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and her today is franklin roosevelt's birthday
the original modern era
liberal actually could say teddy roosevelt the Republican president
above the beginning up the nineteenth century was the
the archetype I suppose Ive the modern liberal
I E be probably call themselves that and William Howard Taft there but we're
gonna follow demo broke up Standard Oil
a was 8 libete was back to the days when the republican party had a large liberal
contingent 1907 they passed the
the the Tillman act that made it a felony for corporation
to get money to candidates for political office for example but franklin
roosevelt brought us the 40-hour workweek brought seen it is Asian
broader social security
army it was the new deals style liberal economics that brought us medicaid
medicare
and the minimum wage wolf FDR brought us the minimum wage
a whole variety of programs
that that created I would say
created the modern American middle class and kept people when they fell out of
the middle class a falling too hard
and hitting hitting the ground too hard Jack Kennedy famously said he was proud
to be called a liberal this from the JFK Library areas
but hit by a liberal they may be someone who looked ahead
and not behind someone will welcome the new ideas
without review reactions someone who cares about the welfare of the people
their hell their hollow their school
their job their stable right now and then people nobody
someone who believe that we can break through
that stalemated base unit that rebuttal
in of quality the broad it bad what they mean by a liberal
then I'm proud to say that I'm a liberal I was Sir Jack Kennedy speaking before
the Liberal Party
above New York State on the line with us
is Fred Segal senior fellow at the manhattan institute contributing editor
the City Journal author of the revolt
against the masses are liberalism has undermined
the middle class tried welcome to the program
thank you haha about are you using the word liberalism
in the classic European sense what we call conservatives here are you really
asserting that all the things that I just said
that I just laid out have actually worked against the middle class
only the for the is if they
reform movement from 1900 to 1920 roughly 1921 we're part of the
Progressive Era
progressivism was bipartisan you a teddy roosevelt
when republicans Woodrow Wilson among the democrats
on the traditional count on both liberals and conservatives is a history
of liberalism begins with aggressive is a
it proceeds for the New Deal gone to great society
I argued that role through liberalism is we
the first one as we understand it was first a
use the term was first used and the concept as we understand it was first
used in the early 1920s
to me something quite different but the
the the logic of progressivism flu feels great society is true for talking about
the growth for the administrative state
there is a continuity well progresses
30 so we will see more intensely moralistic protestants
they believed in social up with the new deal broke with all that
the one that was the height of progressivism
was prohibition there was a passport right we are who's that was passed by
progresses wanna make sure when a guy came on Friday
he didn't help drunk always paycheck by actually was
the I think the you yeah I i've read a book on at least one book on the history
of that era
and one other problems that we had in the nineteen
twenties was that desperately during the Roaring Twenties after after
a were what watson et harding was elected in nineteen twenty-one
and he dropped the top income tax rate down 25 percent was
that you know so much money was going up to the top and
but the working classes were just been crush and
the morning what we call a coffee break started becoming the *** break
and people were sloshed by the time they got they got home from work
think with all due respect see if you to revive enough
alcoholism the the problem I love
salumi was it with perpetual problem American Society for the Civil War
2012 yeah I don't disagree but it was
it was in message to publish was passed in nineteen 19 will be
before already nobody was elected 1920 know the
this was but bipartisan the factories that era these these are people who are
working
eight nine 10 and 12 hour days sometimes 12 hours of the 12 hour shifts
right if they work they were brutal days and they they then they drank during
their breaks
certainly was just reading during the breaks it was true
tricking during the day continuously work workplace a accident it was
if they lose yes office so you know that week we tried the wrong solution I mean
we so we thought that the problem was %ah callers in the problem was a beer or
being worked to death and they were using alcohol
as a SAV armory I would agree with that okay i think i think i think is the
script but I but
but about how is it that you can say liberalism has undermined the middle
class and in with that single exception which i think was a
misguided attempt to solve a real problem come over with a mix for me
explain it
the people first people call themselves liberals in the wake of World War one
with people mentally angry with Woodrow Wilson Woodrow Wilson middle
has been a progressive hereof not deliver there was no liberal shift
for progressive hero in nineteen 1970 when it was opposed to the war
when he went to war he did something I always funny people
he only stayed tremendous repression German daily incision act
to far beyond that certain American protective week
love attacks on german Americans who he was
it was an ugly an ugly ugly stretch right at the end of the war there was a
solution book this would not only with with the peace in europe
but with that the affects the effect to the way you can call that liberal but I
I would call that
reactionary I would call that conservative we want when you want to
let me explain this %ah be glad to
why Yahoo I've been bloody you have no paragraph gotten to the point yes
okay we'll get to the point place we had I'm going to try to the point is that
the Idaho number of people in the weaker the war
who decried the middle class and leave in the middle class for the work
Sinclair Lewis Main Street
babbitt it can't happen here these were the first people who call themselves
liberals
and the adapted European attitudes for the middle class
European have I stole it wasn't the private sector middle-class
was de rigueur on both left and right what know what the liberals or the
nineteen twenties wanted
with a more hierarchical more aristocratic more European Society
that liberals I didn't get that for making it happen here
sorry I'm I haven't read the other two books you describe but I I have read it
can't happen here
and you know it's it's
IIIi I didn't see that in there with the bad guys in it can you
with this was fascism come from to kill his fifty welcome to the people
well out of the Rotary Club yeah if there is a
the book opens in a rotary club because on it the idea that the people the
middle class once also the source a fascist so you're defining the middle
class
as the small businessperson just a small business press pose the working sector
the private sector middle-class more
more broadly Main Street so how is it that today
people who call themselves liberals who are following the traditions
franklin roosevelt and lyndon johnson
how can you say that their destroying the middle class when it is the
republicans the conservatives with the fee 1 866
the New Left the left push them aside the left was an immensely hostile to the
social democratic politics
all the New Deal that social democratic politics who the last for about 1935 21
1965
the New Left said no use for that McGovern is meant no use for the kind of
trade unions which are you
the kinda social so governor is it okay total advocate of trade unions
I i don't know what 62 talking about the I lived through them
traders thereof and in the sixties II was through
the idea of making fun of the other guy who took his bow down to the shore on
the weekends
was de rigueur the whole point was to transferring conventional middle-class
norms
not not to allow people to move into know the whole point I and II was a verb
SDS in that his six to resume the whole point
was was too to bring people up
into the middle class in the head the Port Huron document the town hero
was about social justice cq61 tell me what happened why 1965 1966
a we're up we're at a time I can I don't know the answer your question
arm interesting conversation Friday gonna have to have a longer version on
Sunday Fred Segal
senior fellow at the manhattan institute will be back