Frank DiStefano: 'The Liberal & Conservative Era Explained'

Source:Frank DiStefano with an inaccurate look and contribution to the false stereotypes of American liberalism & conservatism.

"In this episode, we explain the Fifth Party System battle between liberalism and conservatism. 

Since the 1930s, American politics has been a battle between the two ideological forces we created to fight over the policies of Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression—New Deal liberalism and modern conservatism. Ever since, all of American politics has centered around this same ideological battle between these two ideological teams.

That’s not to say American politics hasn’t changed since the 1930s. Over time, we’ve added new issues to fight over. In the middle of the twentieth century, we shifted focus from economic issues like labor and taxes to moral and social ones like civil rights, gender equity, the environment, and moral values. The coalitions of our parties also changed, with the Northeast moving from a Republican stronghold to a Democratic one while the Solid South went from Democratic to Republican.

Yet these changes in who votes for each party, and which issues we focus on, aren’t changes in political ideology. 

Throughout the entire Fifth Party System era, Democrats stood for the same ideology they first formed under FDR of New Deal liberalism. It combined populism and progressivism into an ideology holding we could employ expertise and social science to benefit working people, the marginalized, and the least well off. Since the 1930, this ideology has justified everything the Democrats have done as well as their critiques of the Republicans. Republicans on the other hand have stood for modern conservatism, pushing back against New Deal liberalism as “big government” that threatens the two ideals of liberty and republican virtue. Since the 1930s, this modern conservative ideology has justified everything the Republicans have done as well as all their critiques of the Democrats.

Which means the core debate of American politics really hasn’t changed since the days of FDR. Which is strange because America has changed quite a bit since 1932. We now face an onslaught of new issues amid a completely different world than the industrial America we created these coalitions to debate and solve. 

We know what that means from American political history. It means our parties are primed to come apart." 

From Frank DiStefano

Because it looks like it could be a very slow news day here, what I'm going to do with this post, is something that I simply haven't had the time to do, for really since the summer with Donald Trump's legal and political issues essentially taking over the American news cycle, is pushback on a lot of the mainstream stereotypes of what it means to be a Liberal and a Conservative and pushback a lot on what Frank DiStefano is saying here.

If you were landing on Planet Earth today from another planet, from some other galaxy, that no human being is even aware of yet and landed in America and for some reason you were interested in American political philosophy, but all the information that you gathered, was based on what the American mainstream media tells you, you would have a lot of false misconceptions of what it means to be a Liberal and Conservative, not just in America, but the rest of the world. 

If you just went off the misconceptions of liberalism today, you would think a Liberal simply wants the national government to take as much money as it can get away with, from the individual, to spend on the people's behalf for them. Because the supposed liberal government believes that individuals are essentially morons, who can't think for and govern themselves and they need a big government to make those decisions for them. And you would also think that the supposed Liberal wants to regulate the hell out of individuals (except for gays and women's health care) because the supposed Liberal sees individual freedom as essentially immoral and dangerous. 

There are also lot of other garbage (to be kind) social stereotypes of what it's supposed to mean to be a Liberal. Liberals are supposed to be left-wing hippies, who think America is the real evil empire and that communism is not just cool, but should be tried here. 

And if you look at the situation in Israel right now between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, according to the so-called Liberal, Hamas are the real freedom fighters and the Jews are the terrorists and racists. 

As well as Liberals are supposed to be weak and dovish, who wouldn't even defend themselves, let alone their own country, even when under attack and that they believe that any form of humor or criticism against any minority in America, is bigoted, even if it's accurate (unless it's aimed at a right-wing minority) and that all men are pigs are women should rule the world. 

If you just landed on Planet Earth in America from Planet Zoltron (or some place) and you were interested in learning about American conservatism and you just went of the mainstream stereotypes of what it means to be a Conservative, you would think that all Conservatives are just Southern or rural, or Southern-rural, fundamentalist, blue-collar, rednecks, who think America has been going to hell since the1960s thanks to the immigration and civil rights laws, as well as women's liberation  and that America is being taken over by women, gays, and minorities. 

And, you would think that now it's time for the supposed man (meaning the Southern, Anglo-Saxon-Protestant-blue collar man) to pushback and take back America. Which is what Donald Trump's MAGA movement is about. But if they're Conservatives, then the Libertarian Party in America is actually a Socialist party and the Green Party is the real Libertarian Party. Again, you would have be from another planet just arriving in America today (like an illegal alien) to even consider taking that seriously. 

And the Frank DiStefano's of the world contribute to the political ignorance when it comes to American politic, especially when it comes to liberalism and conservatism. He argued that since 1932 when Franklin Roosevelt ran for and won the presidency from Herbert Hoover, that the Democratic Party was now this supposed New Deal Liberal party. When the fact is FDR didn't run on any New Deal. His New Deal agenda wasn't put together until after he becomes President in 1933 and all of those programs were really put together in mid 1930s. 

Also, the Democratic Party in the 1930s, was a southern-Anglo-Saxon-Protestant based party, with Neo-Confederates, the Dixiecrats, being a major part of FDR coalition. Frank DiStefano seems to want his viewers to think that it's 1932 when the Democratic Party became the liberal (his idea of liberal) party in America. 

Frank DiStefano also want you to believe its 1932 when the Republican Party became the conservative (DiStefano's idea of conservative) party in America. When the fact is President Roosevelt needed Progressive Republican votes for most of, if not his entire agenda, passed in Congress (House & Senate) and that it was the Dixiecrats in the Democratic Party that killed a lot of other things that FDR wanted to do, like his Economic Bill of Rights. Any decent book or documentary about FDR's presidency, would make that very clear to you. 

As a political and political history blogger, I believe words and labels not only matter, but they have to matter. You need to know what terms like liberal, conservative, progressive, libertarian, socialist, nationalist, actually mean, before you try to label someone's politics. Otherwise, you will look like a political idiot or bullshitter. (To be Frank) 

The definition of what I'm about to give you of what actual Liberals believe in America, is going to look pretty conservative, at least in the 1960s, 70s, or 80s sense, and perhaps libertarian today. But these are the true liberal values and if you are familiar with liberal democracy as well, you what the true liberal values are: 

"Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, right to private property and equality before the law.[1][2] Liberals espouse various and often mutually warring views depending on their understanding of these principles but generally support private property, market economies, individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), liberal democracy, secularism, rule of law, economic and political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion,[2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9] constitutional government and privacy rights.[10] Liberalism is frequently cited as the dominant ideology of modern history.[11][12]: 11 

Liberalism became a distinct movement in the Age of Enlightenment, gaining popularity among Western philosophers and economists. Liberalism sought to replace the norms of hereditary privilege, state religion, absolute monarchy, the divine right of kings and traditional conservatism with representative democracy, rule of law, and equality under the law. Liberals also ended mercantilist policies, royal monopolies, and other trade barriers, instead promoting free trade and marketization.[13] Philosopher John Locke is often credited with founding liberalism as a distinct tradition based on the social contract, arguing that each man has a natural right to life, liberty and property, and governments must not violate these rights.[14] While the British liberal tradition has emphasized expanding democracy, French liberalism has emphasized rejecting authoritarianism and is linked to nation-building." 

