When Democrats Sounded Like Democrats

America has done great things in her past and we can do them again. We just need to purge our ranks of the feted and stale leadership who have congregated on the banks of the Potomac and who have become indistinguishable from one another. Democrats talk like Republicans today. Who, then, is left to speak like a Democrat? Where is our FDR?

"To those who say that our expenditures for Public Works and other means for recovery are a waste that we cannot afford, I answer that no country, however rich, can afford the waste of its human resources. Demoralization caused by vast unemployment is our greatest extravagance. Morally, it is the greatest menace to our social order. Some people try to tell me that we must make up our minds that for the future we shall permanently have millions of unemployed just as other countries have had them for over a decade. What may be necessary for those countries is not my responsibility to determine. But as for this country, I stand or fall by my refusal to accept as a necessary condition of our future a permanent army of unemployed. On the contrary, we must make it a national principle that we will not tolerate a large army of unemployed and that we will arrange our national economy to end our present unemployment as soon as we can and then to take wise measures against its return. I do not want to think that it is the destiny of any American to remain permanently on relief rolls."

FDR, On Moving Forward to Greater Freedom and Greater Security, September 30, 1934

 I love my country but I am ashamed of my government's inaction in the face of crushing levels of unemployment and vast income inequalities.  I grew up believing we, as Americans, could do anything we set our minds to.  Now, with a regressive, divisive and willfully ignorant opposition party dominated by theists, racists and grifters, our ability to confront these challenges with courage and resolve seems irretrievably damaged.