On June 14th, 1936, two days after Alf Landon accepted the nomination of the Republican Party for president, a New York Times columnist wrote:
The stage show looked like America, but the convention hall did not. The crowd seemed like the sanctuary of a minority — economically wounded capitalists in shades from eggshell to ecru, cheering the man . . . and trying to fathom why they’re not running the country anymore. The speakers ranted about an America in decline, but the audience reflected a party in decline.
Oh, wait a minute. My mistake. That was Maureen Dowd writing yesterday. My, how time stands still when you’re having fun.
In 1936, the Republicans were indeed wondering why they weren’t still running the country. They had been, after all, since 1896, with the exception of 1913-1921, when a split in the party had given the election to Woodrow Wilson. And they certainly hankered for a return to the glory days of Calvin Coolidge, while the Democrats recognized that the Great Depression had changed things forever. While the country was still mired in depression, it was in much better shape than it had been four years earlier. In 1936, unemployment averaged a dismal 16.9 percent. But that was down from over 25 percent. The Dow reached 194.40 in June 1936. It had been at 40.21 in June 1932, barely half a point above its first-ever close in 1896.
In his great Second Inaugural Address (after trouncing Alf Landon in the election) FDR said, quite accurately, “I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.” But as Michael Ledeen points out, the economic world of 1936 is a vanished world. No one today in this country lives in anything like the sort of poverty that millions of sharecroppers in the South and unskilled industrial laborers in the North knew in 1936. By the standards of 1936, most American families are filthy rich and those who aren’t receive massive assistance to raise them above the poverty line.
The national debt in 1936 was 40 percent of GDP. Today it is over 100 percent. The deficit in 1936 was 5.5 percent of GDP, this year it will be over 7 percent.
But for liberals like Maureen Dowd it is always 1936. The problems of 1936 are the problems today. The solutions for 1936 are the solutions for today. And the Republicans are a few people in mink coats and dinner jackets going down to the long-vanished Trans-Lux theater to hiss Roosevelt.
I wonder, is the one note little vamp still using her college yearbook photo with the 'I suck a mean #$%&' expression? n n nThe unbearable lightness of being.
The much-abused and long-suffering Maureen Dowd – her column is ill considered, poorly reasoned, and simply a rant and rave by a shrew who is finding herself less and less relevant to the world around her. She is lost in her own fog.
What does this have to do with Maureen Dowd's article? The 1936 reference is your own. You simply state that liberals think it's 1936, without evidence. She wrote an entire column for you to challenge on its merits, yet you choose to create a straw man. Why? n nAlso, I noticed the two comments above this are both personal attacks on Maureen Dowd. Is that the level of discourse you want?
Dowd is beyond being 'discourse-able'. She is a parody of a columnist. n nLike with Friedman, one can rig up an automated Dowd column generator. You just have to input how many column inches you need, and supply a few key words you want in the piece, to differentiate it from last week's. n nSlap on the college '#%£¥ me' photo, and you're good till next week. n
Dowd says Ryan looks like an Irish undertaker. n nIs that the level of disocurse you want? n nHer column is nothing but petty snark and, really, unhinged vitriol. And always through the prism of race. n nThere is nothing to discuss or serve as a springboard to further thought. n nWhat is wrong with these people? n nWhat is it about incompetent management and a nation going over a cliff while the Chief exec goes golfing, gives interviews to Entertainment Tonight, and accuses his political adversaries of murder, that they don't get? nI
David, nMr. Gordon was making a point. It sure sounds like something that was riffed from 1936, and the larger issue, that liberals today, by blowing the class warfare trumpet, are quite similar to their New Deal forefathers, is incontestable. I thought Mr. Gordon's point was well made. So I don't think he's creating a straw man. nAs for your concern about the personal attacks on Dowd – well, it's tempting to ignore people like her. Unfortunately, because she writes a column for the NY Times she gets far more attention than she deserves and it behooves conservatives to counterattack once in a while. But doing so is demeaning – like getting into a shouting match with an 8th grader. In that sense, I thought the comments above were entirely appropriate and funny, actually.
“And the Republicans are a few people in mink coats and dinner jackets going down to the long-vanished Trans-Lux theater to hiss Roosevelt.” n nWhat a great line. n nFor the rest of us living outside the DNC media’s artificial reality bubble the "few people in mink coats and dinner jackets” are mostly the Hollywood crowd in their stretched limousines with their claques in train hissing Sarah Palin and the Tea Party. n nI see a further 1930's analogy with Obama playing a role similar to Herbert Hoover’s in unwittingly closing out the over long hegemony of his party. Hoover played his role more or less involuntarily; but Obama is playing his role with much more determination, ideologue that he is. n
"shades from eggshell to ecru" n nStriking how Dem apologists like Dowd are enshrining hatred for whites as the holy mantra of the Democratic party. To be socially acceptable you have to a suffiiency of accessories in shades of black to brown. n nAnd Gordon's right: To today's Democrats the struggling small businessman is the 1930s plutocrat, worthy only of scorn (unless she's in the field of green energy).
The modern American Left still thinks of a businessman as the fat, top-hatted, tuxedoed capitalist portrayed in the game Monopoly. n nIt's remarkable how many leftists actually believe that the government can do everything better than the private sector–even building smartphones and hard disk drives. n nDon't believe me? Sometime, ask a leftist what things in our economy must be done by the private sector and never by the public sector.
They don't really believe it, any more than Reid would wear Mao suits. The ruling leftist elite wants and gets nothing but the best-for themselves.