From Wikipedia

Again, to my point about words and political labels having to matter: a conservative is someone whose: "averse to change or innovation and holding traditional values." 

Conservatives believe, in well, conserving. (Hopefully that doesn't sound like Chinese or Greek to anyone) Conservatives believe in conserving and moving cautiously. They tend to be slow when it comes believing that there's a need for new public policy and government actions to try to make the society better. Here's a pretty good definition of conservatism: 

"Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values.[1][2][3] The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in which it appears.[4] In Western culture, depending on the particular nation, conservatives seek to promote a range of institutions, such as the nuclear family, organized religion, the military, the nation-state, property rights, rule of law, aristocracy, and monarchy.[5] Conservatives tend to favour institutions and practices that guarantee social order and historical continuity.[6]

Edmund Burke, an 18th-century Anglo-Irish statesman who opposed the French Revolution but supported the American Revolution, is credited as one of the philosophers of conservatism in the beginning stage[7], with the other being Joseph de Maistre during a similar time period.[8] [9] The first established use of the term in a political context originated in 1818 with François-René de Chateaubriand during the period of Bourbon Restoration that sought to roll back the policies of the French Revolution and establish social order." 

From Wikipedia

When you listen to mainstream political pundits, or historians talk about American political philosophy, you would think that America really only has two major political philosophies: liberalism and conservatism. That liberalism represents everything on the left, including not just socialism, but militant socialism, as well as militant feminism. And that conservatism represents everything on the right, including Protestant Nationalism or Theocracy, as well as all the ethnic and racial philosophies that comes from Northern-European-Americans that the mainstream media likes to label as White Nationalism. 

But the fact is, mainstream political journalists, tend to be overworked and in a lot a of cases are overworked by choice and get lazy. Yes, we have Liberals and Conservatives in America. But we also have Socialists, we have Libertarians, we have Communists even, we have Progressives in true sense as people who simply believe in progress through government action. Not government totalization of society. 

And the fact is Liberals and Conservatives actually have a lot in common with each other, at least when you look at them in a classical sense (which is the real sense) and they shouldn't be mixed up with every other political philosophy in America because of how different all these political philosophies are. 

You can also see this post on WordPress.

Frank DiStefano: 'The Republican War Over a New Direction After FDR'

Source:Frank DeStefano talking about the Republican Party post-FDR.

"In this episode, we explain the war within the Republican Party after the New Deal between Robert Taft and his conservative faction and Tom Dewey and his establishment faction over the Republican Party’s Direction.

While Franklin Roosevelt remained president, the Republican Party had little luck at the polls. The candidates in those years, Alf Landon in 1936, Wendell Willkie in 1940, and Tom Dewey in 1944, were by modern standards quite moderate. Yet in each election the Republicans would rail against Roosevelt and his New Deal and promise, if they got the chance, to undo everything Roosevelt had done reversing his New Deal revolution. The American people soundly rejected them. 

Then in 1945, Roosevelt passed away and soon after the Second World War came to an end. For the first time since the 1930s, the Republican saw an opportunity back into the White House. Roosevelt had been unbeatable for the Republicans, but the new president, the far less popular Truman, was someone they thought that they could beat.

Over the next two elections the Republican Party broke out into an internal war between two factions with very different ideas about how to get back into power. The conservative faction, headed by Ohio Senator Robert Taft, son of former President Howard Taft, wanted to continue fighting against Roosevelt New Deal and promising to undo it. They believed the fight that had begun in the 1930s was not yet lost, and that America need the Republicans to prove a clear contrast with the Democratic Party agenda. 

Another faction, which came to be called the establishment, thought this was political suicide. They thought the Republicans had tried this strategy for election after election and gotten crushed. They believed the time had come to accept that America liked the New Deal and there is no undoing what Roosevelt had done. Republican could continuing fighting the advance of the New Deal agenda, could promise to administer the New Deal government better, and could offer alternative ways to achieve the same goals as Democrats. To even again promise to dismantle the institutions, programs, and agendas the Democrats had created however was now impossible.

This wasn’t a philosophical battle over ideas. It was a fight over tactics—how should the  Republicans sell their ideas now in his new post New Deal world?

The establishment won this internal fight. In 1948, they nominated Dewey who very nearly won using this new strategy of a positive campaign without a lot of specifics and without attacking the New Deal directly. In 1952, the Dewey’s establishment won the nomination battle with a new leader, hero of the Second World War Dwight Eisenhower. America liked Ike and for the first time in twenty years like the Republicans back into the White House.

The establishment believed they had been proved right and over the eight years of Eisenhower’s presidency the establishment’s perspective became the dominant one within the Republican Party. Until a small band of dissidents began to form who thought the establishment had made a mistake. They called themselves the Conservative Movement." 

From Frank DeStefano

What Frank DiStefano seems to be talking about here is that the Republican Party post-FDR, the Eisenhower faction versus the Taft faction, followed by the Rockefeller faction versus the Goldwater faction in the 1960s, wasn't arguing or competing with each other over political philosophy as far as what the Republican Party should stand for going forward, but what they were really just debating each other over tactics. That every major Republican basically shared the same political and government philosophy, but differed on how best to sell that philosophy to American voters and how to defeat Democrats.

To know that Frank DiStefano is simply wrong here, all you have to do is look at Dwight Eisenhower's presidency in the 1950s and look at Richard Nixon's presidency in the 1i970s, at least as it related to economic philosophy, then look at the civil rights movement and agenda and the laws that came from that movement in the 1960s.

Dwight Eisenhower didn't run for President and govern as President in the 1950s, to reverse the New Deal. He didn't believe he had that votes to do that in Congress or the authority to repeal it by himself, and he didn't believe in that either. If he was a Robert Taft Conservative Republican as far as political philosophy, he would've ran for President in 1952 to repeal the New Deal and go back to the Calvin Coolidge philosophy of individual freedom, personal responsibility, and fiscal conservatism, of the 1920s. 

President Eisenhower simply wanted to hit pause on the New Deal and make those programs as fiscally sound as possible. He was also the first great civil rights President, at least post-Abraham Lincoln, by integrating schools in the South in the 1950s. 

The civil rights laws in the 1960s, don't pass without Republican votes both in the House and Senate. After 1960, Democrats controlled both Congress, with huge majorities both in the House and Senate and The White House for the rest of the 1960s, until Richard Nixon is elected President in 1968 and inaugurated in January, 1969.

If you are pretty familiar with Richard Nixon's presidency in the 1970s, besides Watergate, his secret, personal, national, security, unit, his resignation in 1974, thanks to Watergate and other criminal activities on his part, as well as his opening to Russia and China in 1972, and ending the Vietnam War, you know that President Nixon was a pretty Progressive President, at least as it related to economic policy and even foreign affairs. 

President Nixon introduced what he called The New Federalism. Again, not looking to reverse the New Deal or Great Society of the 1960s, but decentralized those programs and turn them over to the states to them. 

President Nixon's Family Assistance Plan of 1969, became Welfare To Work in 1996.

President Nixon's health care plan in 1974, became the Affordable Care Act of 2010.  

