Sanders is the real New Deal

The U.S. middle class did not happen by accident; it was created by the New Deal. I have been waiting 32 years for a New Deal Democrat to run for president again, and this year we finally have one: Bernie Sanders.

Sanders’ opponent for the Democratic nomination is a “New Democrat,” the sort of politicians who have destroyed or weakened most things the New Deal stood for. Do I believe her protestations that now she shares Sanders’ positions to some degree? I remember thinking in 1972 that maybe the leopard could change its spots, and voting for Richard Nixon. I was wrong; and that experience soured me on the idea.

Now that most people of my age are dead, the pendulum is finally beginning to swing back, thanks in no small part to people too young to remember how things were before, but intelligent enough to know there has to be a better way than just more of what we have endured so long. And they are choosing the same route to improving things that the people of my parents’ generation chose when they voted for FDR – conventional political activism. This is just the start.

This story was originally published May 5, 2016 at 11:55 AM with the headline "Sanders is the real New Deal."