Ok, I'm not a historian, and I'm interested in comments to the following theses:
- The New Deal laid the social and economic foundations for the rise of the American Middle Class.
- Following World War II, butressed by favorable national and tax policies to support G. I. education and home ownership, the Middle Class began to take off and to fuel the engines of consumerism and economic prosperity.
- At the same time, more disposable income in families created greater opportunities for financial independence among women, leading to a realignment of the power relationship between the sexes.
- Similarly, greater family disposable income allowed Middle Class teens to spend their parents' money on entertainment items. The creation of American youth culture, ushered in by Elvis, changed family structures further. Kids had money to spend and no longer listened to Lawrence Welk with their parents.
More on the flip. . .
- The 1960's saw these cultural and economic trends expand to the point of challenging the cultural establishment directly. Drafted youth did not unanimously support their fathers' war policies, and women demanded equal pay for equal work.
- The gay rights movement was the logical extension of a cultural movement based not on patriarchal male control, but of individual equality regardless of sex, whereby people create intimate bonds based upon the suitability of partners, and not based on the religious ideologies of patriarchy. Similarly, the civil rights movement on behalf of African Americans is based on notions of inviduual equality and equality of fundamental worth.
- All of our politics since the 1950's have obviously been fought along these fault lines. But for the forces of patriarchal control to reverse these long term cultural trends, they must recreate the conditions of financial dependency of women on men to support their notions of traditional, sanctioned by God family structures.
- In this project, religious fundamentalists and wealthy men agree: to consolidate their power they must undo the New Deal, which provided the foundations for the development of the Middle Class and all of these cultural changes I have outlined.
- Ergo, the GOP is the enemy of the New Deal, which makes it by definition the enemy of the Middle Class, of women and of civil rights.
Is this an argument we should make more clearly in the public sphere? Does it hold up to historical scrutiny? Does this narrative, if adopted, offer an alternate vision and interpretation of American history that Democrats need to present in order to clarify "what we are for?"
Please comment.