"In the 1935 Telling, Redistribution Was the Mechanism of Abundance"

"Even in those invocations of abundance, the stark differences between the socialist abundance movement of 1935 and the moderate abundance agenda of 2025 are apparent. The concept of 'production for use' is in contrast to the capitalist profit motive. In socialist thought, one of the core issues of a capitalist economy is that profit motives result in wealth accumulation becoming divorced from the creation of actual economic value. A production for use system makes production and allocation decisions based on need (or 'use value'), rather than market prices."

Dylan Gyauch-Lewis at The New Republic describes "An Altogether Different Kind of Abundance Agenda."

"To Restore a Fundamental Principle of Fairness to Our Economy"

"But the FTC's decision to stop enforcing it decades ago triggered a seismic shift in America. It gave massive chains like Walmart free rein to squeeze suppliers for unfair discounts. Walmart's expansion went unchecked; manufacturers consolidated and shuttered factories; jobs vanished; and thousands of small businesses folded, leaving hollowed-out Main Streets and food deserts in their wake. Outside of the collapse of US manufacturing, few economic forces have done as much damage to the American landscape in the past 50 years."

Ron Knox at The Nation discusses a revival of the Robinson-Patman Act.

"A Philosophical Brief in Defense of Liberalism"

"Living this liberal vision, for Obama, means accepting the diversity inherent to a large society made up of people with all sorts of beliefs and worldviews: recognizing that 'our fellow citizens deserve the same grace we hope they'll extend to us.' It means understanding 'true freedom' as something that gives all of us the right 'to make decisions about our own life [and] requires us to recognize that other people have the right to make decisions that are different than ours.' And it means seeing democracy as more than 'just a bunch of abstract principles and a bunch of dusty laws in a book somewhere,' but rather 'the values we live by.'"

Zack Beauchamp at Vox reacts to Barack Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention.

And Harold Meyerson at The American Prospect looks back to the Democrats' 1924 convention.

"In the Early '70s, No One Could Have Predicted That a Combination of Social Upheaval, Economic Crisis, and Political Talent Was About to Usher in a Brand-New Economic Era"

"Three main theories have emerged, each with its own account of how we got here and what it might take to change course. One theory holds that the story is fundamentally about the white backlash to civil-rights legislation. Another pins more blame on the Democratic Party's cultural elitism. And the third focuses on the role of global crises beyond any political party's control. Each theory is incomplete on its own. Taken together, they go a long way toward making sense of the political and economic uncertainty we're living through."

Rogé Karma at The Atlantic asks, "Why did America abandon the New Deal so decisively? And why did so many voters and politicians embrace the free-market consensus that replaced it?"

"What Hath Neoliberalism Wrought?"

"The endlessly iterated message of this lobbying, Oreskes and Conway say, is that economic and political freedoms are indivisible. Any restriction on the first is a threat to the second. This is the 'big myth' of their title, and they show us, in somewhat fire-hose detail, how a lot of people spent a lot of time and money putting that idea into the mind of the American public. The book is an immense scholarly feat, but the authors insist that it is not just an 'academic intervention.' They have a political purpose. They think that one role of government has been to correct for market failures, and, if government is discredited, how is it going to correct for what may be the biggest market failure of all: climate change?"

At The New Yorker, Louis Menand reviews Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway's The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market.

"Transports You Back to an Era Much Different Than the Divided and Cacophonous Times We're Living in Now"

"Of course, real life is never like a Norman Rockwell painting. But it is good to be reminded of a time when more of our great country's energy and time were focused on moving together towards higher ideals than sniping at one another on social media or paralyzing government with our divisions--or stroking one narcissist's enormous ego."

Brian Katulis at The Liberal Patriot praises Franklin D. Roosevelt's, and Norman Rockwell's, Four Freedoms.

If "Good Enough for A Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin, for FDR and JFK, It Should Be Good Enough for Today's Democratic Party"

"A Democratic party that adopts these principles has a real shot at political domination given Republicans' serious problems and weaknesses. Conversely, a Democratic party that continues on its present course dooms American politics to continued stalemate and polarization. Like the prospect of an imminent hanging, that should concentrate the mind."

Ruy Teixeira at The Liberal Patriot writes that it is "time for Democrats to try something that really could unite the country: liberal nationalism."

"The Core 200-Year Mission of Democrats"

"When Democrats advance equal dignity and rights for everyone—and focus primarily on the economic interests of working people—they win. When Democrats divide themselves and other Americans along regional, class, and ideological lines—or bicker internally over cultural divisions and downplay unifying economic policies—they lose."

