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Bernie Sanders
Related: About this forumJacobin: Why Did White Workers Leave the Democratic Party?
The senator from Vermont spent the better part of 2016 pitching his socialism as a continuation of the best in the American reform tradition. And that meant embracing by name the domestic achievements of Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson.
Suddenly, however, some liberal pundits werent so sure about those legacies. The stubborn old socialist was looking back on the past through rose-colored lenses, they said. And hearing him champion the populist economic reforms of the good old days was enough to make them rethink the foundations of the Democratic Partys most impressive legislative accomplishment: the New Deal.
Why would elite liberals become so ambivalent about the reforms that, with one brief interruption, helped hand their favored party control of Congress for sixty years? The same set of policies they long touted as the kind of responsible and pragmatic reforms that radicals could learn from?
The answer: racism. Only white supremacy, these chastened liberals argued, marshaling the work of some recent historians, made both the New Deal and the golden age of organized labor possible.
Suddenly, however, some liberal pundits werent so sure about those legacies. The stubborn old socialist was looking back on the past through rose-colored lenses, they said. And hearing him champion the populist economic reforms of the good old days was enough to make them rethink the foundations of the Democratic Partys most impressive legislative accomplishment: the New Deal.
Why would elite liberals become so ambivalent about the reforms that, with one brief interruption, helped hand their favored party control of Congress for sixty years? The same set of policies they long touted as the kind of responsible and pragmatic reforms that radicals could learn from?
The answer: racism. Only white supremacy, these chastened liberals argued, marshaling the work of some recent historians, made both the New Deal and the golden age of organized labor possible.
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/06/white-working-class-new-deal-racism-reagan-democrats/
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Jacobin: Why Did White Workers Leave the Democratic Party? (Original Post)
QC
Jun 2016
OP
Response to QC (Original post)
merrily This message was self-deleted by its author.
Hiraeth
(4,805 posts)2. interesting article. thanks for posting the link.
QC
(26,371 posts)3. Glad you liked it! n/t
Winston.Smith
(32 posts)5. Thank you.. Very interesting article
blackspade
(10,056 posts)6. This is some total bullshit:
"The answer: racism. Only white supremacy, these chastened liberals argued, marshaling the work of some recent historians, made both the New Deal and the golden age of organized labor possible."
That is completely counterfactual to reality.