Was FDR the last "truly liberal" Democrat in office ?

[steve2470]

Somehow Clinton and Carter don't quite make it in my mind so far. Was Johnson truly a liberal Democrat ?

[bryant69]

1. Johnson pushed social programs and also got us into vietnam

Which most people count as a wash. Plus he was the President during the rise of the counter culture, which he clearly despised - which makes him look bad (in fairness, Truman and FDR would probably have been likewise disgusted with the counter culture).

But first of all you'd have to define what you mean by a true liberal.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[UTUSN]

2. Except for Vietnam, LBJ was far more so than JFK, JC, & WJC

Medicaid, Medicare, civil rights (& much much more)...

[hedgehog]

3. FDR wasn't a liberal, he was a pragmatist

He campaigned on a balanced budget and took the country into a deficit to get us out of the Depression. He did whatever had to be done to help people. My father has always said that Roosevelt is the one who saved capitalism. Without him, there would have been even more blood in the streets.

[leftofthedial]

4. Johnson was socially liberal

But no post-WWII Democratic President (and precious few members of Congress) has been truly "liberal."

[Dob Bole]

5. Carter was (and is) actually a democratic socialist...

Clinton: definitely not. And Carter was pretty conservative on social issues, being ethically opposed to abortion for example.

I think that Johnson was perhaps the MOST liberal Democrat that we've ever had in office, Vietnam notwithstanding. If not, then only FDR surpasses him.

[steve2470]

6. He was a Democratic socialist ? 1st time I've heard this nt

[Dob Bole]

9. My argument for Jimmy Carter as a believer in Democratic Socialism...

I've met Mr. Carter and been to his sunday school class (which he's now been teaching for 25 years) a few times. I lived about 10 miles away from him for several years. Our country only has two major parties with several mini-parties inside of them, but if the United States had a Social Democratic party like many European countries, or maybe even a Christian Socialist party, Carter would be a member of it.

First of all, a little background: Carter is from Southwest Georgia, Sumter County. Due to the aftereffects of the Civil War, he grew up in the Depression around NO Republicans. Nearly everyone who lived during the Depression is a fan of FDR. During that time, the perception was that capitalism had failed, and Christian socialism (in the form of the social gospel movement- what would jesus do?-) flourished.

Some major religoius-left related events took place during Carter's formative years. In the first half of the 20th century, a Baptist minister named Clarence Jordan started a farm in Sumter County, in which black and white citizens would work together and live communally. White supremacists were pissed: they called for a boycott, shot at them while driving by, and even bombed a feed store in downtown Americus for doing business with them. Carter also survived a boycott by the White Citizens Council during this time. Koinonia Farm still exists today, and Carter no doubt regards them as heroes. (My church was also founded by Koinonians. The farm website is here: http://www.koinoniapartners.org )

Before he died, Clarence Jordan and a millionaire named Millard Fuller (who had left Alabama, dispensed his wealth, and moved to Koinonia to save his marriage) founded what became Habitat for Humanity. Who promoted this organization, enabling it to become a worldwide entity? Jimmy Carter.

Meanwhile, the Civil Rights Movement grew stronger, and Martin Luther King, Jr. was jailed in Southwest Georgia. Despite the White Citizens' Council boycott, Carter was elected to the school board. Later, with the help of Dr. Harold Isaacs (who has since founded the association of Third World Studies and retired) Carter was elected governor by saying things that segregationists wanted to hear. He shocked them when he entered office, put up pictures of MLK (the most famous Christian socialist to date) and declared that segregation was irrelevant and the era of the "New South" had begun.

Carter was elected President in 1976 thanks to a huge populist campaign (documented in books by Harold Isaacs) in which citizens of Sumter County went North and handed out peanuts door to door. He was the last Democratic president to pull the New Deal coalition together and benefit from a Solid South.

As president, he created the department of Education, gave aid to the new Sandinista government (read: Christian socialists), emphasized human rights in his foreign policy, and negotiated a couple of famous treaties. He wanted to implement Universal Health Care, as Canada had in the previous decade, but was unsuccessful due to the Iran hostage crisis, etc.

Still, after his presidency he has promoted the growth of democracy (every country that has embraced democracy has also usually embraced some form of socialism) and the expansion of Habitat for Humanity. His most recent book "Our Endangered Values..." is basically a treatise in line with other famous evangelical socialists (Jim Wallis, for example.)

Hope I've made my case,

DB

[Xenotime]

10. Carter was a great prez.

[Bucky]

14. Carter was so totally not a socialist. He believes in social welfare, but he is a strong capitalist.

He believes in a regulated economy and acts of Christian charity. But he believes in free enterprise, he believes in a strong national defense, and he worked his ass off as president trying to balance the budget as a fiscal conservative. In fact, had he been reelected, he expected to have a balanced budget by his last year in office (FY1985), according to his presidential memoires.

The closest president we've ever had to being a democratic socialist was Dick Nixon with his price freeze experiment (aka "disaster").