John Halpin at The Liberal Patriot reviews Michael Kazin's What It Took to Win: A History of the Democratic Party.

And Ruy Teixeira describes the Democrats of the past year as "How Not to Build a Coalition."

While Teixeira also states that Democrats should always ask themselves, "What Would the Working Class Say?"

"Biden Is Not Set to Achieve Anything Comparable in His First Two Years"

"The Democrats' agenda is a very progressive one, and Republicans are right to oppose most of it. If Democratic boasting about how far left they are going causes a backlash that impedes their plans and hurts them in the next election, it will serve them right. But the notion that the Left is leaving behind the half measures of the Obama era—making a great leap forward, as it were—is not really true. The first two years of the Obama presidency included, in addition to the stimulus, a permanent expansion of taxes, spending, and regulation in the Obamacare legislation; new regulation of the financial industry; and repeal of the military's 'don't ask, don’t tell' policy."

Ramesh Ponnuru at The National Review calls President Biden's "revolution" into question.

But at Politico, John F. Harris argues that Biden's "address to a joint session Congress was the most ambitious ideological statement made by any Democratic president in decades."

"His Biggest Political Battle of His Life with Weapons That no Longer Worked"

"Four years later, Michael Dukakis declared that 'this election is not about ideology, it is about competence.' In the next cycle, Bill Clinton declared himself 'a different kind of Democrat' and jettisoned some of his party's positions about crime and welfare. Al Gore began his political life as a centrist, much in the model of Clinton."

Jeff Greenfield at Politico calls Walter Mondale "The Last Old-School Democrat."

"Why Has the Dream That Animated Generations of Ayn Rand–Toting Buckleyites to Join the Cause Been Quietly Forgotten?"

"To give them somewhat more credit, Trump has genuinely changed Republican elites' thinking about what their voters care about. 'One of the things we discovered to our dismay in 2016 is that the electorate—the base of the Republican Party—was really not conservative in any meaningful way,' explains Mona Charen. Charen comes from the party's anti-Trump wing, but pro-Trump Republicans have been saying similar things throughout, lambasting their party's former leaders as heartless plutocrats rightly cast aside by the proletarian base."

Jonathan Chait at New York argues that the "Republicans' Long War to Roll Back the New Deal Is Finally Over."

"Who Needs a Public Health System When Sickness Is a Personal Failure?"

"In the workplace, the anti-smoking movement had a stronger card to play: the 'social cost' of smoking, which activists learned to quantify. The key moment was a lawsuit brought by a telephone company employee called Donna Shimp, who suffered from headaches and rashes in the smoky office where she worked for New Jersey Bell. In 1975, Shimp sued for a smoke-free workplace on the basis of her rights as a non-smoker, but she also stressed the 'cost factors' of workplace smoking. If New Jersey Bell would not act on behalf of non-smokers, it might act on behalf of its bottom line–as indeed it did. Shimp and the group she founded, Environmental Improvement Associates, gestured towards the health hazards of inhaling second-hand smoke, which researchers were beginning to discern, but her argument boiled down to the claim that 'smoking–and quite often, smokers–cost too much.' This chimed with a new wave of management consultancy that dedicated itself to a leaner, meaner, cleaner workplace."

Jackson Lears at the London Review of Books reviews Sarah Milov's The Cigarette: A Political History.

"Jackson's Out, the Franklins Are In"

"In recent years, Joe Biden has also become vocal about racial issues, citing the horrors of the Charlottesville 'Unite the Right' rally in 2017 as his motivation for jumping into the 2020 presidential contest, and calling in his inaugural address for confronting the threat of 'white supremacy.' In response to the civil unrest last year prompted by police brutality against African Americans, Biden made a point of rejecting calls to defund the police but made promises to push for criminal justice reform. Both as a candidate and in his first days as president, Biden has challenged Americans to live up to their ideals, including the proposition that 'all men are created equal.' Ben Franklin's story, therefore, from slaveholder to staunch antislavery advocate, can help remind us of the power and importance of living up to the revolutionary promises of the founding."

Daniel N. Gullotta and Kelsa Pellettiere at The Bulwark discuss "[h]ow to understand President Joe Biden’s choice of Oval Office art."

"They Recognized That He Was One-Eighth Indian, but He Had Served the Interests of White People for a Long, Long Time"

"'The one thing that might have lightened the persecution of Curtis was that he was half white,' Brooks says. 'He's light-complected, he's not dark-skinned like a lot of Kanza. His personality wins people over—unfortunately, racists can like a person of color and still be a racist, and I think that's kind of what happened with Charlie. He was just a popular kid.'" 