The Republican Party, at least until the Christian-Right and now Christian Nationalists took over the party 5-10 years ago, has always been a center-right party. They just have always have had two center-right establishment factions in it. 

The Conservative Republicans, or Constitutional Conservatives, Conservative Libertarians even, on the right of the party, and the Progressive Republicans on the left of the party, but people who are definitely to the right of the FDR/LBJ Progressive Democrats, have been for most of the history of the Republican Party, the two competing factions in it. And these two competing factions have been competing with each other, at least since the Progressive Era of 100 years ago.

You can also see this post on WordPress.

Frank DiStefano: 'William Jennings Bryan & His Amazing Populist Campaign'

Source:Frank DiStefano talking about populist Democrat William J. Bryan.

"In 1896, a thirty-six-year-old former Congressman named William Jennings Bryan walked into the Democratic National Convention and amazingly emerged the Democratic nominee for president. He proceeded to throw out his party’s agenda, divorce himself from its leadership, and all-but merge it into a popular third party called the People’s Party, or the Populists.

In this episode, we talk about the incredible 1896 presidential campaign that transformed American politics, destroying America’s stagnant Gilded Age political parties obsessed over the resentments of the Civil War and launching new versions focused on the new problems of industrialization.

We talk about the populist revolt of unhappy family farmers and workers that created one of America’s most successful third parties, the People’s Party, that elected governors and senators and won electoral votes for president. 

We talk about the Panic of 1893, America’s second worst economic depression in history, and how it energized the issue of bimetallic money policy, or “Free Silver,” meant to give relief to farmers now drowning in debt, all at the expense of wealthy people and banks.

Most important, we tell the story of William Jennings Bryan and his revolutionary presidential campaign that, in one dramatic election, permanently changed American politics and made him kingmaker of the Democratic Party for a generation.  It also soon forced reform in the Republican Party, as it transformed under the Progressive Movement into the progressive Republican Party of Teddy Roosevelt.

The 1896 election is the most dramatic and cinematic story in all American political history. It’s the story of how a young man from the middle of America tapped into new issues at a time of disruptive change, launching a campaign that permanently changed America. In one election campaign, America threw off the Gilded Age’s decay and launched a new Populist and Progressive Era in which it reformed its institutions, began addressing its neglected issues, and set itself up to grow into a prosperous great power." 

From Frank DiStefano

"The People's Party, also known as the Populist Party or simply the Populists, was a left-wing[2] agrarian populist[3] political party in the United States in the late 19th century. The Populist Party emerged in the early 1890s as an important force in the Southern and Western United States, but collapsed after it nominated Democrat William Jennings Bryan in the 1896 United States presidential election. A rump faction of the party continued to operate into the first decade of the 20th century, but never matched the popularity of the party in the early 1890s.

The Populist Party's roots lay in the Farmers' Alliance, an agrarian movement that promoted economic action during the Gilded Age, as well as the Greenback Party, an earlier third party that had advocated fiat money. The success of Farmers' Alliance candidates in the 1890 elections, along with the conservatism of both major parties, encouraged Farmers' Alliance leaders to establish a full-fledged third party before the 1892 elections. The Ocala Demands laid out the Populist platform: collective bargaining, federal regulation of railroad rates, an expansionary monetary policy, and a Sub-Treasury Plan that required the establishment of federally controlled warehouses to aid farmers. Other Populist-endorsed measures included bimetallism, a graduated income tax, direct election of Senators, a shorter workweek, and the establishment of a postal savings system. These measures were collectively designed to curb the influence of monopolistic corporate and financial interests and empower small businesses, farmers and laborers.

In the 1892 presidential election, the Populist ticket of James B. Weaver and James G. Field won 8.5% of the popular vote and carried four Western states, becoming the first third party since the end of the American Civil War to win electoral votes. Despite the support of labor organizers like Eugene V. Debs and Terence V. Powderly, the party largely failed to win the vote of urban laborers in the Midwest and the Northeast. Over the next four years, the party continued to run state and federal candidates, building up powerful organizations in several Southern and Western states. Before the 1896 presidential election, the Populists became increasingly polarized between "fusionists," who wanted to nominate a joint presidential ticket with the Democratic Party, and "mid-roaders," like Mary Elizabeth Lease, who favored the continuation of the Populists as an independent third party. After the 1896 Democratic National Convention nominated William Jennings Bryan, a prominent bimetallist, the Populists also nominated Bryan but rejected the Democratic vice-presidential nominee in favor of party leader Thomas E. Watson. In the 1896 election, Bryan swept the South and West but lost to Republican William McKinley by a decisive margin.

After the 1896 presidential election, the Populist Party suffered a nationwide collapse. The party nominated presidential candidates in the three presidential elections after 1896, but none came close to matching Weaver's performance in 1892. Former Populists became inactive or joined other parties. Other than Debs and Bryan, few politicians associated with the Populists retained national prominence.

Historians see the Populists as a reaction to the power of corporate interests in the Gilded Age, but they debate the degree to which the Populists were anti-modern and nativist. Scholars also continue to debate the magnitude of influence the Populists exerted on later organizations and movements, such as the progressives of the early 20th century. Most of the Progressives, such as Theodore Roosevelt, Robert La Follette, and Woodrow Wilson, were bitter enemies of the Populists. In American political rhetoric, "populist" was originally associated with the Populist Party and related to left-wing movements, but beginning in the 1950s it began to take on a more generic meaning, describing any anti-establishment movement regardless of its position on the left–right political spectrum." 

From Wikipedia

When we're talking about William Jennings Bryan and populists, I think we need know what it means to be a populist and what populism is. Populist is not a separate political faction and populism is not a separate political ideology, similar to nationalist and nationalism. You can't label someone a populist like you would be calling someone a liberal, conservative, progressive, socialist, etc. 

A populist is just someone who speaks to ordinary Americans who have to work hard to support themselves, who come from ordinary communities, have ordinary backgrounds, and have ordinary income, etc. 

The Democratic Party has or had a populist wing of blue-collar workers, who were very pro-labor. Most of those folks had just a high school diploma as far as education and needed their union job to support themselves and their families and be able to help their kids go to college, if that's what they wanted to do. 

The Republican Party has had, really since the late 1960s, a populist wing primarily of very fundamentalist religious voters, who have similar education and work employment backgrounds as the populist Democrats, but tend to differ with those Democrats on social issues. 

The populist Democrats are primarily just interested in economic issues and being able to save their jobs and keep their jobs in America, but generally don't push the social issues.

What William Jennings Bryan was 130 years ago, was basically a Populist-Progressive Democrat. And what that means, is that he's someone who represented and spoke to populist Democrats, but had a Progressive agenda to help people who were struggling, just to be able to continue to survive, but also to help them move ahead. America as a country in the 1890s and 1900s, was moving from being almost an exclusively rural and blue-collar country, to an industrialized country, with more big cities and metro areas and bigger big cities and metros, where in many cases you needed more than high school diploma to succeed in America and make it in America on your own. That's what William J. Bryan's 1896 presidential campaign was about.

You can also see this post on WordPress.

Frank DiStefano: 'The Second New Deal!: FDR Turns Populist to Stop the Rise of Huey Long'

Source:Frank DiStefano talking about the so-called 2nd New Deal.