[Dob Bole]

17. I didn't say he was a 'total socialist'

I said he was a Democratic Socialists...implementing tenets of social theory into a democratic system, a social Democrat. Not socialist to the degree that Bernie Sanders is, anyway. But I'm sure if you look back at his positions on issues, he is more in line with Bernie than Bill Clinton. And who wouldn't want a balanced budget?

My primary argument was that Carter has been heavily influenced by Christian Socialism (he's called Oscar Romero and others "heroes") and if there were such an option in U.S. politics, he might have gone that route.

Iraq war? Clinton yes, Carter no

NAFTA? Clinton yes, Carter no

Nearly every foreign policy issue" Clinton yes, Carter no

There are a couple of problems with my argument, I'll admit: Clinton could be so conservative, that he makes Carter look like a raging leftist. It's also hard to tell the difference between Carter's presidency and his post-presidency, since he only had about two years to enact policy as President.

[malaise]

7. You're right although LBJ did introduce some liberal policies.

The party needs more not less liberals now. Social services are a mess.

[Justitia]

8. LBJ was the most liberal president, hands down.

He reduced poverty by 50%! We have never seen such a reduction in poverty either before or since.
He gave us Medicare & Medicaid.
Civil Rights Act.
Voting Rights Act.
Rural Electrification
Made higher education affordable for everyone (LBJ was a teacher)

LBJ did not get us INTO Vietnam, but he did escalate our involvement, which has given him a black eye in history forever.

However, no president has ever made such a difference in such a majority of Americans lives as LBJ did.
Real, concrete, everyday, positive changes that all of us are still benefiting from today.

He was a very complex man in a very complex time with a ton of baggage, but no one has ever measured up since then to the legacy of what he gave us.

[PeaceProgProsp]

13. on domestic policy, but not on foreign policy.

[Justitia]

19. No argument there, that's laid out in my post. -eom

[Bucky]

16. And yet Nixon outspent Johnson on social welfare programs

Yes, Nixon had a more liberal congress, but he got most of the spending that he asked for from Congress. The budgets came from his proposals.

[Justitia]

18. I was speaking entirely of policy initiatives, not budget numbers. -eom

[PeaceProgProsp]

11. JFK was a Keynesian, like FDR, and was suspicious of big

business and the Dulles brothers.

[KansDem]

12. I thought Carter might have been...re: human rights and the environment

A few observations about Carter:

1) He brought concerns about the environment into the public forum. He even had solar panels installed on the White House (which were later taken down by Reagan). If that awareness for all-things environmental had continued, we'd be 25 years ahead of ourselves now. He advocated energy saving by turning down the White House thermostat to 68 degrees and wearing sweaters (for which he was sounded ridiculed by that other party who lost on Tuesday.)

2) He advocated human rights. We never had to worry about torture, the suspension of habeas corpus, or the nullifying of the Geneva Conventions under Carter. He was, and is still, a strong proponent of human dignity.

3) He was concerned about election fraud. I remember hearing him speak some years ago about this start in local politics in Georgia. One of the first things he did was eliminate some pretty antiquated laws, like the one that allowed the family member of a deceased voter to vote for the deceased up to something like 3-5 years after the voter had died(?!?!). He laughed at the concept now (when I heard him speak) but I'm sure he was treading on some "holy ground" when he worked to stop this kind of voting practice.

4) And I believe he signed legislation making it easier for debt-ridden citizens to file bankruptcy. This was also controversial (even within his own party), but it helped a lot of families start over. Of course, this was all reversed by the GOP of late.

5) And I believe that CETA (Comprehensive Employment and Training Act) was signed during his administration. This was a kind of "New Deal" in helping to get Americans back to work. I knew many people who benefited from CETA.

I don't know if these actions make him a "truly liberal Democrat" but I think he comes close...

[Bucky]

15. Last prez of "New Deal" era was Nixon (wage & price controls, EPA, school busing, Family Asst Plan)

Nixon's 1969 budget proposed a Family Assistance Plan that would have guaranteed $2400 per family in food subsidies, housing, & medical aid. He ran on ending the draft (and did so). He negotiated our way out of the Vietnam War. And check out this gem from the conservative Ashbrook Center on Public Policy:

...yet federal spending grew faster during Nixon’s tenure than during Johnson’s. It was under Nixon that social spending came to exceed defense spending for the first time. Social spending soared from $55 billion in 1970 (Nixon’s first budget) to $132 billion in 1975, from 28 percent of the federal budget when LBJ left office to 40 percent of the budget by the time Nixon left in 1974. While Nixon would criticize and attempt to reform welfare, he nonetheless approved massive increases in funding for other Great Society programs such as the Model Cities program and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Some of the changes in spending policies that Nixon supported, such as automatic cost-of-living increases for Social Security recipients and other entitlement programs, contributed to runaway spending trends in successive decades. Federal spending for the arts, which went mostly to cultural elites who hated Nixon, quadrupled. Economist Herbert Stein, who served on Nixon’s Council of Economic Advisers, summed up this dubious record: "The administration that was against expanding the budget expanded it greatly; the administration that was determined to fight inflation ended by having a large amount of it."