6.5 The Establishment Myth

He [Herbert Hoover] is certainly a wonder, and I wish we could make him President of the United States. There could not be a better one.
—Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1920

“In every single state that we contested, we took on virtually the entire political establishment—U.S. senators, members of Congress, governors, mayors, state legislators, and local party leaders.” From these words, you might think that Bernie Sanders had something against everyone, from top to bottom, in the political establishment but especially those at the top.

Far from it. He absolutely worships the two most establishment Democrats of all time, Lyndon Johnson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Or at least he pretends he does.

The reason for his contradictory positions is that Sanders’ political agenda overrides everything else. He praises the two most establishment Democrats to the skies because that helps him shift from the unpopular socialist lane to the ever-popular FDR lane, as explained in Chapter 23. And he vilifies all current and far-less-establishment Democrats because that helps his hostile takeover of the Democratic Party.

Does Sanders Worship Roosevelt?

In his 2015 Georgetown University speech, Sanders pinned his “democratic socialist” vision on FDR’s 1944 State of the Union speech, which he called “one of the most important speeches ever made by a president.” He quoted FDR’s view on economic security, and told us, “That was Roosevelt’s vision seventy years ago. It is my vision today.”

Astoundingly, Sanders is attributing the heart and soul of his lifelong socialist ideology to FDR, a man who said “government socialism” is as dangerous as “socialism of concentrated private power,” meaning corporate control of government for the benefit of the rich, the arrangement Sanders (and most of us) hate the most.

In April 2016, Sanders visited Roosevelt’s grave, praising FDR as “one of the great, great presidents in the history of our country.” Four days later, Sanders released a TV/YouTube ad showing him and FDR side by side, telling us that Roosevelt found “a way to break up big banks, create millions of jobs and rebuild America. Some say it can’t be done again. But another native son of New York is ready: Bernie.” Clearly, he wants to be seen as the next Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He couldn’t get in any deeper than that.

For the 2020 primaries, Sanders has already begun retracing these same steps, this time basing his “21st Century Bill of Rights” almost point for point on FDR’s Second Bill of Rights.

How ‘Establishment’ was FDR?

Roosevelt was born on a 600-acre estate in Hyde Park, New York, which he eventually inherited. With a trust fund and support from his mother, he never actually needed to work. As a child, he visited the White House and vacationed in Europe every summer. At his wedding, President Teddy Roosevelt gave away his bride, Eleanor. For a wedding present, his mother built them a double townhouse in New York City. She lived in half, and in the other half, Eleanor and Franklin raised five children with the help of seven servants. His “Little White House” in Warm Springs, Georgia, was segregated, and he required his Black and White servants to eat in different locations. Eleanor’s trust fund paid out slightly more than Franklin’s.

That places him far up into the top 1% in terms of wealth and income. But how was he positioned in the political establishment?

The Democrats decided to run Franklin for the New York State Senate in 1910 because of his name and his ability to finance his own campaign. He didn’t ask for any $27 contributions like Sanders does because, like Trump, he didn’t need any contributions at all. He served for six years and then was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Next, he was elected Governor of New York, and in 1932, he won the presidency with a campaign that was about one-quarter financed by Wall Street bankers and stockbrokers. He was elected president three more times. You can’t get any deeper into the “political establishment” than that.

More Progressive than Today’s Democrats?

Because Roosevelt was at the pinnacle of the Party establishment and far up into the 1%, what excuse could Sanders have for not condemning him to political hell? Perhaps Sanders makes an exception for Roosevelt because he was more progressive than today’s evil, “neoliberal” Democratic establishment?

I don’t think so.