"In this episode, we talk about how Franklin Roosevelt pivoted to a Second New Deal to head off the populist challenge of Huey Long. 

Roosevelt by 1936 was under assault from a populist backlash to his First New Deal. Many traditional Democrats, mostly working people, had come to believe Roosevelt’s progressive First New Deal program was a sell-out to corporations and national elites that didn't actually help people like them. They had come to see Roosevelt as another rich man in league with his wealthy friends, and his New Deal program as useless. The found a champion in Louisiana Senator Huey Long. 

Long was a strident populist who had overthrown his state’s political and social elites to become Louisiana’s political boss with a ruthless political machine subject only to him. He eagerly used his office to punish perceived opponents and seize wealth from those he despised, where he then showered it on the working people of his state. He created a staggering public works program with hospitals, roads, and schools funded by attacking wealthy elites. Now in the Senate, Long was taking his program national.

A Democrat and originally a New Deal supporter, Long was now attacking Roosevelt at every chance he got with his own relief program he called “Share Our Wealth.” In contrast to the technocratic First New Deal, Long proposed caps on the income to millionaires, a national income, and free tuition. He claimed it would make “Every Man a King.”

Nor was Long alone. Another former New Deal supporter, the popular radio priest Father Charles Coughlin, was also now attacking Roosevelt on the radio to his millions of listeners with similar complaints. There was also a doctor in California, Francis Townsend, who had become a national celebrity proposing a national old age pension program he called the Townsend Plan. When Roosevelt failed to embrace it, Townsend had turned against him too.

Roosevelt and his New Dealers started to get worried as the next election loomed. They anticipated Long was gearing to challenge Roosevelt for the presidency, and given this national popular backlash to his administration they feared he might actually win. It was time to pivot to a new program, a populist Second New Deal to head off Huey Long.

The First New Deal had been a progressive program to manage the national economy. The Second was a populist one. It included things like a new agency, the Works Progress Administration, putting people directly to work. An old age pension program called Social Security modeled on the Townsend Plan. An order that corporations pay out profits as dividends. A tax bill with a punishing high rate of 79% meant to target just one man, John D. Rockefeller. 

It worked. Roosevelt won renomination and another term in the presidency in 1936. But now he presided over a very different Democratic Party, one with a novel party philosophy. It combined the progressive ideals of the First New Deal with the populist ones of the Second, forged into a a new party ideology we call New Deal liberalism. Over Roosevelt’s years in office, this new philosophy settled into a new party ideology where has remained ever since. 

We usually just call it liberalism." 

From Frank DiStefano

"During the first 100 days of Roosevelt's presidency in spring 1933, Long's attitude toward Roosevelt and the New Deal was tepid.[138] Aware that Roosevelt had no intention of radically redistributing the country's wealth, Long became one of the few national politicians to oppose Roosevelt's New Deal policies from the left.[note 11] He considered them inadequate in the face of the escalating economic crisis but still supported some of Roosevelt's programs in the Senate, explaining: "Whenever 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."[140]

Long opposed the National Recovery Act, claiming it favored industrialists.[141] In an attempt to prevent its passage, Long held a lone filibuster, speaking for 15 hours and 30 minutes, the second longest filibuster at the time.[142][143] He also criticized Social Security, calling it inadequate and expressing his concerns that states would administer it in a way discriminatory to blacks.[144] In 1933, he was a leader of a three-week Senate filibuster against the Glass banking bill, which he later supported as the Glass–Steagall Act after provisions extended government deposit insurance to state banks as well as national banks.[145][146]

Roosevelt considered Long a radical demagogue and stated that Long, along with General Douglas MacArthur, "was one of the two most dangerous men in America".[21][147][148] In June 1933, in an effort to undermine Long's political dominance, Roosevelt cut him out of consultations on the distribution of federal funds and patronage in Louisiana and placed Long's opponents in charge of federal programs in the state. Roosevelt supported a Senate inquiry into the election of Long ally John H. Overton to the Senate in 1932. The Long machine was accused of election fraud and voter intimidation, but the inquiry came up empty, and Overton was seated.[149] To discredit Long and damage his support base, Roosevelt had Long's finances investigated by the Internal Revenue Service in 1934.[150][note 12] Although they failed to link Long to any illegality, some of his lieutenants were charged with income tax evasion.[21][152] Roosevelt's son, Elliott, would later note that in this instance, his father "may have been the originator of the concept of employing the IRS as a weapon of political retribution." 

From Wikipedia

"In March 1933, Long revealed a series of bills collectively known as "the Long plan" to redistribute wealth. Together, they would cap fortunes at $100 million, limit annual income to $1 million, and cap individual inheritances at $5 million.[163][164]

External video

video icon Long's "Share the Wealth" speech on YouTube

In a nationwide February 1934 radio broadcast, Long introduced his Share Our Wealth plan.[165][166] The legislation would use the wealth from the Long plan to guarantee every family a basic household grant of $5,000 and a minimum annual income of one-third of the average family homestead value and income. Long supplemented his plan with proposals for free college and vocational training, veterans' benefits, federal assistance to farmers, public works projects, greater federal economic regulation, a $30 monthly elderly pension, a month's vacation for every worker, a thirty-hour workweek, a $10 billion land reclamation project to end the Dust Bowl, and free medical service and a "war on disease" led by the Mayo brothers.[167][168] These reforms, Long claimed, would end the Great Depression.[169] The plans were widely criticized and labeled impossible by economists.[170][171]

With the Senate unwilling to support his proposals, in February 1934 Long formed the Share Our Wealth Society, a national network of local clubs that operated in opposition to the Democratic Party and Roosevelt. By 1935, the society had over 7.5 million members in 27,000 clubs.[172] Long's Senate office received an average of 60,000 letters a week, resulting in Long hiring 48 stenographers to type responses.[5] Of the two trucks that delivered mail to the Senate, one was devoted solely to mail for Long.[173] Long's newspaper, now renamed American Progress, averaged a circulation of 300,000, some issues reaching over 1.5 million.[144] Long drew international attention: English writer H. G. Wells interviewed Long, noting he was "like a Winston Churchill who has never been at Harrow. He abounds in promises."[21]

Some historians believe that pressure from Share Our Wealth contributed to Roosevelt's "turn to the left" in the Second New Deal (1935), which consisted of the Social Security Act, the Works Progress Administration, the National Labor Relations Board, Aid to Dependent Children, and the Wealth Tax Act of 1935.[21][174] Roosevelt reportedly admitted in private to trying to "steal Long's thunder." 

From Wikipedia

America has never really had what the rest of the developed world calls a welfare state, even today, Since the 1930s, we've always had what we call a public safety net, which is an economic insurance system that we all pay into and then take out when we fall on hard times and can't survive financially any other way, unless we get this public assistance. 

During President Franklin Roosevelt's 1st new term, (1933-37) the Roosevelt Administration and Congress created what would be called the New Deal, which essentially was the creation of the American public safety net. Programs like Unemployment Insurance and Social Security. And even though President Roosevelt was a Progressive on economic policy, he was getting political heat from the left-wing of the Democratic Party on economic policy. Like from people like Senator Huey Long, for not going further left and creating more economic programs for people who were struggling and not going after individual wealth in America. 

