Opinion: FDR, DJT and ZKM

There’s so much to say about Friday’s Trump-Mamdani Buddy Show that it’s really hard to know where to begin.

But there was a moment in this 30-minute kumbaya that stood out: the photo pose and comments about Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and President Donald Trump’s common presidential crush: Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

FDR was a role model for democratic socialist politicians like U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders. He took over a country on the brink of economic disaster and instituted socialist-like policies that not only saved the national (and global) economy but still serve as the underpinnings of our modern society, almost a century later.

Roosevelt always insisted that he was not a socialist, and the leader of the Socialist Party at the time even denounced his New Deal proposals as a “pale imitation” of real socialist policies, but FDR created a legacy of social democratic policies that have influenced Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other modern democratic socialists.

When you receive a Social Security check from the government when you’ve hit retirement age, isn’t that a form of socialism? The government program that ensures most senior citizens escape poverty is the definition of Big Government funding people’s needs.

The Social Security Act was enacted in 1935 (90 years ago) in Roosevelt’s first term as part of the New Deal. FDR was the first president in history to advocate federal assistance to the elderly.

That’s in line with democratic socialism.

To combat the housing crisis during the Depression, FDR started the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) in 1934. With mass unemployment combined with a huge liquidity crisis, many banks were recalling loans which led to many people losing their homes. The FHA was created to regulate mortgages and housing conditions. Almost a century later, it still plays a large role in the financing of homes for Americans.

That’s in line with democratic socialism.

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) was created in 1933 by FDR to help sustain the economy of that Southern region, which was severely impacted by the Depression. The TVA was and still is a federally-owned corporation (!!!) that is the largest public provider of electricity in America.

That’s in line with democratic socialism.

These are just three of the many “socialist” programs enacted in the New Deal to revive the American economy and save the American people from economic ruin.

FDR’s first 100 days of frenetic activity have often been compared to the first three-and-a-half months of Trump’s second term. Both men ran roughshod over the other branches of government and acted as if their desired ends justified any means of power grabbing.

Maybe that’s why Trump, the current Republican standard-bearer, so admires FDR, the most consequential Democrat of the last century.

Three decades after FDR and the New Deal, Lyndon Baines Johnson – another frenetic and bullying president known by his three initials, LBJ – injected even more democratic socialism into American society.

Medicaid and Medicare, two huge social safety net programs that continue in America to this day, were created by LBJ in 1965 during his “War on Poverty.”

Over its history in the last six decades, Medicaid has evolved from a program that provided health care to welfare recipients to a broader catch-all program that provides both health care and long-term services to around 40 million people (more than 10% of Americans) at a cost of almost $200 billion to the federal and state governments.

Medicare is a federal health insurance program, which like Social Security is largely used by those over 65 to get affordable health care. Of the $900 billion spent on Medicare in 2022, $423 billion came from the U.S. Treasury.

These big government programs are a step toward democratic socialism. There’s a reason that Sanders and other democratic socialists call for “Medicare for All,” which would expand Medicare coverage to everyone in the U.S., so even people under 65 years old can get reliable and free health care from the government instead of worrying about how to afford skyrocketing private insurance costs.

No matter how much the U.S. Congress – which passed a resolution last week condemning “socialism” – tries to hide from it, the tradition of democratic socialism is entrenched in our economy and society as a result of all these government safety net programs initiated by two Democratic presidents, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon Baines Johnson.

The Trump-Mamdani meeting on Friday was many things, but to those paying attention to the broader historical context, it was a reaffirmation that the Republican president of the United States agrees on many things with the mayor-elect who has quickly become the country’s most famous democratic socialist.

Trump even said that he agrees with Sanders on many things – especially international trade – and that’s why many Bernie voters went for Trump in 2016 and last year.

Democratic socialism is a century-old economic way of life that is here to stay in America. Those who want to attack people like Mamdani, AOC and other self-proclaimed democratic socialists are cynically conflating socialism with Stalinist Communism and using those very different ideologies interchangeably.

It was heartening to see Trump and Mamdani, two men from Queens, pay homage to another famous New Yorker (from Hyde Park) and implicitly announce to the world that the New Deal and its democratic socialist ideals are still alive and well in America.