The Republican party has a long list of people they don't need around, or at least don't want to be reminded of. Gays, undocumented immigrants, "anchor babies", union workers, women seeking an abortion, on and on. This wasn't always the case with Republicans, for example, George Romney was someone who I could have voted for (I wasn't quite of voter age back then!)
Ella Watson, government charwoman, August 1942.
A classic labor image photographed by Gordon Parks
The Democratic party had a long history of racial intolerance, which the party has only emerged from in the past 30 years. Now the Democratic party is concerned, in its eternally frustrating way, with making sure that the Republic is representative of all the people, and that no one is ignored or whisked behind the door. Now the Republicans mock us for this, say we are "politically correct" etc., but the difference remains.
But I think, and I think most Democrats think, we need everybody. The Republicans again think that for this we are weak sentimentalists. I don't agree at all. Liberalism, and its earlier semi-twin, progressivism, built this country essentially from a wreck in 1929, and incidentally probably saved capitalism as an economic system.
What liberalism needs is to stop being ashamed of itself, to stop being afraid that Ronald Reagan will rise from the grave and attack us as the coddlers of the mythical Cadillac-driving welfare queen of Chicagoland.
Look at that image of Ella Watson from August 1942, a charwoman in government offices in Washington, D.C. She was a grandmother at the time. Ella Watson and everyone like her are the people that our party must stand for.
The Four Freedoms Speech, given by Franklin D. Roosevelt before Congress on January 6, 1941, provides a continuing guide for what it means to be a liberal and a Democrat.
In the State of the Union address given by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on January 6, 1941, he famously set out the Four Freedoms which he believed were threatened all over the world by the advancing totalitarian regimes:
Office of War Information poster, 1943-1945.
In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.
The first is freedom of speech and expression — everywhere in the world.
The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way — everywhere in the world.
The third is freedom from want — which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants - everywhere in the world.
The fourth is freedom from fear — which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor — anywhere in the world.
That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.
In the Four Freedoms speech there were other points which I think could and should form a permanent liberal and progressive agenda.
Roosevelt was explicit about the permanent goals of a democracy:
Roosevelt/Truman 1944 election poster
For there is nothing mysterious about the foundations of a healthy and strong democracy. The basic things expected by our people of their political and economic systems are simple. They are:
Equality of opportunity for youth and for others.
Jobs for those who can work.
Security for those who need it.
The ending of special privilege for the few.
The preservation of civil liberties for all.
The enjoyment of the fruits of scientific progress in a wider and constantly rising standard of living.
These are the simple, basic things that must never be lost sight of in the turmoil and unbelievable complexity of our modern world. The inner and abiding strength of our economic and political systems is dependent upon the degree to which they fulfill these expectations.
Roosevelt also said that rich people needed to pay more taxes as part of a common sacrifice. This is the position we must take now.
We just finished one war that was totally on the credit card, and we're still mired in another. Meanwhile all around the world we have forces deployed in this so-called Global War on Terror. According to the Republicans, there's only one thing worse than terror, and that's a tax increase on income above $1 million/year.
Here's Roosevelt, from the Four Freedoms Speech:
Many subjects connected with our social economy call for immediate improvement.
As examples:
We should bring more citizens under the coverage of old-age pensions and unemployment insurance.
We should widen the opportunities for adequate medical care.
We should plan a better system by which persons deserving or needing gainful employment may obtain it.
I have called for personal sacrifice. I am assured of the willingness of almost all Americans to respond to that call.
A part of the sacrifice means the payment of more money in taxes. In my Budget Message I shall recommend that a greater portion of this great defense program be paid for from taxation than we are paying today. No person should try, or be allowed, to get rich out of this program; and the principle of tax payments in accordance with ability to pay should be constantly before our eyes to guide our legislation.
I don't think it could ever be said any better.