I am a great admirer of Franklin D. Roosevelt and a keen student
of the New Deal. Naturally when New
Deal 2.0, a project of the
Roosevelt
Institute, invited me to be a “Braintruster” at its launching two years
ago, I
eagerly accepted and have submitted posts frequently since. Several
days ago, a post
of mine on the relationship between the Fiscal Deficit and the
Gross
Domestic
Product was rejected by the editor.
The reason for the rejection was it is too long and too
difficult for the general public, and that I failed to obey the
editor’s demand
that I add explanatory paragraphs while cutting the length of the whole
piece.
My sin was that I made an observation that “You can have brevity or
explanation
to lay readers. But you cannot have both.”
Frustrated, I sent an email to five personal friends who also
regularly post on New Deal 2.0 to announce the following:
“Apparently my post was not up to the editorial standard of
NewDeal2.0.
Amazing that two women who haven't a clue about macroeconomics sit as
jury and
judge on what passes.
Frankly, what they post under their own names have been at the level of
cocktail
party gossip.
The general public visits my website in great numbers with no
difficulty.
The recovery will arrive long before I will submit another post to
them
again.”
I further added:
“It’s more than the length, because I offered to cut the
post in two parts with the first part every short. Their objection was
that the
general public cannot follow my thoughts.
I have tried to follow their previous demands by referring
to “quantitative
easing” colloquially as “printing money” and was criticized (rightly)
for it by
a reader. Their claim to their “qualification” to judge is that they
know
little of macroeconomics and so if they cannot follow a post, the
general
public cannot either and therefore the post does not belong at New Deal
2.0.
Well, if we communicate with the general public with thoughts they are
already
familiar, we will have little of significance to say.
The general public needs to have their minds stretched and not for us
to talk
down to them.
Any rate, reasonable people can disagree and editors have absolute
power. But I am not prepared to change merely to get posted.
If a post of mine is not up to standards, let the readers say so, not
the
editors.
I write to speak for myself, not to mouth New Deal 2.0 positions.
Luckily, I have a web site for the general public to judge
independently
without an editorial filter.
You are copied on this not because I am looking for support, just to
let you
know my absence is not caused by my mind gone dry.”
I further added: “I am aware that one of my vices is writing
articles that are too long. But it is the nature of my mind that
connects large
amount of information and ideas even on seemingly simple events. To
some
readers,
this is why they read me: for my view of complexity, not brevity which
they can
get from media headlines. Others who look for simplified summaries do
not read
me, which from my perspective is no great loss.”
Somehow the editor got wind of the email not addressed to her
and reacted hysterically:
“I have never claimed expertise in macroeconomics, but as an
English Ph.D and published author who has taught essay writing and
media
communications at a major university, served as a media consultant in a
major
senate campaign, and started and run several successful content
websites, I do
have expertise in language and communicating, particularly online.”
The editor further exploded:
“I am always eager to work with well-informed people who are
professional and supportive of the blog, the Roosevelt Institution, and
the Roosevelt
legacy. Which brings me to your recent email: sending around vicious
emails to
my colleagues that are contemptuous of not only myself but my assistant
who
conducts herself in a gracious and professional manner is entirely
inappropriate. That kind of behavior is undermining to our mission, the
goodwill between colleagues, and accomplishes nothing. Your
behind-the-back
communication referred to my posts as appropriate for cocktail parties
- very
well, that party would include XXX, XXX, XXX and XXX, who all follow my
posts.”
I responded: “I apologize for wasting everybody's time and
for sending a below standard post. It will not happen again.”
To which the editor went ballistic:
“You owe no apology for the post - that is ridiculous.
Your apology for wasting the time of our colleagues is appreciated, I'm
certain.
You have yet to offer an apology to [my assistant- name withheld] and
myself,
to whom you most clearly owe it. Which perhaps means that you stand by
your
slanderous remarks. In which case we have nothing further to discuss.”
I was truly puzzled by the verbal firework in poor English,
since all I wrote was: “Amazing that two women who haven't a clue about
macroeconomics sit as jury and judge on what passes.
Frankly, what they post under their own names have been the level of
cocktail
party gossip.”
So I wrote back: “I don't see why you demand an apology in
public.
I accepted your editorial decision after my rewrite failed to meet your
standard.
We both agree that you [and your assistant] are not experts in
macroeconomics,
and you seem to agree with me that your posts are like conversation in
a
cocktail party.
So where is the problem?”
For that I was excommunicated from the New Deal 2.0 blog by
the editor’s pronouncement: “Your recent inappropriate behavior has
made you
unwelcome in our community at New Deal 2.0. Please take your comments,
etc.
elsewhere.”
The funny thing was that a response I since wrote to a third
person’s post was immediately erased by the editor who proclaim herself
as the
defender the Roosevelt legacy. The post
contains the
following on FDR:
In the time of
Jefferson and
Hamilton, the young nation was primarily a country of small farm
owners, with
an abundance of open land where equality and democracy could best be
promoted
by restricting the power of government to allow free play of individual
initiative. The establishment of a rich upper class, on the other hand,
required positive government intervention. Early liberals generally
were
suspicious of big government and opposed the extension of its powers,
while the
exponents of upper class leadership favored strong centralized
authority. As
the national economy developed and industrialized, these positions on
governments shifted. With the growth of big corporations that employed
large
number of wage-earning workers, the declining wealth of farmers, common
individuals began to find it difficult to achieve economic independence
and
security by his own means without government protection, while big
business
wanted free markets to exploit its privileged positions gained from
earlier
government assistance.
