General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsFDR HAD a 70% average PROGRESSIVE dem congress for 12 YEARS!!!!
Last edited Sat May 5, 2012, 06:49 PM - Edit history (2)
That's house and senate, 70% average and at one time had an 83% peak in the house at one time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/73rd_United_States_Congress (count 74-77 congress avgs)
Basher's will make sure to mention numerical majorities as if they technically mean anything seeing conservatives are abusing the filibuster rule.
Progressives know Obama had 60 dem majority in the senate for 50 days and not all of them were progressives.
The "Obama is so powerless" is a right wing meme started via emails and I can't believe I see that crap on DU...
A 83% progressive congress would SUPERSEDE a moderate president so the uninformed meme that Obama can't be pushed to be more progressive is bullcrap...congress has more power than the president PERIOD.
FUDrs will work this site hard, we're going to work back at them harder
no doubt
Enrique
(27,461 posts)steve2470
(37,457 posts)SidDithers
(44,228 posts)You're not allowed to point out that times were different when FDR was President.
Sid
xchrom
(108,903 posts)Blue Dogs and Repukes.
those terrible, terrible people.
babylonsister
(171,090 posts)FDR/Congress and Obama/Congress? You don't read much.
uponit7771
(90,364 posts)joshcryer
(62,276 posts)They actually believe in the Almighty Savior who will Do All Right By All.
Lawlbringer
(550 posts)"Pop had Genco, look what I got..."
But I think even the rich had a hard time in the great Depression. This recession has mostly hit those of us who can't afford a yacht. (More specifically, those of us who make under 6 figures annually.) Are the upper tax brackets more represented in this congress vs back then? And by that, I mean, are the members of congress themselves more well-off than back then? (proportionally, obviously amounts are different.)
kenny blankenship
(15,689 posts)And just as importantly, FDR was a powerful advocate for the liberal/progressive cause. He was a leader of his party, not an opportunist who came into office with a strategy of TRIANGULATING against his own side.
If FDR had come into office saying I'm not like the typical Democrat that you've heard about, and if he'd pretended to be politically amphibious - both Republican and Democrat at the same time- and tried to style himself as "above the partisan fray" he would have suffered a 2010 style midterm election "shellacking" like Obama.
uponit7771
(90,364 posts)That's the way the country works, Obama veto's a progressive bill the progressive congress overrides the veto...
Get a progressive congress and a left leaning president, like FDR had, then America progresses quicker.
People can try to deny this all they want and try to make Obama a focal point of anger but it's lazy thinking and wrongly focused
Edweird
(8,570 posts)The president leads. He sets the agenda and works to accomplish the goal. Not the other way around. Social security, WPA, CCC, Medicare, etc happened because the president FOUGHT FOR IT.
Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)We've since had fifty years in which the population's been getting trained that anything less than conservative has gotta be communist. It's why basically everything the Democrats do anymore is getting framed by conservatives or libertarians as somehow communist.
The effects of that whole stupid standoff are probably going to hang around at least as long as the Cold War itself did.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)starting with the Red Scare of the late teens, and further fueled by the Chinese Civil War that began in the 1920s.
Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)Beforehand it was revolution; afterwards it was revolution, a Red Army people had very much seen in action for several years (and which effectively annexed half of Europe), and nuclear weapons. The scale of things was much larger and, as I said, by the end of the Cold War we'd been living with it for most peoples' lifetimes.
coalition_unwilling
(14,180 posts)'politically amphibious' (No disrespect to amphibians or the biologists who study them intended
Tennessee Gal
(6,160 posts)Observing Congress today is unlike anything I have ever seen.
Obama is dealing with times relating to Congress entirely different from FDR and LBJ.
FarLeftFist
(6,161 posts)Meanwhile, FDR as great as he was rounded up American citizens and put them in internment camps. Plus his New Deal legislastion excluded Blacks and Women. Talk to me when Obama pulls some shit that divisive. FDRs progressive accomplishments are almost overshadowed by how actually NOT progressive he was.
nobodyspecial
(2,286 posts)it will magically bring it into being. Obama should have been superman and pushed their agenda through with sheer force of will. Screw the democratic process.
Edweird
(8,570 posts)Thus, the whole "you have to elect enough Dems to over-ride a veto by the "Dem" president to get anything done" is easily recognized as the steaming load of BS it is.
pnwmom
(108,994 posts)and that's how he voted.
