The more fundamental difference between the Obama era and its New Deal and Great Society predecessors is this:
Back then, progressives did not define the left end of the political spectrum. In the 1930s and 1960s, America featured honest-to-goodness alternatives to capitalism, home-grown radical movements that scared the crap out of the American establishment and sent some of its denizens scurrying into arms of reformers like FDR and LBJ. Because our entire ideological spectrum has shifted right since communism’s collapse, reforms that once looked like centrist compromises now look like the brainchild of Chairman Mao.
In the 1930s, some of America’s most prominent intellectuals saw communism as a serious alternative to Depression-era capitalism. (One reason so many writers and artists got in trouble during the McCarthyite scare of the early 1950s was that so many had flirted with pro-communist groups during FDR’s presidency). And while American communism never became a mass movement, the Depression years birthed home-spun assaults on capitalism that were almost as frightening.
more:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-07-12/peter-beinart-on-why-liberals-are-down-on-obama/?cid=hp:mainpromo6