Forget the 1994 Elections. Look Way Back to 1934 for the Best Parallels to 2010
We've all heard the electoral comparisons to 1994, when the Republicans won 54 Democratic seats and took control of the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years, while also capturing the U.S. Senate. And while we may not know the results of the 2010 elections -- who will win, how many seats will change hands, which party will be control the House and Senate -- we do know the magnitude of the challenges facing the nation. However, today's persistent unemployment, momentous mortgage crisis, and ballooning trade deficit really recall memories of 1934, not 1994.
The Republicans controlled the presidency and both houses of Congress in 1929, when the stock market crashed. Their inept response to the downward-spiraling economy opened the floodgates to the Great Depression, and to the Democrats, who swept them from power by 1932. Newly elected Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt, with Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, was ready to try a new approach. He would use, not restrain, the powers of the federal government to help the millions of Americans that were suffering from the economic catastrophe.
Yet, despite passing sweeping legislation, the Democrats feared big losses in 1934. Unemployment approached 22 percent. The stock market was down 75 percent from its peak. Half the nation's banks had closed. And 500,000 homes had been foreclosed.
Through most of 1934, Roosevelt, like Obama through most of this year, seemed lost. Roosevelt, "suddenly silent and irresolute, seemed to have lost his touch... The administration appeared to lack coherence in both policy and in strategy," wrote historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. The president faced "the organized business community," which was determined to halt his agenda, and "the tumult of mass opinion, so ardently stirred by the radicals and demagogues."
Like today's Republicans, the Hoover Republicans approached the 1934 midterm elections calling for the very policies that allowed economic collapse: tax cuts for the rich, deregulation, slashed spending and a balanced budget. Republicans called Roosevelt a socialist, communist and fascist. They compared him to Hitler, Lenin and Stalin.
Sound familiar?
Yet in 1934, the Democrats scored the nation's biggest midterm election victory ever, adding significantly to their already huge majorities in the House and Senate.
So let's look at some of the comparisons. Upon taking office in 1933, Roosevelt launched the New Deal and its expansive programs. Many of the programs enacted during his first two years in office still provide Americans with economic security, or led to other programs that have endured:
President Obama and the Democrats in Congress passed some of the most wide-ranging legislation in decades, including healthcare, financial reform and the new landmark Consumer Protection Agency. They passed an economic stimulus program that included tax cuts for 95 percent of Americans and extended unemployment insurance. And they bailed out -- and just may have saved -- the domestic auto industry.
The one obvious contrast between the 1934 midterm elections and present day is that Roosevelt shook off his lethargy; he and his fellow Democrats made the election a mandate on the New Deal. Roosevelt made it clear that the "forces of privilege and greed" had made and profited from the rules. He argued that it was time to change the rules and provide a safety net to protect the weak from the ravages of unbridled capitalism. He linked the recalcitrant rich - mostly businessmen and financiers - with their shameless Republican lackeys, who had little interest in fair play despite their bluster to the contrary. They even vigorously opposed Roosevelt's efforts to end child labor.
Ordinary Americans knew what Roosevelt had done, whose side he was one, and where he wanted to take them.
President Obama has worked to defend his own programs. However, most Democratic incumbents have shied away from their major achievements, such as healthcare reform and the stimulus. Today's Democrats face electoral challenges, but those challenges could have been mitigated by an enthusiastic defense of their successes and with an emphasis that much, much more needs to be done.
We can look back to history for guidance on the message and results for the 2010 election. But looking back only to 1994 is a striking misread of history, and leads back to 1929 thinking.
The truth is that the economy needs more, not less, New Deal-like programs. Tea Partiers and their Republican allies hearken back to the failed, destructive, policies of 1930. That's really what they mean by "taking their country back." The best way forward is to go back to the future -- not to 1994, but much further back to a time that more closely resembles today, back to 1934. That year, Americans knew fear wasn't their enemy, and didn't vote to turn back the clock.
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We have to start shouting "hillary can!" because without her it will be "no we can't" and we will lose 47 states.
Obama has lost the woman vote which was the key to democrat victories for the last 50 years.
Only Hillary can get this back. Only Hillary had the votes of women, unions, minorities, working class.
We have to win ohio and west virginia and indiana which ONLY hillary can win in 2012.
Problem was, Hoover was like George Bush, sure he was a Republican, but he believed in Big Government almost just as much as Roosevelt did, so after the market crash, he jacked up the tax rate from 25% on the "Rich" (you know, those who actually PROVIDE JOBS) to 63%!. He also jacked up spending, (Hoover Dam?) and after Roosevelt came in, they jacked up to taxes to over 80% on the Employer Class.
So in reality, if Hoover and Roosevelt would have handled the crisis like Harding did, by cutting Government spending and keeping taxes low (Like Reagan did after the 80's Banking Crisis), the economy would have recovered in short order and we would have NEVER HAD a Great Depression!
You're ABSOLUTELY correct in one sense though, the Republicans are being setup for failure. Once the Trillions in short term obligations come due in about 6 months or so, Republicans will either have to raise the debt ceiling or massively cut spending, either way they will be painted as evil.
