It Isn't New...

"We...struggle with the old enemies of peace--business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking,
class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering...Never before in all our history have these forces been so united."

A quote from yesterday's news? Well, no. The year was 1936. The writer was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who said in full: "Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hated for me--and I welcome their hatred."

After all, American politics has been nasty in the past. Before the New Deal, America was a nation with a vast gap between the rich and everyone else, and this gap was reflected in a sharp political divide. The Republican Party, in effect, represented the interests of the economic elite, and the Democratic Party, in an often confused way, represented the populist alternative.

In that divided political system, the Democrats probably came much closer to representing the interests of the typical American. But the G.O.P.’s advantage in money, and the superior organization that money bought, usually allowed it to dominate national politics. “I am not a member of any organized party,” Will Rogers said. “I am a Democrat.”

Then came the New Deal. I urge Mr. Obama--and everyone else who thinks that good will alone is enough to change the tone of our politics--to read the speeches of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the quintessential example of a president who tackled big problems that demanded solutions.

For the fact is that FDR faced fierce opposition as he created the institutions--Social Security, unemployment insurance, more progressive taxation and beyond--that helped alleviate inequality. And he didn’t shy away from confrontation.

It was only after F.D.R. had created a more equal society, and the old class warriors of the G.O.P. were replaced by “modern Republicans” who accepted the New Deal, that bipartisanship began to prevail.

Excerpted from a column by Paul Krugman emailed by Mike Collins & forwarded by me John Fulton