As President, Bernie Sanders Should Use Executive Orders Aggressively — Just Like FDR Did
From the creation of the Civil Works Administration to the Office of Scientific Research and Development, Franklin Delano Roosevelt radically remade the American state using the power of executive orders. If Bernie Sanders wins the White House, he should do the same.
Bernie Sanders at an event hosted by the American Federation of Government Employees in Washington on February 13, 2019.
For decades, conservatives have wielded power far more effectively than liberals. And American workers have paid the price.
From the 2000 Bush v. Gore Supreme Court decision to Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell’s successful stonewalling of court nominee Merrick Garland, conservatives have used any and all means at their disposal to enact their agenda. As these examples suggest, Republicans correctly understand that in politics one has friends and one has enemies, and that the goal is to aid the former and defeat the latter.
Democrats, though, have time and again refused to wield the power necessary not only to enact their agenda but even to save their own party from collapse. It’s a reluctance that has led to an all-powerful GOP at every level of government, even as the party remains deeply unpopular. Barack Obama, for instance, declined to use the presidential bully pulpit to force McConnell to seat Garland on the Supreme Court, while Joe Biden is currently running for president on the absurd claim that, if he were elected, McConnell would spontaneously become “mildly cooperative” and work with him to achieve his plans.
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