David Brooks had a column in the New York Times last week called “The Future of American Liberalism: What Biden can learn from F.D.R.” I won’t try to summarize the column — you can read it for yourself if you’re interested — but I will say that I’ve long thought that the modern Democratic party should more emphatically reclaim FDR’s governing philosophy: a sweeping vision rooted in pragmatic, populist progressivism.
Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms” — Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear — manage to be remarkably comprehensive and bi-partisan, and seem entirely reasonable as a policy platform even 80 years later. Freedom of Speech could be a basis for defending social justice protesters on the left but also suppressing the “cancel culture” decried by the right. Freedom from Fear can be the justification for a strong national defense but also for gun control. Freedom of Worship may be especially important to those on the right, while Freedom from Want speaks to the priorities of those on the left, but it would be difficult for either side to object to either of them.
I also believe that FDR’s overall approaches to both domestic and foreign policy are applicable today. FDR believed that capitalism was essential to the country’s vitality but that it had to be held in check. He also believed strongly that the federal government had an essential role to play in improving the quality of people’s lives. On the foreign policy side, FDR believed in strong international coalitions of democratic nations to keep the peace and solve global problems, something that’s more important today than it ever was.
FDR was not an ideologue. His policy priorities resonated with Americans of all classes and political persuasions.
If the Democratic Party wins both the White House and the Senate in November, they will have a rare opportunity to move the country in a new direction. That direction can’t be one that appeals only to the left. It needs to make sense to Americans across the board, even if it’s decried by Republican leaders and Fox News, who will oppose anything a Democratic administration proposes.
As a progressive I very much want to see the United States take action to address income inequality and social injustice, but I also want to see redress of the indignities suffered by the white working class. I see those priorities as entirely compatible with each other, and I believe Joe Biden may be uniquely qualified to bridge the divide. He has never been a partisan warrior, nor a member of the leftist elite. I suspect that his political sensibilities are closer to those of FDR than those of anyone else on the national political scene. He will get a lot of pressure from his base to champion policies that are well to the left of the majority of Americans. I hope he resists that pressure.
Should he win in November, Biden needs to embrace the principle that he is the president of all Americans. Even if the only policies he ended up enacting were those that the majority of Americans agree on, that would represent a huge step in the right direction for the country.