Barack Obama and the breakdown of the American Center

Call it a tale of two presidents. When Barack Obama was first elected President, the nation was truly in crisis, mired in an economic crisis unequaled since the Great Depression. The enthusiasm and hope greeting his election was compared by many to that which greeted Franklin Delano Roosevelt upon his ascension. Indeed, right after his election, Obama was featured on the cover of Time Magazine fashioned to look like FDR in his 1930s-era convertible.

The comparison seemed apt. After all, in 1932, FDR seemed to be coming to the rescue of a nation seemingly coming apart. Roosevelt took radical steps, implementing the New Deal which included not only short-term stimulus to get the economy moving again, but long-term interventions that would forever after change the relationship Americans have with government. Roosevelt’s approach was so radical that some have called him a “traitor to his class,” since he pursued this radical pro-worker agenda despite his privileged background.

But there is another take on Roosevelt’s policies. At the time, there were growing movements on the left and the right offering answers to desperate Americans. On the left were the Marxists, on the right, Fascists. Roosevelt’s aggressive intervention, combined with his talent at communicating his agenda of hope cut these movements off at their knees. There was no need for radical steps since the system had worked — the United States took care of its citizens and acted justly. Roosevelt’s action led to the ascendency of the…