Livia Gershon at Smithsonian discusses Charles Curtis, the first Native American to become Vice President of the United States.

"To Quantify the Unquantifiable"

"But Lindsay Rogers might have had a more fundamental critique than that: The idea of political polling was broken to start with. It was a falsely scientific way to put numbers on a concept that can't be measured in the first place, and which changes shape every time you try. And indeed, it is the very elusiveness of political opinion—its resistance to being pinned down—that makes democracy necessary. When we measure mass or distance, we know we can do so accurately. But our values, attitudes and opinions are not concrete but fluid. They change with time—in the days and weeks before an election, as well as in the years in between them. Which is precisely why democracy requires that every few years, we vote anew."

David Greenberg at Politico recalls "The Political Scientist Who Warned Us About Polls."

And at Vox, Dylan Matthews interviews David Shor about contemporary polling problems.

"If Ever There Was a Time to Rejoin the Two and Leverage Nationalism to Counter Ethno-Nationalism, It Is Now"

"Post-Vietnam progressives answered King's call to eschew imperialism but they mistrusted nationalism. Many came to regard it as just another expression of toxic tribalism that modernization and popular enlightenment would one day wash away. Democrats have told stories of class, gender, and racial injustice, and they have rightly pressed for ameliorative policies, but they have typically failed to scale up their message to a full-blown narrative that joins the pursuit of justice to the nation's ideals, identity, and greatness. Most party leaders have also refrained from taking the lead on national interests and security, leaving that to the Republicans. As a result, they left the flag with politicians who carried it into another reckless war—and eventually turned it over to Trump, whose patriotic pretensions too often go unchallenged despite their manifest hollowness."

M. Steven Fish, Neil A. Abrams, and Laila M. Aghaie at Slate argue that "American liberals have been relatively comfortable talking about race but have forgotten how to speak the language of nationalism."

Trump's Bonus

"The early 1930s resembled the present moment in some striking ways. The nation's economy was in free fall, connected to a global economic downturn, with no clear end in sight. Previous years of national prosperity had badly deepened economic inequality, making the crisis all the more severe for those left behind during the boom times. At home and abroad, authoritarian movements were on the march, demonizing ethnic and racial minorities and trashing liberal democratic values. Dissatisfaction was rampant, but it remained unclear who or what would replace the status quo."

Sean Wilentz at Rolling Stone compares Donald Trump to Herbert Hoover.

Proto-Cointelpro

"Yet, in all its activities, the government offered the rationale of 'national security,' claiming that internal dangers were sufficient to discard constitutional guarantees. In responding to criticism over the prosecution of the Christian Front, Hoover had retorted: 'It took only 23 men to overthrow Russia.' Administration reasoning in World War II set a precedent for far more massive government spying during the Cold War, particularly against civil rights organizations and opponents of the Vietnam conflict. The very Smith Act used in 1944 against domestic fascists was used with far more severity against Communists during the Cold War, the law's scope only being limited by the Supreme Court in 1957."

In a 2017 Daily Beast article, Justus D. Doenecke looks at civil liberties under Franklin Roosevelt.

"Anyone Who Expects a Restoration of the Status Quo Ante 2017 May Be in for a Rude Awakening"

"Take, for example, three cherished institutions—White House press briefings, independent courts, respect for nonpartisan law enforcement agencies and a nonpartisan civil service. Their foundations are more young and shaky than you might think, and once altered, they may not be easily restored. Future presidents may regard newer precedents as more binding. A once-sturdy nonpartisan civil service and equally assured nonpartisan courts may be too weakened to enforce a return to prior norms. A public once conditioned to expect certain things of its presidents may have lost a critical amount of muscle memory."

Joshua Zeitz at Politico discusses more damage Donald Trump has done.

"The Death of Hope by a Thousand Tiny Technocratic 'Nudges'"

"The Democrats' fecklessness, in other words, did not flourish in a partisan vacuum. It has been, at every juncture, inspired and influenced by the complete failure of the right to self-police. The American right, like the housing market and the banks and the hedge funds and the health insurers and providers, simply could not be induced to check its basest instincts in the face of an opponent that staked its entire political credibility on the promise that it could make Republicans fall in line with realigned incentives or One Weird Trick. If liberals want to get the next decade right, after the previous one in which we repeatedly failed to save the world while telling ourselves we were doing so, we will need to stop nudging and begin fighting."

Alex Pareene at The New Republic laments the Democrats' embrace of "Nudge-ocracy."