But in the
1930s, the
Democratic Party was still dominated by Southern
conservatives and political machines of the Northern industrial cities,
both
opposing a strong Federal government for separate reasons. Support for
Franklin
D. Roosevelt was strong among organized labor, small farmers and middle
class
reformers and the idealistic intelligentsia. There was constant
conflict
between the conservative and progressive wings of the Democratic Party
and some
of the bitterest opponents of the New Deal were conservative Democrats.
Some of
the strongest supporters were liberal Republicans.
Roosevelt’s
natural air of
confidence and optimism did
much to reassure a dishearten nation. His inauguration on March 4, 1933
occurred
literally in the middle of
a terrifying bank panic, a challenging backdrop for his famous words:
“The only
thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Such inspiring words were a
exultant
contrast five decades later to Carter’s disconcerting “malaise” speech
of
“crisis of the soul and confidence” to a restless nation facing rising
gasoline
prices at $1.25 a gallon, with gold rising to $300 an ounce but with
the US
enjoying a trade surplus with emerging China for another 14 years.
The US
now, with gas at $4 a gallon and gold over $1,000 and Trade deficit
with China
running to over $200 billion a year, would thank God for the good
old days
of 1979. Carter desperately imposed wholesale resignation on his entire
cabinet
in 1979, the third year of his first and only four-year term. In doing
so, he
deprived himself of valuable support and assistance in dealing with the
Iran
hostage crisis that cost him a second term.
The New Deal
Political Coalition
The New Deal
Political Coalition was an alignment of interest groups
and voting
blocs that supported the New Deal and voted for Democratic presidential
candidates from 1932 until approximately 1968, which made the
Democratic Party
the majority party during that period, losing only to Dwight D.
Eisenhower in
1952 and 1956.
FDR created a
political coalition of the rank and file of the
Democratic Party,
the big city political machines, labor unions, racial, ethnic and
religious
minorities, populist farm groups, liberal intellectuals, and the
segregated
White South. This coalition dissolved in 1968 as the Vietnam War split
it into
anti-war and pro-war factions , but it remains the model that party
activists
seek to replicate. In similar manner, the Afghan War led to the
dissolution of
the Soviet Communist Party.
The 1932
election
brought about major shifts in voting behavior, and
became a
permanent realignment, though some scholars point to the off-year 1934
election
as even more decisive in stabilizing the coalition. Roosevelt
set up his New Deal and forged a coalition of BigCity
machines, labor unions,
liberals, ethnic and racial minorities (especially Catholics, Jews and
African
Americans) and Southern whites. These disparate voting blocs together
formed a
large majority of voters and handed the Democratic Party seven
victories out of
nine presidential elections (1932-48, 1960, 1964), as well as control
of both
houses of Congress during all but 4 years between the years 1932-1980
(Republicans won majorities in 1946 and 1952). Starting in the 1930s,
the term
“liberal” was used in U.S.
politics to indicate supporters of the coalition, while
"conservative" denoted its opponents. The coalition was never
formally organized, and the constituent members often disagreed.
Some political
scientists call the
resulting new coalition the "Fifth Party System" in contrast to the
Fourth Party System of the 1896-1932 era that it replaced.
Roosevelt
had a magnetic
appeal to city dwellers,
especially the poorer minorities who got recognition, unions, and
relief jobs.
Taxpayers, small business and the middle class voted for Roosevelt
in 1936, but turned sharply against him after the recession of 1937-38
seemed
to belie his promises of recovery.
Roosevelt
discovered an
entirely new use for city
machines in his reelection campaigns. Traditionally, local bosses
minimized
turnout so as to guarantee reliable control of their wards and
legislative
districts. To carry the electoral college, however, Roosevelt
needed massive majorities in the largest cities to overcome the
hostility of
suburbs and towns. With Postmaster General James A. Farley and WPA
administrator Harry Hopkins cutting deals with state and local
Democratic
officials, Roosevelt used federal discretionary spending, especially
the Works
Progress Administration (1935-1942) as a national political machine.
Men on
relief could get WPA jobs regardless of their politics, but hundreds of
thousands of supervisory jobs were given to local Democratic machines.
The 3.5
million voters on relief payrolls during the 1936 election cast 82%
percent of
their ballots for Roosevelt. The vibrant labor
unions,
heavily based in the cities, likewise did their utmost for their
benefactor,
voting 80% for him, as did Irish, Italian and Jewish voters. In all,
the
nation's 106 cities over 100,000 population voted 70% for FDR in 1936,
compared
to 59% elsewhere. Roosevelt won reelection in
1940
thanks to the cities. In the North, the cities over 100,000 gave Roosevelt
60% of their votes, while the rest of the North favored Willkie by 52%.
It was
just enough to provide the critical electoral college margin.
With the start
of
full-scale war mobilization in the summer of 1940,
the cities
revived. The war economy pumped massive investments into new factories
and funded
round-the-clock munitions production, guaranteeing a job to anyone who
showed
up at the factory gate.
End of New Deal
coalition
The coalition
fell
apart in many ways. The first cause was lack of a
leader of
the stature of Roosevelt. The closest was
perhaps Lyndon
Johnson, who deliberately tried to reinvigorate the old coalition, but
in fact
drove its constituents apart. During the 1960s, new issues such as
civil
rights, the Vietnam War, affirmative action, and large-scale urban
riots tended
to split the coalition and drive many members away. Meanwhile,
Republicans made
major gains by promising lower taxes and control of crime.
As the record shows, to accuse my sending an email to five
personal friends to explain why I will cease posting on NewDeal 2.0 as
“sending
around vicious emails to [the editor’s] colleagues” to undermine the
legacy of
FDR is a bit Baroque even for a self aggrandizing “English Ph.D and
published
author”.
The whole episode is a Baroque farce and a tempest in a tiny teacup,
but
an amusing and perhaps pathetic one.
