(05-15-2016, 12:31 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: That being said, I would say that a regeneracy is noted by a recognition that the status quo is not working, and cannot be made to work by tinkering around the edges.
I don't think this is right. It has been recognized for a long time that the status was not working and that fundamental change is necessary. But, as the bearded Spock would say, "one must have the power". FDR had 80% majorities in both houses. Obama had a 60% majority in one house for less than six months, and has faced Republican control of the House for 3/4's of his term. There is no "recognition" involved, it is a matter of winning the political war.
Sanders understands this aspect, but ran a losing campaign. He might have won with a decent message. But his message of raise taxes and hand out goodies is basically saying there is nothing wrong with our system that a thicker safety net can solve. What kind of a socialist says this?
Its true that the New Deal involved a lot of Sanderesque goodies. But that is not all the New Dealers did. The important work they did was in the structural changes to the economy they initiated. They greatly enabled the labor movement. They passed higher taxes. They got the Fed to directly target long-term rates, and deliberated manipulated the labor markets so as to compress the real wage distribution, boosting those on the bottom up, and reducing those at the top. The took an economy with high inequality and by government order, made it far more equal. This was deliberate policy ordered by FDR.
Sanders could have talked much more about programs that would hire people to do needed stuff, like fix our cities water systems so shot like Flint doesn't happen anymore. During the 1930's the Socialist government of Milwaukee built public baths called natatoriums so that the population who did not have indoor plumbing had a place to bathe and swim for recreation. I learned to swim in one of these. Every school, private or public had a school nurse, provided by the City of Milwaukee department of public health. MDPH gave out vaccinations free of charge. I got my polio shots at an inner city junior high school in the early 1960's. Milwaukee had a bus system (and earlier, street cars) with lines running on a grid, rather than a spoke model, so that one could get from anywhere to anywhere in the city, often with just one transfer. I learned this system as a child and used it to do my gift shopping on my own, I didn't need someone to drive me places. This is the sort of system poor folks need, the spoke model is designed for commuters only--it assumes they have a car at home with which they do their shopping.
Socialists of that time were all about clean government and public works, so much so they got called "sewer socialists". We did not have the mob violence like Chicago because unlike Chicago's Democrats, Milwaukee's socialists could not be bribed.