Obama and FDR

Fortunately, the decline of conservatism and the advent of Barack Obama are occurring at the same time that there’s a new online technology capable of harnessing citizen energy nearly cost-free to pressure for a program of Progressive Patriotism, much as the Internet, social networks, and ardent bloggers helped lift Obama into office.

Then, if he and his base can credibly claim success by 2012 or 2016 in, say, seven or more of these ten goals–especially healthcare and democracy–President Obama will be regarded as a twenty-first-century FDR and credited with inspiring an era of positive progressive governance.

–Mark Green, Nation Magazine, Jan. 13, 2009

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I ran for President because I believed in an America where ordinary folks could get ahead; where if you worked hard, you could have a better life. That’s been my focus since I came into office, and that has to be our focus now. It’s one of the reasons why we’re working to reduce our nation’s deficit. Government has to start living within its means, just like families do. We have to cut the spending we can’t afford so we can put the economy on sounder footing, and give our businesses the confidence they need to grow and create jobs.

–Barack Obama, Jul. 2, 2011 Radio Address

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http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2011/jul/07/how-fdr-did-it/

How FDR Did It
Ronald Dworkin

We now have a President we can admire and respect. But he seems unaware that his opponents are not patriots anxious to help govern through a decent consensus but fanatics who would destroy the country if that would lead to his defeat. We think he should understand that this is a time for confrontation not compromise. He should therefore remember the words of another president running for reelection in the middle of an even graver economic catastrophe, words that seem eerily relevant now.

Here is Franklin Roosevelt, in Madison Square Garden, in 1936:

For nearly four years you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves. We will keep our sleeves rolled up. We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred. I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master.

President Obama might recall that Roosevelt won re-election by the largest majority before or since.

July 7, 2011 2:38 p.m.