Let me describe Roosevelt’s actions and policies projected forward onto the Obama administration so you can see how they would look in a familiar setting. In other words, suppose a Great Depression had started in 2005 and Obama and had done what Roosevelt did. Here’s what that might look like:

A couple of years into the Great Depression of 2005, Obama decided to run for president on a platform promising “a federal budget annually balanced.” And he personally promised that when he took office he would implement “an immediate and drastic reduction of governmental expenditures.” But Obama quickly fixed the bank panic with free deposit insurance for the banks, and the economy began to recover, with unemployment dropping from 25% to 17%. But as Keynes had to remind him, he had not increased government spending, so unemployment shot back up to 22%. After two-and-a-half years, Obama passed Obamacare (similar to Social Security), but it only took in money for the first few years while providing no healthcare, and it was deliberately sexist and racist.

Early in his second term, Obama got the unemployment rate down to 11%, so he decided the economy no longer needed much support and cut government spending. That sent unemployment back up to 20%. At the start of his third term, America was attacked by Iran, so he put 110,000 Muslims—whole families—in concentration camps for three years. And when Michelle, taken by surprise, protested to Barack about the concentration camps, he said he did not wish to discuss the subject with her!

Obviously, Obama did nothing like this and was a vastly more progressive president than Roosevelt. But substituting Japan for Iran and Eleanor for Michelle, FDR did all of them. He was on the side of the common man, but he was more of a politician than a radical, and the times were different. That’s how you get things done.

Because FDR is such a bugaboo for socialists, I’m sure Sanders is well aware of all this. So it cannot be that he vastly prefers FDR to Obama because Roosevelt was more progressive. So why does Sanders give the ultra-establishment FDR a pass and pretend to worship him?

The story of LBJ, another one of Sanders’ heroes, is not so different. He wasn’t born filthy rich, but he made his $100 million through government corruption involving the FCC and radio stations that his wife owned. Plus, of course, he brought the Vietnam War to a peak, and its death toll, both foreign and domestic, was 10 times that of Bush’s Iraq war. And he was an establishment politician if there ever was one.

What’s Up with Sanders’ Hypocrisy?

So why would Sanders replace his hero, the most-loved American Socialist, Eugene V. Debs, with a staunch anti-socialist, ultra-elite, ultra-establishment, somewhat-racist politician from the party he has despised for his entire life?

I’m not condemning FDR. I’m not a socialist, and I don’t judge people by purity tests. And I do take into account the times in which they lived and that everyone has their good sides and their bad sides. It doesn’t bother me at all if you’re from the top 0.1% or from the political establishment, as long as you’re on our side. So I look at FDR and see him as a hero who is just as flawed as most every other hero.

My point is that Sanders goes around condemning people for their money, for their position in the Democratic Party, for getting only halfway to universal health coverage and for wanting to reform capitalism rather than throwing it out. But he does that only when it’s to his political advantage.

When it’s to his advantage to break every one of his political taboos and break them with a vengeance, he doesn’t think twice.

In the case of FDR and LBJ, he needs to claim them as his own in order to obscure his socialist past. And he needs to define them as socialists so that when well-informed Democrats reject socialism, they will be attacked by his misguided followers.

This is a brilliant strategy for Sanders, and I’m afraid also a brilliant strategy for electing Trump—even though Sanders probably won’t get the nomination.

I would also note that although Sanders’ supposed heroes, FDR and LBJ, were strongly opposed to socialism, they have long been unfairly attacked as socialists—that’s called “red baiting,” and it’s something Sanders vehemently opposes. Yet Sanders has now proclaimed that the red-baiters have been right all along about FDR and LBJ—they really were socialists.

Conclusion

People should not be judged by wealth or social position any more than they should be judged by their race or sexual orientation. To do so is prejudging, otherwise known as prejudice. People should be judged as individuals, by their words and by their actions.

If we were to accept the rantings of Sanders and his fellow radicals against the 1% and the “entire political establishment” right down to the “local party leaders,” we would have to condemn Franklin Roosevelt to the lowest circle of political hell.

This is not a path toward progress but a throwback to a darker age. Sanders is not in FDR’s lane, which has its roots in the American progressive movement. Sanders is still a socialist, and although less dogmatic than most, he operates with a cold expediency masked by self-righteous anger.