I was taking people who have not been good Presidents in Obama and Bush and comparing them with two of the top 5.
There have been copious comparings of this election season to the 1994 Midterm Elections. While there are surface similarities, there is one big difference. First the Similarities.
-1994-
The Democratic Party had pushed a Liberal (that what they called themselves back then) agenda. There was HillaryCare which failed, tax hikes, and a mild recession.
-2010-
This election season, We have a Progressive Agenda much of which is Law or a fait accompli. There is ObamaCare, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act , Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, bailouts, etc.
If a Right of Center Nation opened a can of WhupAss in 1994 because of the agenda that was essentially proposed but little enacted, then, this time, the Democratic Party should be facing the Mother of all Defeats for what they have accomplished.. That may yet come to pass. But at this time, most creditable polling indicates a House take over with a mid 50s seat count, and a high single digit gain in the Senate. Relatively weak in comparison to '94. Why?
The reason is the Republican Party. In 1994 the "Contract With America" was a compendious, one page document, outlining an eight step agenda. They had experienced an eight year stint ('81 - '89) controlling the Senate but had not experienced the control of the purse strings that appertains when you rule the House
Continued
It took a few years to get into the swing of things, but by 2000 they had learned how to spend and they learned the lesson well. Unfunded mandates and Ear Marks became the way of life. Well, after six years the Republicans were turned out to wander in the wilderness. However, was 4 years enough? They now say:
"We have donned the requsite sack cloth and ashes."
"We have meditated, studied long, and seen the errors of our ways."
"We have been reborn."
"We once again make obeisance at the altar of fiscal responsibility."
But have they? The newly elected members will be, for the most part, fiscal conservatives. The Tea Party has culled many of those who were not. It is the entrenched leadership that must prove themselves. The "Pledge to America" is a rambling 21 page tome rehashing many platitudes (Missle Defense?). This was not a momentous beginning. They must not ,once again, become lost on Hayakawa's Abstraction Ladder; confusing word of the deed for the deed itself. Will the Republican Party be the Conservative Party they once professed to be? I have hopes, but they are tempered somewhat with doubt. It is this doubt, held by a Right of Center Electorate, that attenuates what should be the Mother of All Defeats to a Damn Good Drubbing.
" However, most Democratic incumbents have shied away from their major achievements, such as healthcare reform and the stimulus."
And therein lies the big difference that will likely result in a lack of response from those who would otherwise have voted for a Democrat Congress-critter over the Republicans. The Democrats lack any boldness, any resolve, and any backbone in standing up to the withering fire of the Teapartiers, the Right-wing pundits, and the corporate-owned media outlets in 2010.
That lack of ownership and boldness is the thing that will shoot them down this time out - assuming it falls that way.
We'll find out next week.
Why did the unemployment never get below 14%? Why did FDR's polices not end the Depression by 1935?
And just like in 2006, most economists were predicting a 10 year recovery once again(like japan).
So lets do some math:
1930-1940 = ten years
2007-2017= ten years
So in 2017, if things aren't better. Then we can start blaming democrats for the mess.
It seems these Lib policies are bad for the country.
Unfortunately, President Obama took over within months after the crash of 2008 and the seeds of near-double-digit unemployment were already planted and germinating. So even though it wasn't his fault -- and even though he prevented another Great Depression (with no help from the Republicans) -- people look and see that unemployment and foreclosures are higher now than they were two years ago. That, plus our short-attention-span society and the toxic influence of Supreme Court-sanctioned mega corporate money explains why 2010 will, sadly, be different.
President Obama's big political mistake was stopping the recession from turning into a depression.
The Blue-Dogs are what Republicans used to be - just less reasonable.
Economically, this is a mix of 1934 and 1994. The qualitative situation and the threat it posed are much more like the Great Depression than an ordinary recession. But the severity we wound up with is a bit closer to that of an ordinary recession. Absolute laissez-faire Republicans either don't have the courage of their convictions or didn't have the clout, to stop massive intervention while their party was still in control.
Fanaticism always attaches to propositions people doubt, never to those they truly believe in. The caricature of a fanatic is an unkempt man with a sign saying "the world will end tomorrow": no one is ever fanatical about their belief that in the next 24 hours the planet will complete another rotation just as it always has.
In 1929, the advisability of even limited government intervention in macroeconomics was an open question. Today there are disagreements as to the exact scope and nature of the best policies, but a baseline level of such activity is a world-will-keep-spinning proposition. Cataclysm always evokes fanaticism. On the whole, that of today's Tea Party movement is preferable to the antisemitism and fascist sympathies of Father Coughlin.
America really is a center-right nation--a fact politicians ignore at their peril. All the election of 2008 taught us is that Americans are open minded enough to try anything if the situation is dire enough. However, push them too far off their comfort zone and you will find monumental backlash.
Reactions at the Town Hall meetings of 2008 and 2009 should have been a wake up call for Washington liberals. They pushed the snooze button instead.
What Conservatives don't like are most Liberal legislation which links a very few of the issues Republicans approve with a whole lot they don't.