History of Depression

If you found this post thinking it will be about psychology, you're gonna be disappointed.

In 1932, Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat, was elected president. The country was mired in a devastating economic collapse and the Republican incumbent, Herbert Hoover, was blamed. Roosevelt and the Democrats in Congress proceeded to enact a "New Deal" for America that tried to restore the economy but by 1934 unemployment and its attendant suffering remained very high. Democrats increased their Congressional majorities in the midterm elections and in 1935 passed a second series of bills, including Social Security.

In 2010, Barack Obama, a Democrat, was elected president. The country was in the throes of another economic contraction and the Republican president, George Bush, was blamed. Obama and the Democrats proceeded to enact a health care reform act by a tortuous method, bailed out the auto industry and the banks, but did little to reform the nation's life from a structural standpoint. Unemployment remained high, though not nearly as high as it was in the 1930's. In the midterm election of 2010, Democrats took a pounding of historic proportions.

So, what's the difference? Was Roosevelt so much better a politician than Obama that he was able to persuade the country to go left in 1934, whereas it went right in 2010?

In the 1930's people received their news from daily papers and weekly magazines. Most newspapers favored the Republicans and said so on their editorial pages. Some, like the Chicago Tribune, shaded their news coverage against the president. So did Time magazine. Nowadays, people get their news from television and irregular sources, including the Internet, even blogs like this one. (But not actually this one!) TV news reflects a variety of opinions, but right-wingers are in full voice at Fox and on the many talk radio stations.

The population has changed since 1934. We are older, and ethnicity has changed. Opinion polls show that older voters are more inclined to vote Republican. Older voters have significant economic issues but, thanks in part to Social Security, they don't have to worry as much about starvation or homelessness. In other words, the very reforms enacted by the Democrats have turned the beneficiaries of those reforms against the Democrats!

Roosevelt never shrunk from a confrontation with the GOP. Nor did he hesitate to invoke what in our own times is derided as "class warfare." During his second term he exclaimed of rich folks, "They hate me and I welcome their hate." President Obama has repeatedly tried to accommodate the Republicans with the result that they are more, not less, intransigent. Some of them are also openly contemptuous of the president, as witnessed by the Congressman who shouted that the president is a liar during his State of the Union speech. Imagine the furor if a Democrat had shouted such an insult at President Bush.

Is there a lesson in this? Well, not being a politician myself, I am inclined to defer to the political judgement of a professional politician. That being said, if I was ever asked for my advice, I'd say, "Be bold, Mr. President. If the GOP wants a fight, give it to them. If no legislation is passed in the next two years, so be it. Take your case to the American people in 2012. You'll win."