What’s the Deal?
The current American Right is made up of many factions who have attached themselves to the movement over the years, but the kernel at the center is the group that never got over the election of Franklin Roosevelt and the transformation of American society that followed during the New Deal. Some object on ideological grounds, finding the economic policies of that time too close to socialism for their liking. But the real hurt was felt on a deeper level, with the repudiation of the “ruling class” of bankers, industrialists and Establishment figures whose greedy and short-sighted policies led to the Depression, and, worst of all, the elevation of a new middle class of educated professionals to exalted positions of political and social status. For this fundamental – and, until recently, successful – revolution, Roosevelt remains a hated figure by the Ancien Regime, and even the passage of more than 70 years since his election has not dimmed the Right’s enthusiasm to eradicate every vestige of his legacy and reputation.
In today’s Wall Street Journal, editorialist Robert Bartley can’t resist picking once more at this raw old scab in a piece entitled “Prolonging the Depression: The New Deal, Time for a New Look?” This piece is revealing in its candor. One of the few beneficial effects of the Bush ideological era is that it has emboldened those on the far fringes of the Right to be much more forthright about their true intentions and agenda. In the case of the Calvin Coolidge wing of the Republican party, this means the overthrow of the New Deal root and branch, including its hated legacies of Social Security and government regulation of the financial industry.
The perennial problem for these die-hards is that the vast majority of Americans favor these programs and have come to accept the role of government as a democratic counterweight to the influence of private economic interests. The Right hates Hates HATES this, because it amounts to a fundamental transfer of power from the aristocratic economic elites to technocratic professionals. The last 70 years has been, for them, a constant rear-guard action against the usurpation of public policy by, well, the public.
Bartley’s tactic for “re-assessing” the New Deal is tedious in its familiarity. He ticks off the mixed legacy of economic results and points to several programs that were such spectacular failures that they were abandoned and discredited shortly after their launch. He rehashes the familiar statistics that show that the New Deal did not make a dent in the Depression (it was the preparations for World War II that started the economic recovery). He even makes the shocking argument that Roosevelt’s economic plan was motivated by crass politics! Horrors!
All of this is the oldest of old news, but what’s interesting is that Bartley then comes right out and says what’s really on his mind: “The New Deal… was not about economic recovery, but about displacing business as the nation's predominant elite. FDR harked back to the founder of his party [Andrew Jackson].”
Indeed, Andrew Jackson and Roosevelt both garnered enormous popularity for championing the interests of middle class Americans over those of the moneyed elite. Mainstream American history generally treats this as a good thing, and it is in this light that the New Deal is usually seen as a positive step in the social development of the country, despite its mixed record of economic success.
But those like Bartley who identify exclusively with the priorities and privileges of the rich, find it horrifying. All those dirty immigrants, poor farmers, city folk, artists, union workers and uppity urban cosmopolitan types (read: Jews) were suddenly telling John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Mellon what to do! Communism! Destruction of the American Way!
Since the 1930s, those who voice such views have been generally marginalized as apologists for the aristocracy: a retrograde element on the losing side of American history since the early 19th century. But they are nothing if not persistent. Also clever. Over the past half-century, they have managed to re-frame their side of the debate in ways aimed at winning the support of people who have nothing to do with their narrow class interests. They are counting on the short memories of the American public and the power of propaganda to finally shatter, once and for all, the natural constituency for greater democracy and restore sovereignty to the narrow and self-appointed clique that puts economic self-interest ahead of any concept of public interest.
Whenever this faction has gained control of the machinery of government (the 1820s, 1870s, 1920s, 2000s), the results have been increasing inequality and economic catastrophe. In every case, it has taken the courage and imagination of an Andrew Jackson, a Theodore Roosevelt, or a Franklin Roosevelt to restore balance to the system and hope to the country. It was the hope of progressive historians like Arthur Schlessinger, Jr. that eventually the lessons of progress could be woven into the fabric of American culture to prevent the periodic triumph of greed over common sense and community. Unfortunately, the opposition is unbowed and shameless, as pieces like Bartley’s remind us in the clearest terms, so it falls to every generation to fight the same battles again.
9:36:35 AM 
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