Thank you President Joseph Biden: Take credit for this public policy success! #COVIDRelief

What President Franklin Delano Roosevelt can teach President Joe Biden: Opinion echo published in the MinnPost nonprofit news by Professor Colette Hyman. 

Democrats will need to make sure that voters know who is responsible for the extension of unemployment insurance; the $300 per child, per month cash benefit; and the $1,400 relief check that will be making for a brighter spring, for so many.

Sometimes, the stars align and what is happening in the world mirrors what my students and I are studying in U.S. history. Such is the co-incidence of the impending passage of the American Rescue Plan, and the place of the New Deal on our syllabus. So this week we are discussing what lessons we might draw from the New Deal to understand this expansive piece of legislation, and also use knowledge of that historical moment and its consequences to speculate about what might be in store in the weeks, and months, and years to come.

Much of what the New Deal accomplished — e.g. the minimum wage and Social Security — and has become part of what Americans take for granted over the course of their lives, was wildly popular with Americans mired in the unemployment, bankruptcies, and evictions of the Great Depression. These programs helped FDR win re-election to the presidency three more times, and helped the Democratic Party maintain strong majorities in one or both houses of Congress for much of the following decades.

The success of the social safety net woven by Roosevelt and the Democratic Party was so powerful that it set the rules of engagement in domestic policymaking, for both parties, until 1980. As I like to point out to my students, the “New Deal consensus” was so irresistible that even Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican president, supported increases in the minimum wage and extensive infrastructure projects, including the beginnings of the Interstate highway system, recently renamed Dwight D. Eisenhower Interstate Highway System.

Taking credit in effective outreach

Rural electrification, protections for unions, and above all, jobs, went a long way to improving the lives of millions of people living in the United States, but the secret to the success of FDR and the Democratic Party lay in the fact that they made sure that those who benefited from those initiatives knew where they were coming from. Roosevelt himself held weekly “Fireside Chats,” each Sunday night entering the homes of the women and men who now had the means to keep a roof over their heads, and electricity to run the radio. Roosevelt was an affable character, who loved nothing more than to meet with members of the public and hear their concerns and tell them about what he was doing for them.

FDR’s outreach efforts were well matched by those of first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who had a syndicated newspaper column in which she responded to readers’ letters asking about how, for instance, to sign up for Social Security. The first couple were without doubt deeply compassionate and empathetic national leaders. At the same time, they fully understood the value of making sure that American voters understood how their lives were made better by the policies that the Roosevelt administration and a Democratic Congress adopted.

Unfortunately for the nation, President Barack Obama did not sufficiently study his U.S. history. He should have followed in the footsteps of FDR. How many Americans were aware that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a Democratic initiative, helped them get back on their feet after the collapse of the housing market and ensuing Great Recession? How much energy did he spend publicizing the accomplishments of that stimulus package or, for that matter, “Obamacare”?

Has Joe Biden learned?

What kind of student of history will Joe Biden be? For starters, he can take a page from the playbook of his predecessor, who made sure that his signature appeared on their $600 pandemic relief checks last spring. How many recipients of those checks filled in the bubble by the name of Donald J. Trump because his name was on the check that helped them through the pandemic?

Biden’s relief plan is remarkably popular among Americans, across political differences, because it addresses so much that ails the nation right now, from imminent evictions to inadequate public-school budgets to woefully lacking health care, in the midst of a pandemic. In order for Democrats to continue the work begun by the American Rescue Plan, they will need to make sure that voters know who is responsible for the extension of unemployment insurance; the $300 per child, per month cash benefit; and the $1,400 relief check that will be making for a brighter spring for so many.

If Democrats have any chance of passing a $15 minimum wage, they need to study their history and pay far more attention to bipartisan support among voters than to duplicitous partisan ideologues who, without fail, prioritize politics over people.

Dr. Colette Hyman teaches U.S. history at Winona State University.