Progressives, I would think, would be well advised to engage in some fruitful comparisons between the social security debate of 1935 and the health care debate of 2009. I'm sure someone's written on this already--although I Googled "compare new deal social security debate and health care debate" and didn't get anything, so this must be original, right?--so clue me in in the comments. Until then, here are my own thoughts on the matter, both for the sheer fun of historical comparisons and the action I hope such a comparison inspires.



Ahh, the summer of 1935...we remember it so well. FDR was facing criticism from the right (the American Liberty League) and from the left (Huey Long, Father Coughlin, etc.). Democrats held the House and Senate. Meanwhile, the American people demanded the relief that private, local, and state institutions could not provide. After decades of abortive attempts, the time finally seemed right for some sort of old-age and unemployment insurance. FDR's administration and Democrats in Congress launched a massive push for a program of economic security. Republicans were outraged, claiming that Social Security would bankrupt the government, introduce socialism, assault liberty, and destroy America. Progressives clutched their pearls, as well, noting all the limits to the administration's plan: its regressive contributory model; its exclusion of farm workers and domestic servants; its relinquishing of power to undependable state governments; etc.. Social Security, it must have seemed at the time, was on the ropes.

In the summer of 2009, we see plenty of similarities. New president facing left/right criticism: check. Democrats holding legislative and executive branches: check. American people demanding relief (this time, from the cost of health care or the lack of it): check. And it seems like now, more than ever--more than Truman facing resurgent Republicans, more than LBJ racking up immense war deficits, and more than the Clinton machine thirsting for power instead of designing policy--health care reform might actually make it. The right hates the idea, of course: socialism, bankruptcy, un-American, etc. The left, too, has its issues, particularly with censorship of the words "single payer," and those misgivings have led some progressives to hold back their support.

But it seems to me that we (progressives, that is) have a choice. We can abandon this leaky health care reform ship and let it go down. The best case scenario is that there's such a wide-spread public reaction that we get a proper single-payer health care system. Worst case: people get sick without health care. This is happening already, and I don't think that's acceptable. Health care reform, much like social security, begins with an essentially moral proposition: it's wrong that millions of people don't have access to health care.

The second option is to throw our support behind the best bill we can get now and work on it later. This is precisely what happened in 1935. SSA passed and it was seriously limited, but revisions in 1939 and 1950 removed those limits, and the Social Security Act of 1965 went even farther with the introduction of Medicare and Medicaid. I'd suggest that the same thing can happen with health care reform: we can make it better later.

Because here's the crucial point: once it's in, it ain't going away. The first post-FDR Republican president, Eisenhower, wouldn't touch Social Security with a ten-foot pole, and his conservative successors have followed in his footsteps. Bush tried, but even with total Republican control of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, it didn't happen. And they're scared now for the same reasons: (a) it's going to make Democrats wildly popular and (b) once we get it, it's not going away.

Labels: FDR, Franklin Roosevelt, Geschichte Grad, Health Care, New Deal

I'd like to suggest some of the international significance of the Obama campaign, starting with four points:

1) When surveying the Democratic field last year, Eric Alterman said/wrote (I can't remember where) that the election of Obama to the presidency would, overnight, go a long way to repairing the United States's image abroad.

2) In the aftermath of the election violence in Kenya, the BBC programme (hey, it's British) "World Have Your Say" ran a show in which one of the callers (from Kenya) suggested that had the Iowa caucuses been held a week earlier [before the Kenyan elections], there would have been no violence in Kenya, because people there would have been so focused on Obama's victory.

3) Back in February (the 15th, to be precise), NPR's Morning Edition ran a story on the upcoming election...in Italy, where Walter Veltroni is running a campaign openly inspired by Obama; Veltroni's campaign uses the slogan "si puo fare" ("Yes, we can" in Italian).

4) On Friday, a German friend wrote me and said "Für mich wird interessant sein, ob die amerikanischen Bürger eine Änderung ihrer Politik bewirken wollen, oder ob es weitergehen wird wie in den letzten Jahren." Roughly translated, that's "To me, it'll be interesting to see whether American citizens will make change in their politics, or go on as in earlier years." (Also, my friend's garden and grandchildren are doing quite well, thank you.)


Although points two, three, and four don't prove the assertion in point one, they give some sense of how important the Obama campaign is to the rest of the world, from Kenya to Italy to Germany. Obama's campaign is not a domestic issue; it's an international event.

Dwelling on that, I thought of Thomas Borstelmann's 2001 book The Cold War and The Color Line. Borstelmann argues that "in an era of maximum U.S. involvement abroad," it was impossible to insulate America's foreign relations from its race relations. During the Cold War, the United States sought anti-communist allies throughout the world, including non-white countries in the third world. Poor race relations in the United States made it difficult to appeal to those countries. Eisenhower acted in Little Rock, Arkansas within the context of his response to European neo-colonialism in the Suez Canal; JFK came out for civil rights in 1963 saying "When Americans are sent to Vietnam or West Berlin, we do not ask for whites only" (161). Borstelmann resists arguing that the Cold War caused the disintegration of the color line, concluding instead that "if the question is cast more broadly to ask what the relationship was between the waging of the Cold War and the historic dissolution of global white supremacy, the answer is more complicated and more significant" (269). The implication is there, though: the international context of the Cold War shaped the way U.S. presidents handled the question of civil rights at home.

Extending Borstelmann's analysis (so much so that he probably wouldn't recognize it), I'd like to suggest that the international context of the twenty-first century should shape the way Americans handle the question of our presidential choice. The United States continues to affect every corner of the world--that's why I didn't move to Canada after 2004, realizing that I couldn't run from the Bush Administration's influence. But the United States continues to depend on the rest of the world, as well, from the security of our financial system to the security of our persons when we travel abroad. The bottom line is that we need the good will and cooperation of the international community. We would be wise to select a president who will not only be able to work with foreign countries, but also inspire foreign peoples to believe in the United States and trust that the U.S. will act in good faith as a partner in world affairs. The signs I see from abroad point to Obama as the source of that sort of inspiration. Perhaps we should pay attention.

Labels: Geschichte Grad