How did FDR become the champion of the common man? He pilloried against monied interests, the "economic royalists." The WPA hired 3 million in its first year and 8 million in its short life.
The New Deal created new state institutions providing assistance to the elderly, disabled and poor.
Liberalism is a product of the Enlightenment. People are not frozen in place by birth. Historically liberalism has protected people from being crushed by economic or governmental power.
Alan Brinkley is a professor of history at Columbia University.
to hear Professor Brinkley's 58-minute address broadcast on www.booktv.org July 24, 2010, click on
http://www.booktv.org/Watch/11581/2010+Roosevelt+Reading+Festival+Alan+B...
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Roosevelt also gave the "green light" to the atom bomb that we Liberal Democrats used to end the war against the Japanese right-wing conservatives.
Good for you, President Roosevelt.