To put this in modern terms: if you are familiar with President Donald Trump's presidency, (how could you not be, unless you were vacationing on the moon or living in a coma) especially the last 2 years of the Trump presidency, but even go back to the presidential election of 2016 and the campaign that started in the Democratic Party in 2015, you know that there was a reemergence of the left-wing of the Democratic Party, closeted Socialists who in some cases were no longer closeted with their political ideology and label and if anything were proud to be called Socialists, even though they preferred to be called Democratic Socialists. 

Go up to 2019 when the Democratic Party wins back the House of Representatives, now you have Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders in the Senate, as well as closeted Socialist Senator Elizabeth Warren, who both ran for President as Democrats in 2019-20 and you had this growing left-wing in Democratic Party in the House, to go along with the so-called Congressional Progressive Caucus (who in actuality are Democratic Socialists of America in the House) and now you have all these new and in some cases self-described Democratic Socialists in the House, like Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and the so-called left-wing Squad in the House, to go along with the Bernie Sanders in the Senate and you have these left-wing members of Congress who are not just Socialists, but self-described Democratic Socialists. 

The agenda that these left-wing members of Congress were pushing in the House in 2019-20, that both Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senator Bernie Sanders ran on for President in that same election cycle, looks very similar to what then Senator Huey Long was pushing in Congress in the 1930s and had hope to run on himself for President in 1936: 

A wealth tax to eliminate private wealth in America 

A so-called free college plan (that wasn't free for anyone) 

A new government-run pension plan. The Squad in the House and Senators Sanders and Warren were instead talking about doubling Social Security

A government works program to put unemployed workers to work for the government

A guaranteed basic income for every American

The Bernie Bros and Squad in House wanted a government-run national health care plan, to replace private health insurance in America

What the so-called Bernie Bros and the Squad were talking about in Congress and what Senator Sanders ran for President on in 2015-16 and 2019-20, is not new. Senator Huey Long ran on that in the 1930s, when he was in Congress as well. The mainstream media (and perhaps Frank DiStefano is a member of that media as well) can call this economic liberalism all they want, but that's not what is. 

Supporters of this populist economic philosophy go way further than Liberals and Progressives, including Franklin Roosevelt, on economic policy, at least pre-1936 and are no longer talking about opportunity and responsibility for all, which is really what economic liberalism is about and not economic guarantees. 

What American leftists back in the 1930s and today are really talking about, is what the rest of the developed world calls social democracy or just socialism. And what out-of-the-closet American leftists call democratic socialism. The idea that everyone in America is entitled to a quality life, simply for just being alive in America, regardless of what they bring, if anything, to the broader economic pie of the country. 

You can also see this post on WordPress.

Frank DiStefano: 'The First New Deal FDR Starts to Transform the Democratic Party!'

Source:Frank DiStefano with an inaccurate presentation about Franklin Roosevelt and liberalism.

"In this episode, we talk about Franklin Roosevelt’s First New Deal—the first step in a radical transformation of the Democratic Party.

When Roosevelt took office, he sought to collect a group of advisers with bold ideas about getting America out of the Great Depression. Looking for the best minds, he didn’t only pull from people with Democratic Party backgrounds. He also employed a lot of progressives with Republicans backgrounds, since the Progressive Movement had flourished among the professionals and academics whose expertise he needed. This group took on a name—the Brain Trust.

Roosevelt’s Brain Trust added and lost members over time, including names like Rex Tugwell, Raymond Morley, Adolf Berle, Felix Frankfurter, Frances Perkins, Harlod Ickes, and Harry Hopkins. These advisors launched flurry of innovative policy experiments, all of which shared a common idea about how to solve the Depression. They wanted to reduce competition between firms and raise prices.

Although the effect of many New Deal policies Keynesian stimulus, that’s not what the New Dealers themselves were trying to do. They were aware of John Maynard Keynes and his ideas, but mainly had a different economic theory in mind. They thought the key to getting America out of the Depression was to make firms more healthy, which they could do by increasing the prices they could charge and reducing the downward pressure on price of competition caused. Reducing this competitive pressure, they thought, would let companies put people back to work. 

The crown jewels of their First New Deal program were the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) and the National Recovery Administration (NRA), which each sought to coordinate the economy so every producer charge more for products and easily compete.

This First New Deal was a radical break for the Democratic Party. Democrats had long prided themselves on fighting bigness, both in government and industry, back to Thomas Jefferson. It was the Federalists, Whigs, and Republicans who had always sought to work with industry, manage the economy, and spend on infrastructure. Now Roosevelt was working with industry titans and embracing bigness as an idea. Naturally, he soon found himself under attack from traditional Democratic populists who believed the progressive program of the First New Deal had sold out the party’s traditional constituency—workers and the little guy...

From Frank DiStefano

I just have to push back here against Frank DiStefano: 

Franklin Roosevelt didn't create the modern Democratic Party or even the liberal wing. Anyone who knows their political history, knows that the right-wing Dixiecrat (Neo-Confederate Democrats) were still not just a major part of the Democratic Party, but a major part of FDR's political coalition. He doesn't get elected President in 1932 and then reelected President 3 times, without the Dixiecrats. 

The liberal wing of the Democratic Party was already there before FDR even becomes Governor of New York in 1929. Wendell Willkie who was the Republican Party presidential nominee, was a Liberal Democrat (or Classical Liberal Democrat, if you prefer) in the 1920s. 

Willkie was more liberal (meaning a real liberal) than FDR on all sorts of issues, including civil rights and civil liberties. And left the Democratic Party (not his liberal values) in the 1930s, because he thought FDR was going too left and centralizing too much power with the Federal Government, with his New Deal. Willkie was worried that FDR was turning America into a socialist state.

This is what liberalism really is: 

"Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, right to private property and equality before the law.[1][2][3] Liberals espouse various views depending on their understanding of these principles but generally support private property, market economies, individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), liberal democracy, secularism, rule of law, economic and political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion,[11] constitutional government and privacy rights.[12] Liberalism is frequently cited as the dominant ideology of modern history.[13][14]

Liberalism became a distinct movement in the Age of Enlightenment, gaining popularity among Western philosophers and economists. Liberalism sought to replace the norms of hereditary privilege, state religion, absolute monarchy, the divine right of kings and traditional conservatism with representative democracy, rule of law, and equality under the law. Liberals also ended mercantilist policies, royal monopolies, and other trade barriers, instead promoting free trade and marketization.[15] Philosopher John Locke is often credited with founding liberalism as a distinct tradition based on the social contract, arguing that each man has a natural right to life, liberty and property, and governments must not violate these rights.[16] While the British liberal tradition has emphasized expanding democracy, French liberalism has emphasized rejecting authoritarianism and is linked to nation-building." 

From Wikipedia

The Democratic Party has never been a left, right, or center party. It's always been a party, at least since the 1930s under FDR, that's had a center-right, a center-left, and even a left-wing in it. But a party that when it's successful, has been able to come together on Democratic values like free speech, personal freedom, free press, and even property rights, opportunity and responsibility for all, and even civil and equal rights, thanks to the civil rights movement of the 1960s. 