One of the 99
(2,280 posts)Edweird
(8,570 posts)for Obama's support and advocacy of RW policy from Obama to the citizens.
Union Scribe
(7,099 posts)My irony meter exploded reading the OP. Thankfully I keep it in a strongbox in the garage.
UnrepentantLiberal
(11,700 posts)After the election Obama will be to the left of Kucinich.
SunSeeker
(51,697 posts)I'll never understand why they even come here to DU. Try FireDogLake or FreeRepublic (both seem to have the same goal of dumping on Obama).
Edweird
(8,570 posts)I *AM* opposed to RW policy, which means that I am unhappy with a lot of what's come out of his administration.
If I 'hate' anything politically, it's the dishonesty about how and why we are getting those RW policies. I resent the living hell out being told how 'progressive' and 'liberal' rehashed Reaganism is. I guess you could say I hate those that come here to knowingly and aggressively lie about Obama's policies and platform.
So, again: Do I hate Obama? No. He's a politician doing what politicians do. It's his groupies that are blatantly dishonest that I have a problem with.
Since this is a discussion board, I will discuss how I feel about policy. If you don't like what I have to say, by all means feel free to put me on 'ignore'.
sibelian
(7,804 posts)stillwaiting
(3,795 posts)SidDithers
(44,228 posts)hilarious, ain't it?
Sid
dsc
(52,166 posts)Also the filibuster was actually worse back then but used less often. That said, the GOP was much less brazen in its opposition back then and FDR caved on the issue that Southern Dems cared most about.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)Lasher
(27,637 posts)Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Take the pot debate for example, if someone correctly points out that scheduling drugs is part of the executive function a pro-Obama poster will then say that Obama can't do it with just a stroke of his pen and that real change comes through Congress.
However Obama is 100% responsible for the death of bin Laden.
pampango
(24,692 posts)The Campaign and Election of 1936
FDR entered the 1936 election with a strong, but not invincible, hand. The economy remained sluggish and eight million Americans still were without jobs. Critics from various points on the political spectrumsuch as Father Coughlin and Dr. Francis Townsendhad spent much of the previous two years attacking the President. (They supported Representative William Lemke of the newly formed Union Party in the 1936 election.) Likewise, by 1936 FDR had lost most of the backing he once held in the business community because of his support for the Wagner Act and the Social Security Act.
Republicans, though, had few plausible candidates to challenge FDR in 1936. They settled on Alfred "Alf" Landon, a two-term governor of Kansas who was the only Republican governor to win reelection in 1934. Nominated on the first ballot at the Republican convention in Cleveland, Landon was a moderate conservativeand notoriously lackluster public speakerwho the party hoped could take votes from FDR in the rural Midwest. Unfortunately for Landon, his moderation was often drowned out during the campaign by the conservative clamor emanating from the Republican Party, as well as from his running mate, Chicago publisher Frank Knox.
Roosevelt seemed to relish the attacks of Republicans, maintaining that he and his New Deal protected the average American against the predations of the rich and powerful, Referring to "business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking," FDR crowed, "Never before have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for meand I welcome their hatred." Roosevelt's supporters believed their candidate understood and sympathized with them. As one worker put it in 1936, Roosevelt "is the first man in the White House to understand that my boss is a son of a (expletive.)" FDR won the election in a walk, amassing huge majorities in the popular vote and in the Electoral College.
What the 1936 election made most clear was that because of FDR and the New Deal, the Democratic Party was now the majority party in the nation. Roosevelt had put together what came to be called the "New Deal Coalition," an alliance of voters from different regions of the country and from racial, religious and ethnic groups. The coalition combined southern Protestants, northern Jews, Catholics and blacks from urban areas, labor union members, small farmers in the middle west and Plains states, and liberals and radicals. This diverse group, with some minor alterations, would power the Democrats for the next thirty yearsand it was Roosevelt who put it together.
http://millercenter.org/president/fdroosevelt/essays/biography/3
Fr. Charles Coughlin
"After the 1936 election, Coughlin increasingly expressed sympathy for the fascist policies of Hitler and Mussolini as an antidote to Bolshevism. His weekly broadcasts became suffused with antisemitic themes. He blamed the Depression on an "international conspiracy of Jewish bankers", and also claimed that Jewish bankers were behind the Russian Revolution."
