Joe Biden Never Wanted a Roosevelt-Style Presidency
When Joe Biden was inaugurated a year ago, many expected his presidency to emulate the reforming ambition of FDR’s New Deal. But that ignores what made the New Deal possible: a climate of militant agitation and a populist president willing to align himself with it.
One year into Joe Biden’s presidency, comparisons to FDR and New Deal policy haven’t aged well. (Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images)
In a near-exact repeat of 2009, Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory prompted a flurry of speculation about a transformative political moment in the making. For the first few months of the Biden presidency, even critics on the Left perceived something of a break from the norm as the administration tabled big spending plans and quickly passed the American Rescue Plan. Others, meanwhile, remained skeptical of the burgeoning comparisons to Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, which became something of a cottage industry throughout the media.
In the following interview, conducted exactly one year after Biden’s inauguration, Jacobin’s Luke Savage sat down with prominent New Deal historian Harvey J. Kaye for a wide-ranging discussion of the administration’s first year in office, the political battles of the 1930s, and why Biden has fallen far short of the gushing proclamations that initially heralded his election.
Luke Savage
How would you characterize the New Deal as a political settlement? What were its constitutive elements beyond specific pieces of legislation that passed through Congress?
Harvey J. Kaye
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