For my generation, the Vietnam War was the catastrophe that destroyed our hopes for a decent America. Vietnam wrecked the most expansive domestic program since the New Deal, LBJ’s Great Society. Vietnam splintered the New Deal coalition, divided the kids from the hard hats, and ushered in a Republican era that undermined civil rights and began the “Southern strategy” of using racism to convert the Dixiecrat Solid South into a Republican Solid South. The defection of the white working class from the Democrats began a long and winding road that led to Donald Trump.
If anything, Biden’s quagmire is worse. And so are the consequences.
Like Lyndon Johnson, Joe Biden was a pleasant surprise for progressives. His speech to the Steelworkers Wednesday was the most pro-union speech by a U.S. president I’ve ever heard, outdoing even FDR. Like Johnson, Biden has pursued a stunningly progressive series of economic policies. Unlike Johnson, who had a working majority in Congress that rivaled Roosevelt’s, Biden has done it with fumes…..more