As Frank DiStefano said himself, Franklin Roosevelt wasn't very ideological. He was very pragmatic, like a true Progressive. He wanted to know what the problems were and what were the best policies to try to solve those problems. The New Deal is a perfect example of that which created the modern safety net (not welfare state) designed to help people who were struggling with the Great Depression, to try to help them get through the depression. But not with all sorts of new government programs to try to run their lives for them. 

What Frank DiStefano is really doing here, is representing most of the false stereotypes of what it means to be a Liberal Democrat in America, as well as the stereotypes of Franklin Roosevelt. Who was very liberal on foreign policy and national security (just look at World War II with his defense of liberal democracy and fight against fascism) but very pragmatic (like a true Progressive) when it came to economic policy. 

You can also see this post on WordPress.

Frank DiStefano: 'The Left-Right Political Spectrum is a Myth!'

Source:Frank DiStefano talking about the American political spectrum.

"The left-right political spectrum that many of us were taught is a myth. It doesn’t actually exist. There is no accepted way to line up every idea of the human imagine into one neat line. No one has ever figured out any one value we can use to define something as left or right in the first place. Political ideals don’t actually line up into a “left,” a “right,” or a “center” in between them.

In this episode, we demonstrate why the left right spectrum doesn’t really exist. It in the French Revolution as a metaphor from the to describe the historical political debate of that time and place, the fight between republicanism and monarchy. Yet no one in politics today is still arguing for hereditary kings and queens. Over time, left and right became convenient shorthand for the two political coalitions that inevitably emerge in democratic systems based on majority rule. That’s all they now mean. We have two coalitions in society. We call one left and the other rights. Whatever those coalitions happen to support at any moment of history then becomes a “left” or “right” issue.

Scholars and thinkers have tried over time to distil some other consistent reason to call things left or right. Nobody has really succeeded. From ideas about comfort with change, to the big five personality traits, to the moral reasoning theories of thinkers like Jonathan Haidt, no theory fully accounts for the actual parties of modern politics as they actually exist. If we have no acceptable way to define the “left” or “right” then the entire framework naturally falls apart. 

And of course. It was silly to ever think that all the countless ideas and policies of societies could ever be reduced to one simply line in the first place, much less one that works for all times and places. The left-right spectrum is the unfortunate result of a centuries-old metaphor about seating arrangements run wild." 

From Frank DiStefano 

Instead of wasting your time and more importantly mine (at least to me) talking about the French Revolution, (something I know as much about as your average auto mechanic knows about astronomy) I'm just going to talk about the American political spectrum and try to give you an idea who is on the right ideologically, whose on the left ideologically and how far right or left certain political factions are.

According to the mainstream media, as well as people are who are closeted political factions and not politically comfortable admitting who they are ideologically, (sort of like escaped prison inmates who are worried about being recaptured) the more conservative someone is, the more right-wing (lets say) and the more left-wing someone is (lets say) the more liberal they are. 

So according to this most ridiculous political theory, the most conservative people in the world, or at least in America, are racist, nationalistic terrorists, who murder people that they don't like ethnically, racially, religiously, and culturally.

And according to the so-called mainstream political theory, the most liberal people in the world, or at least in America, would be Communists, because Communists believe in the most government and least amount of freedom of all the political factions, including nationalist-religious-theocrats. Because Communists want a huge national state, that clamps down on both personal and economic freedom. 

I could give political cultural stereotypes about who the most conservative and liberal people in the world, or at least in America are as well. 

The most conservative person in the world, or at least in America, (according to the so-called mainstream media) are basically right-wing, fundamentalist rednecks, who come from and live in smallest towns possible, that are dominated by one particular ethnic and racial, as well as religious group, whose families have been in America since before the American Revolution. (A revolution I know a little more about than the French Revolution) And the only time that they're ever in a big city, or even a midsize city, is when they're serving in public office. Because you really couldn't operate a state capital or the Federal capital in a town of 10,000 people or less, because it wouldn't have the infrastructure for that. 

And the most liberal person in the world, or at least in America, (according to the so-called mainstream media: 

is basically an urban, antiestablishment, hipster, revolutionary. 

This really liberal person, (according to the mainstream media) who if he's a man, rarely if ever shaves or gets a haircut, but if the person is a man or woman, they wear military fatigues, (while claiming to be antimilitary) 

who claims capitalist is a racist economic system, (while taking advantage of everything that American capitalism and liberal democracy has to offer and not just the coffee house coffee and new technology, high-end fashions and food, etc) 

who says that free speech is bigoted, (while taking advantage of everything that the First Amendment has to offer and not just on social media and political rallies and attacking people that they disagree with) 

who says that personal freedom is dangerous and just leads to bad choices that the rest of society has to pay for, (supporters of the nanny state) while taking advantage of all the personal freedom that they can get their hands on and making on the personal choices for themselves that they can

and who claims to be a pacifist, but willing to use violence to achieve their political objectives 

who says that America a racist, evil empire, and the real terrorist state in the world. (Yet there is no other country in the world that they rather live in)

who claim eating meat is animal cruelty or murder, while wearing leather jackets and boots and other leather clothing 

who claim to be spiritual but not religious (trying wrapping your brain around that) 

My larger point here, is that you have left and right, liberal and conservative. But left doesn't equal liberal and right doesn't equal conservative. If political definitions still mean anything, (and I mean anything in the world) if you are actually a Liberal, you believe in liberty. Two words that actually come from liberal, are liberty and liberate. That doesn't sound communist or socialist. Now does it? 

If you are actually a Conservative, even in a political sense, you believe in conserving, you believe in tradition, you believe in conserving what works and protecting what works in the economy and country at large. Where do you see blowing up the system and establishment and locking people up who disagree with you, or whose lifestyle that you don't approve of, in the word conservative?

If you want to go left and right to talk about political factions, I'm fine with that in order to try to distinguish all the political factions, not just in America, but in the world as well. 

Just don't use liberal as another way of saying left or left-wing, because liberal in actuality, is on the opposite side of communist and socialist, on most issues. Socialists and Communists are always looking to expand the size of the national state, to do more good for the people. (At least that's what they say) Liberals are always looking to expand freedom for more people and that generally doesn't involve expanding government to do that.

And don't use conservative as another way of saying right or right-wing, because again conservatism is about conserving, pure and simple. It's not about blowing up the establishment and reforming the way society, the country, and the way the government is supposed to work. But instead conserving what already works. 

If you think about it, Donald Trump and his followers, are probably the least conservative people in America, because they're always looking to blow up the establishment and centralize more authority for themselves, even as it relates to the U.S. Government. 

And Socialists and Communists are the most illiberal (meaning not liberal) people in the world because of all their crackdowns on property rights, personal freedom and free speech. 

But according to the so-called mainstream media, the most anti-conservative people, are the most conservative. And the most illiberal (meaning not liberal) people, are the most liberal. Th perfect examples of how left doesn't equal liberal and right doesn't equal conservative.

You can also see this post on WordPress.