But before the 1936 election "Early in his career Coughlin was a vocal supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt and his early New Deal proposals, before later becoming a harsh critic of Roosevelt as too friendly to bankers. In 1934 he announced a new political organization called the National Union for Social Justice. He wrote a platform calling for monetary reforms, the nationalization of major industries and railroads, and protection of the rights of labor. The membership ran into the millions, resembling the Populist movement of the 1890s."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Coughlin
Dr. Francis Townsend
"Dr. Francis Everett Townsend (January 13, 1867September 1, 1960) was an American physician who was best known for his revolving old-age pension proposal during the Great Depression. Known as the "Townsend Plan," this proposal influenced the establishment of the Roosevelt administration's Social Security system.
In 1935, partly in response to the continued growth of the Townsend Plan, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed his own old-age policy, which was less generous than Townsend and Clement's proposal. The president's policy included a program for poor older people with matching payments from the federal government, known as Old Age Assistance, and a national old-age annuity program that later was called by all Social Security. The president's programs were included in the Social Security Act, which passed in August 1935.
The Townsend Plan continued to agitate for higher benefits after the Social Security Act's passage and reached its peak of support in the months after it was enacted. The Townsend organization could plausibly claim that the benefits were far less than what the American public wanted. The average Old Age Assistance benefit was about $20 per month as late as 1939, and the program known as Social Security was not due to take effect until 1942, despite the fact that opinion polls indicated that the American public thought that $40 per month was fair for the elderly.
Although the Townsend Plan was hampered by Dr. Townsend's personal control over his organization and his vendetta against Roosevelt, by continued political pressure, augmented by other pension organizations, such as California's Ham and Eggs, the Townsend Plan helped to induce amendments to the Social Security Act in 1939. These amendments greatly upgraded old-age benefits for both programs."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Townsend
Huey Long
Aware that Roosevelt had no intention to radically redistribute the country's wealth, Long became one of the few national politicians to oppose Roosevelt's New Deal policies from the left. He considered them inadequate in the face of the escalating economic crisis. Long sometimes supported Roosevelt's programs in the Senate, saying that "henever this administration has gone to the left I have voted with it, and whenever it has gone to the right I have voted against it." He opposed the National Recovery Act, calling it a sellout to big business. In 1933, he was a leader of a three-week Senate filibuster against the Glass banking bill for favoring the interests of national banks over state banks.
In terms of foreign policy, Long was a firm isolationist. He argued that America's involvement in the Spanish-American War and the First World War had been deadly mistakes conducted on behalf of Wall Street. He also opposed American entry into the World Court.
In March 1933, Long offered a series of bills collectively known as "the Long plan" for the redistribution of wealth. The first bill proposed a new progressive tax code designed to cap personal fortunes at $100 million. Fortunes above $1 million would be taxed at 1 percent; fortunes above $2 million would be taxed at 2 percent, and so forth, up to a 100 percent tax on fortunes greater than $100 million. The second bill limited annual income to $1 million, and the third bill capped individual inheritances at $5 million.
With the Senate unwilling to support his proposals, in February 1934 Long formed a national political organization, the Share Our Wealth Society. A network of local clubs led by national organizer Reverend Gerald L. K. Smith, the Share Our Wealth Society was intended to operate outside of and in opposition to the Democratic Party and the Roosevelt administration. By 1935, the society had over 7.5 million members in 27,000 clubs across the country. Long's Senate office received an average of 60,000 letters a week. Some historians believe that pressure from Long and his organization contributed to Roosevelt's "turn to the left" in 1935. He enacted the Second New Deal, including the Social Security Act, the Works Progress Administration, the National Labor Relations Board, Aid to Dependent Children, the National Youth Administration, and the Wealth Tax Act of 1935. In private, Roosevelt candidly admitted to trying to "steal Long's thunder."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huey_Long#Long_in_the_Senate_.281932.E2.80.931935.29
During his first term many on the left thought that FDR was "Obama" rather than the FDR that we remember today.
99Forever
(14,524 posts)Is Obama such a weak President that he can't get anything significant done for those of us that are on the edge of despair, without jobs, healthcare, decent housing, a chance at improving our situation or much hope that anything will improve anytime soon?
Or doesn't he want to? It's one or the other.
I'd really like to know before November.
piratefish08
(3,133 posts)KG
(28,752 posts)MNBrewer
(8,462 posts)FogerRox
(13,211 posts)cause ist so 2010 like....