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We “rethink the week” with David Levinthal, Senior Political Reporter at the Center for Public Integrity, and Dan Kervick, Ph.D. in Philosophy, blogger and twitter addict.
We discuss the falsely derogatory charge that many traditional Democratic policies are “socialism” and therefore likely to end America as we know it. We note that FDR saved our country from the Great Depression by regulating the excesses of unconstrained big business and by spending government money to create Social Security and the minimum wage, to hire many unemployed workers to build infrastructure and otherwise to stimulate the economy. Large corporations and banks complained that Roosevelt’s New Deal policies were socialist, just as they claimed about LBJ’s 1965 establishment of Medicare and Medicaid, with Obamacare, and with many programs being proposed by presidential candidates today.
We also discuss the Republicans’ legitimization of racism, sexism and Islamophobia. We draw some hope from the diversity of all the current candidates for president and the creative programs that we are proposing.
