The cold truth about Obama and FDR [View all]

[phantom power]

In the end, I still think we're all boned without a return to "welcoming their hatred." The DLC as a response to "backlash by moneyed interests" was a pyrrhic victory, since it resulted in nothing pushing both parties far to the right, leaving voters with only a choice between center-right Dems and clinically insane Republicans.

Reacting to Wall Street's delusional rage against the President which I highlighted earlier, Daily Kos diarist David Mizner asks the pertinent question: why doesn't the President simply welcome their hatred? After all, Wall Street is deeply unpopular and Dems would stand to gain, right?

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Plainly speaking, FDR didn't need the bankers' money. Campaigning wasn't nearly as expensive in those days. Lack of effective mass communications made it harder to purchase persuasion. And the Powell Memo that led to the coordination of big business spending on elections was over 30 years away. Wall Street had money, but it wasn't as coordinated and it didn't go as far.

But that's not all. FDR also had the votes of the racist South. He couldn't afford to lose them. FDR had the opportunity to pass an anti-lynching bill, but he couldn't afford to do it and still get the New Deal passed

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The cold truth is that Democrats' decision to support working families and organized labor from 1930-1970 led to an intense and furious backlash by moneyed interests, without which the Movement Conservative revolution would not have been possible. Republicans outraised Democrats in presidential elections during the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s by a factor of 7-1 and higher. That in turn led to the creation of the DLC and the rise of the neoliberal elite to raise enough funds to be remotely competitive.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/cold-truth-about-obama-and-fdr-by.html