Frank DiStefano: 'Teddy Roosevelt's Bull Moose Campaign, Why Wilson Wasn't Really a Progressive!'

Source:Frank DiStefano talking about Theodore Roosevelt & Woodrow Wilson.

"In this episode, we talk about Teddy Roosevelt’s 1912 “Bull Moose” Progressive Party campaign and the three-way presidential contest over progressivism.

The 1912 election involved three candidates, Republican William Howard Taft, Progressive Party candidate Teddy Roosevelt, Democrat Woodrow Wilson. Taft was a former close adviser of  Roosevelt who Roosevelt had handpicked as his successor in 1908 because he believed Taft a solid progressive who would continue his progressive legacy. Roosevelt was a progressive champion as president who was now running on an even stronger progressive agenda as the head of a new Progressive Party. Wilson, a Democrat with a Southern small-government Jeffersonian background  who had only entered politics two year before, now also claimed to be a progressive too.

America had a three-way presidential race. All three candidates had a solid claim on progressivism.

This epic race brought the great debate William Jennings Bryan launched in 1896 to its conclusion. America had struggled over how to reform its institutions to adapt to a new industrial economy. The Republican Party’s progressive agenda to address that problem was now so popular every candidate in a three-way race wanted to identify as a progressive. The great debate of America’s Fourth Party System was essentially resolved.

We talk in this episode about how Roosevelt, facing forced retirement after finishing two presidential terms, picked his good friend Taft to carry on his legacy. How he became disappointed with Taft while sitting on the sidelines, as he desperately wanted to get back into the ring and win his old job back. And how we decided to launch a comeback seeking a third term—at the time only prohibited by tradition and not yet law—splitting the Republican Party and leading to him launching a new Progressive Party as a vehicle for his agenda.

We also talk about how Woodrow Wilson, despite embracing the progressive movement and enacting progressive reforms, wasn’t really philosophically progressive. 

Roosevelt run in 1912 on his philosophically progressive New Nationalism program, which demanded a stronger government to supervise a more complex industrial economy with big national businesses. Wilson countered with a program he called the New Freedom, rejecting bigness in both government and industry. Wilson invented a new small-government version of progressivism. Instead of federal regulation and supervision, Wilson would have a small government selectively intervene to break up private power, allowing the market to do the rest. Roosevelt’s program involved a powerful active government supervising large businesses. Wilson’s involved a small government intervening to maintain small businesses—a program that philosophically sounds a lot more like Jeffersonian Bourbon Democrats than progressivism.

Through Wilson’s presidency, America tumbled into the First World War. Then came the Roaring Twenties. America was prosperous, people were happy, and the Populist and Progressive Era of national reform came to its end.  Setting America up for another realignment and the start of its next political party system, our Fifth Party System of New Deal liberals and modern conservatives that still rules today." 

From Frank DiStefano 

"The term “Progressive” was broadly defined, encompassing a wide array of policies and ideologies – often in contradiction with one another – which sought to mitigate social and economic inequalities at the turn-of-the-20th century.  The era witnessed the rapid expansion and overcrowding of cities, inadequate housing, unregulated labor, poor public health, farmer indebtedness and sharecropping – especially for southern Blacks, child labor, and the emergence of a wealth gap in which 1% of Americans owned nearly 90% of the nation’s wealth. While their solutions differed and often conflicted, Progressives shared the view that a proactive, expanded government was necessary to fix society’s ills.  

Progressives in both the Republican and Democratic Parties (including, but not limited to, socialists, populists, and anarchists) sought solutions in the form of child labor laws, women’s suffrage, unionization, public health services, Black civil rights, and economic regulation and taxes AS WELL AS immigration restriction, segregation, and the prohibition of alcohol. All of these ideologies could fall within the “Progressive” umbrella.

Woodrow Wilson claimed his place within the Progressive movement with his economic reform package, "the New Freedom." This agenda, which passed congress at the end of 1913, included tariff, banking, and labor reforms and introduced the income tax. Wilson also expanded the executive branch with the creation of the Federal Reserve, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Internal Revenue Service. His emphasis on efficiency and bureaucracy fit him squarely within the Progressive movement. 

During Wilson’s terms, Congress passed two constitutional amendments: prohibition (18th); and women's suffrage (19th)—both Progressive agendas. Another amendment was ratified while Wilson was President:  direct election of Senators (17th) on April 8th 1913. (The 16th amendment, which concerns income tax, was ratified in February 1913, after Wilson was elected but before he took office. The ratification was proclaimed by Taft’s Secretary of State, Philander Knox). 

Wilson’s Progressive legacy was also solidified through the appointment of his close friend Justice Louis Brandies to the Supreme Court as the first Jewish American to sit on the nation’s highest court. Justice Brandeis was a staunch proponent of the right to free speech and the right to privacy while he supported the regulation of business and anti-monopoly legislation championed by Wilson’s economic plan.

Wilson also embraced and encouraged new technology. He opened the Panama Canal, started airmail service, endorsed the creation of an interstate highway system, appeared in one of the first filmed campaign advertisements, used a microphone for the amplification of his voice, and witnessed the birth of radio.

These accomplishments, however, were all too often achieved at the expense of African Americans, women, immigrants, and Native Americans. Legal scholars have revealed the ways in which the income tax codes and banking policies often disadvantaged African American families. What is more, Wilson couched his embrace of segregation as part of his Progressive commitment to efficiency, arguing (insincerely) that segregation reduced friction among federal workers and increased productivity. And though Wilson vetoed the 1917 Immigration Law which established the Asiatic Barred Zone and a Literacy Test for entry, along with other restrictive measures, he nonetheless voices support for much of the law and his veto was ultimately overridden." 

From the Woodrow Wilson House

As I mentioned yesterday on The New Democrat, Theodore Roosevelt was a true Progressive. Which means means he wasn't a Socialist or some other type of leftist (democratic or otherwise) who just calls himself a Progressive, because Socialist and even Democratic Socialist, and especially Communist, is simply not viable for them politically, for all sorts of reasons. The Woodrow Wilson House has an excellent definition of Progressive: 

"The term “Progressive” was broadly defined, encompassing a wide array of policies and ideologies – often in contradiction with one another – which sought to mitigate social and economic inequalities at the turn-of-the-20th century." 

I call myself a Liberal (or Classical Liberal if you prefer) because even though I believe in limited government, property rights, (both economic and personal) personal and economic freedom, I'm not a Libertarian because I'm not antigovernment. Which is basically what Libertarians are today. And because I believe in moving forward, like a true Progressive. That's what I like and respect most about the progressive ideology (if you want to call it an ideology) because it's about moving forward and making things better and using a limited government to help create that progress. 

Today's definition of Progressive, is basically about how mush one believes in government, especially the national government. The more government, especially national government that you believe in, the more Progressive you're supposed to be, even if all that government and spending doesn't actually lead to progress and actually leads to regression. Like clamp downs on property rights, prohibiting language or personal activities that might be offensive to others, or comes with real risks.

As far as Woodrow Wilson, I don't think you can define either as a Progressive, Liberal, or Conservative, even though he had things in common with all 3 of those political factions. 

Woodrow was progressive on economic policy like with new regulations to help workers and calls for Unemployment Insurance for workers when they lose their jobs, the women's right to vote happened on his watch. 

