Why Obama Isn't Another FDR

by Patrick Appel

Beinart's pithy argument:

The more fundamental difference between the Obama era and its New Dealand Great Society predecessors is this: Back then, progressives did notdefine the left end of the political spectrum. In the 1930s and 1960s,America featured honest-to-goodness alternatives to capitalism,home-grown radical movements that scared the crap out of the Americanestablishment and sent some of its denizens scurrying into arms ofreformers like FDR and LBJ. Because our entire...