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Movement for a People's PartyDetroit, May 5, 2021 The first 100 days of a presidents term are historically their best chance to enact their agenda. In 1933, as he took office at the height of the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Democrats convened a special session of Congress and ran the legislature like a New Deal printing press.
Pushed by widespread and fierce labor strikes, popular movements, and independent parties, FDR and Congress passed 76 new laws in their first 100 days including the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, Civilian Conservation Corps, and the Tennessee Valley Authority programs that employed, housed, and fed tens of millions of people. Roosevelt reshaped the role of government in providing for the people.
Eighty years later, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris entered the White House in the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and the worst public health crisis since the Spanish Flu. They arrived backed by Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, giving their party the power to pass anything. Last Friday marked the end of Biden and Harris first 100 days in office, and the scale and substance of their response is the antithesis of their Depression-Era predecessors.
The Democrats are repeating history in a different way though.
In 2009, Obama and Biden entered the White House in the middle of the Great Recession, which was the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression at the time. Instead of using the crisis to enact structural change, they chose to preserve the economic and social status quo that had produced the crisis. Their actions pushed the country deeper into an increasingly authoritarian oligarchy.
Twelve years later, Biden returned to the White House, during the new-worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Once again, he was backed by Democratic majorities in Congress. And just like Obama, Biden has chosen to preserve the economic and social status quo. The result will be to push this country still further into authoritarian oligarchy. Bidens first eight years produced Trump. His next four will produce something far worse.
dalton99a
(81,062 posts)like 2 months old
Budi
(15,325 posts)This opinion piece of absolute lies qualifies as RW talking pts.
LetMyPeopleVote
(143,998 posts)Caliman73
(11,690 posts)To compare FDR's first 100 days to either Biden or Obama's is stupid.
The major flaw in the argument is that FDR had not only a majority in both houses of congress, but Super Majority in the Senate. There was little that Republicans could do to stop the legislation.
Obama had a majority for something like 90 days and Biden has a 50/50 split with two recalcitrant Democrats in the Senate who are helping to block legislation in the name of "bipartisanship.
Even with all the support that FDR had, there were several criticisms of his lack of action from the left, even within his own Democratic caucus.
If the "People's Party" wants to be taken seriously, they need to not fuck up on the history just for political expediency.