Woodrow was liberal when it came foreign policy when it came to his push for the League of Nations, which was 30 years before its time and push for America to work with its allies to prevent dictators from coming to power in Europe. 

But Woodrow Wilson is basically the father of Jim Crow, at least at the Federal level, with his push to segregate by race the Federal agencies and those policies got pushed to the state level as well.

I hate to say this as a Democrat, but Woodrow Wilson's allies today, if he was a politician a 100 years later, would be part of the MAGA Nationalist movement, at least the alt-right, militant wing of that movement. That movement would rip up the civil rights laws, if they got the chance and seriously weaken the Equal Protection Clause and our Right to Privacy, probably weaken the free press in this country, and try to consolidate the American presidency and make our Federal departments and agencies a lot of independent of The White House. 

But Teddy Roosevelt, was a true Progressive and a great Progressive and represented perhaps half of the Republican Party when it was the Grand Ole Party, that had two, strong, center-right factions in it: the TR Progressive wing and a conservative wing, that was led by people like Robert Taft and Barry Goldwater and later Ronald Reagan.

You can also see this post on WordPress.

Frank DiStefano: 'The Historical Progressive Movement & The Republicans: The Rise of Teddy Roosevelt'

Source:Frank DiStefano talking about Theodore Roosevelt & The Progressive Era.

"In this episode, we talk about how the Republican Party came to embrace the historical Progressive Movement during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt.

The Progressive Movement was less a single movement than a new reformist spirit that swept across America, particularly among the urban middle class and well to do. It believed we could use the novel tools of social science to plan American society to yield more efficient, just, and moral results.

Progressives included political activists, journalists, politicians, preachers and muckraking journalists. They took on an ambitious agenda of reforms reaching nearly every aspect of society from stopping child labor, limiting abusive work hours, creating public schools, purifying food and medicine, enacting women’s suffrage, creating public green spaces, prohibiting alcohol, ending public corruption, and instilling efficiency in both public institutions and private business.

Overall, it was a movement uniting morality and social science to address the new problems of industrialization then transforming America. And under the presidency of Teddy Roosevelt, progressives became the most powerful faction within the Republican Party. They worked within the party with its pro-business faction, made up of the Yankee aristocracy and represented by figures like Calvin Coolidge, who believed in the work ethic and the Republican ideal of the sanctity of labor.

These historical progressives, moreover, weren’t exactly the same as modern progressives. They weren’t interested in empowered the poor, workers, or immigrants like Bryan’s populists. There were committed interested in uplifting and “improving” them into version of American protestant middle class morality. 

America had begun a new national debate. On one side stood Bryan’s populist Democrats, representing the interests of the farmers and workers the new industrial economy had left behind. On the other stood Roosevelt’s progressive Republicans, representing the urban middle class and professionals concerned about industrial abuses in the cities. America left behind the Third Party System’s Gilded Age debate over the resentments of the Civil War for its Fourth Party System, launching into a new era of reform under the Populist and Progressive Era." 

From Frank DiStefano

"The period of US history from the 1890s to the 1920s is usually referred to as the Progressive Era, an era of intense social and political reform aimed at making progress toward a better society.

Progressive Era reformers sought to harness the power of the federal government to eliminate unethical and unfair business practices, reduce corruption, and counteract the negative social effects of industrialization.

During the Progressive Era, protections for workers and consumers were strengthened, and women finally achieved the right to vote." 

From Khan Academy

The Khan Academy definition of progressive and progressivism is very close to what I believe are the real definitions of that faction and political philosophy. My official definition of Progressive is someone who believe in progress (which is where progressive comes from) but also someone who believes in progress through government action. 

Real Progressives (or Classical Progressives, if you prefer) do not believe in total equality at all costs, including at the expense of individual freedom and individual rights and incentivizing government dependence over individualism and independence. Which is what today's Social Democrats or Democratic Socialists tend to believe, that somehow individual independence is not a good thing and leads to things like materialism and inequality. And what you need to do instead is to discourage economic independence through high taxes, high regulations, and a big national government.

If you look at the word progress, it means to move forward, make things better than they were better, at least in a political and governmental sense. Again, I'm not talking about total equality or perfection, but very practical way of governing and being able to bring people together and make the society freer for more people.

Contrary to what a lot of hyper-partisan right-winers, including Libertarians, but let's say populist Republicans today say, Progressives actually do believe in the concept of a free society and most if not not all the liberal values that America was founded on. Like the right for individuals to be left alone and be able to live their own life and not be harassed by government because they believe big government knows what's best for everyone. 

The difference between the Progressive (Republican or Democrat) and a Conservative and Libertarian, is the Progressive believes that individual freedom should be for everyone. Not just for people who are born to wealth and have great parents. And that government has a role to see to it that every American has the opportunity to live in a free society as well. 

This is why Progressives believe in public education, public infrastructure, a regulatory state to protect consumers and workers, but not to run businesses, and a public safety net for people who truly need it and fall through the cracks of the capitalist economy, to help people get back on their feet or on their feet for the first time, but not to try to run their lives for them.

If Theodore Roosevelt was a Republican in the 1940s, he would've been a Tom Dewey Republican or Tom Dewey would've been a Teddy Roosevelt Republican. 

If Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican in the 1950s, he would've been a Dwight Eisenhower Republican, or Ike would've been a Teddy Roosevelt Republican.

If Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican in the 1960s, he would've been a Nelson Rockefeller Republican, or Nellie would've been a Teddy Roosevelt Republican. 

If Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican in the 1970s, Teddy would've been a Richard Nixon Republican, at least in an economic and foreign policy sense, nothing to do with Watergate or the other abuses of power from the Nixon Administration. Or, Dick Nixon would've been with Teddy in the Republican Party on economic and foreign policy. Teddy Roosevelt was actually a political hero or both Richard Nixon and John McCain. Something for political junkies and partisans to think about.

It's hard to come up with many if any solid Roosevelt/Eisenhower national Republicans of the 1980s and 90s, because the Conservative Libertarians and Christian-Right started taking over the Republican Party by then. But Bob Dole and George H.W. Bush, at least when Herbert Walker was not Vice President of the United States and when Bob Dole wasn't running for President in 1996, they were both Progressive Republicans. People who could work very well with Conservative Republicans and Progressive Democrats to accomplish great things.

I guess my broader point here is, Progressive, Socialist, Social Democrat, Democratic Socialist, Communist, and Neo-Communist, don't all mean the same thing. They're not all part of the same political philosophy, with multiple labels. Real Progressives, like Teddy Roosevelt, but his cousin Franklin, Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s, actually look pretty liberal, (at least in the classical sense) meaning they are to the right (not to the left) of the Bernie Sanders of the world and his left-wing colleagues in Congress today. 

Progressives aren't looking for utopia, but simply create a society where as many Americans as possible can have the same freedom and be able to live their lives freely and not be dependent on public assistance. Not to be completely taken care of and never have to worry about having to do anything for themselves. Which again, which is what Socialists tend to believe that real progress is not good enough and you need a government big enough to create that utopia for everyone. 

You can also see this post on WordPress.