It Is TIME TO EMBRACE Criticisms Of The Democratic Party To ENSURE It LIVES UP To Its Tenets

[RufusTFirefly]

23. Your post has a modicum of truth but is vastly over-simplified

The diversity of viewpoints was far greater back then than it is today. Far greater. These days we run the gamut of political extremes from A to B.

Roosevelt attempted to pass a law providing an income ceiling of $25,000. Instead he was forced to "compromise" and settle for a 90-plus percent top tax rate that persisted through the Eisenhower era. And we wonder why our infrastructure is crumbling and our public institutions are being starved to death.

There were a large number of Republicans who could legitimately call themselves progressives (in fact, the progressive party in Wisconsin was started by Republicans). Likewise, former Republican Fiorello LaGuardia, who was elected mayor of New York, ran as a "fusion" candidate and spoke at a huge gathering of socialists and labor leaders at Madison Square Garden.

Yet, when the NAACP pushed for an anti-lynching bill, FDR balked at endorsing it for fear of alienating the southern Democrats. And Roosevelt's internment of Japanese-Americans was an appalling miscarriage of justice. He was no saint.

Meanwhile, in New York on May Day 1934, throngs of Communists and Socialists, estimates ranged from 25,000 to 100,000 for the Communists and a slightly smaller number for the Socialists, marched through the streets of the Big Apple in distinctly separate demonstrations. (The two groups were bitter rivals.)

It's true that the Roosevelt who was elected in 1932 and the Roosevelt who introduced the New Deal and "welcomed the hatred" of bankers were markedly different leaders. But Roosevelt listened. He demonstrated a capacity to learn and respond. Instead of completely capitulating to threats and entreaties of small but powerful, vested interests, he addressed the angry, impatient, and desperate concerns of the grassroots while adroitly steering the country away from the shoals of political extremes on both the port and the starboard sides.