before private citizens expressing disagreement with the Trump Administration will face extra-judicial arrest and incarceration. Court orders to release them will be ignored. Even Chief Justice John Roberts probably knows this is likely (which is ironic since he and his fellow justices gave Trump the authority to defy court orders via criminal immunity). See, for example, "Roberts warns against ignoring Supreme Court rulings as tension with Trump looms," CNN, December 31, 2024).

The Democratic Party and many Democratic voters rejected the New Deal, and now we are at extreme risk of being investigated and imprisoned if we express viewpoints that are not in alignment with right-wing viewpoints. The OMB memo, forbidding funding based upon viewpoint, and the illegal mass firings of government employees, and the forcing of NPR and PBS to appear before Marjorie Taylor Greene, are just the opening salvos - more will come, and they will be increasingly sadistic and vicious.

It HAS happened here.

Above: A WPA poster, promoting a WPA theatre production of It Can't Happen Here. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.