Onward

 On 14 August 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law. I shared Heather Cox Richardson’s story this morning of the driving force behind it, FDR’s Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins. She was the first female Cabinet Secretary and millions of Americans remain in her debt (and Roosevelt’s) for ensuring a social welfare net for seniors and others. The 1930s were dire times for our country and much of the world with depression and the rise of fascism; we survived and the liberal world order and democracy that followed lasted for over 30 years. America had a robust middle class for the first time in its history.

We know, of course, that this did not last. The neoliberals, enthralled with unfettered capitalism and profits as the apex of life, came to the fore in the 1980s with Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. The policies of the New Deal were anathema and have been eroded piece by piece over the past 40 years. Now the party of Donald Trump wants to undo Social Security and its sister, Medicare, with the idea of sunsetting all laws every five years. Florida Senator Rick Scott is using scare tactics to push his plan for fiscal responsibility. Scott is the wealthiest Senator (not worth $259 million) so I doubt he will be harmed regardless of the status of Social Security and Medicare. Millions of working Americans will be. I hope that in November Floridians will remember Scott and that the rest of America will remember his GOP cronies. The ballot box is an effective cleanser of the rot of the Republican Party.

When voting in November, it is important to pay attention to local and state races as well as those for federal offices. Jane Mayer has an excellent article or podcast about how gerrymandering is converting the state of Ohio into an extremist state that resembles Gilead. SCOTUS took women’s right to make decisions about their own bodies away, substituting theocratic nonsense. As Mayer notes, the supermajority of Republicans in the Ohio legislature operate on a “Who is going to stop us?” basis. The answer is we will stop this, but it will take time and it requires holding the House and Senate.

Trump himself is looking increasingly cornered, in NY state, in Georgia, at the January 6th Committee, and now by DoJ as the likely violations of the Espionage Act come fully to light. Trump was already a con man, a serial liar, and a sociopath when he was elected in 2016. We got from him what could be expected – huge tax cuts for the rich and scandal after scandal. His mishandling of classified documents, along with his blatant attempt to remain in office after losing the 2020 election, will put him in the Benedict Arnold and Jefferson Davis class. 

Biden met with a small group of historians on 4 August who warned him that our democracy is teetering. We are at a perilous point in our history matched only by 1860 as the clouds of the Civil War gathered and 1940 as fascism overran Europe and America Firsters wanted the United States to just sit on the sidelines. I am not a historian but that is exactly how I feel about the present. We can extricate ourselves from this mess but it will be painful and require time. The first thing to do is indict and prosecute Trump – we must firmly show that we are a nation of laws and that would-be dictators such as Trump and his ilk have no place here. The second thing is to have a blue wave in November. If Democrats hold the House and pick up Senate seats, voting rights can be shored up, women’s right to control their own bodies restored and continued work on that existential bugbear of climate change can proceed. And we must support Ukraine as they fight the tyranny of Putin.

FDR, Frances Perkins, and others showed that America can work its way to a more just and equitable society. Let’s replicate that in the coming years and not backslide into a world of white supremacy, bigotry, and xenophobia.