 Hello, everyone. I am here with Dr. Harvey J. K. He is a professor of democracy and justice studies at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay. And he's back to talk about his brand new book just out. It's called FDR on Democracy, the Greatest Speeches and Writings of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And, you know, you were here, professor, after we got some bad news. Jeremy Corbyn had just lost, labor lost. And now we return again where Bernie Sanders has lost. So it's unfortunate circumstances, but I think that what you managed to really do, which makes me feel better, is you kind of put everything into historical context. And it makes me feel better because it doesn't feel like we are the trailblazers. Like we're kind of following in the footsteps of our ancestors and we're not doing anything new. And there is some sort of comfort knowing that the things we're trying to do have been done before. So welcome back to the show. Do you want to tell us a little bit about your book? Well, thank you, Mike. It's really good to see you. I really enjoyed last time. I'm sorry that I followed in the wake of bad news then and I followed in the wake of bad news now. But let's talk, you know, I think it was Isaac Deutsche, the great sort of great Marxist historian and biographer of Trotsky, you know, talked about, you know, the pessimism and optimism and, you know, pessimism is like, what is it, glass half full? No, glass half empty. And we should never fall into either one of those. Okay. We should try to see things. And what he said is history enables us to go beyond that simple dichotomy. So what history affords us is a sense of not only our predecessors and the precedents that they afforded us, the achievements they afforded us, it also enables us to situate ourselves in history. So if you wouldn't mind, just before I mentioned the stuff that I'm here for, you know, the FDR stuff, I do want to help people out. Okay. From my vantage point, first of all, I'm 70 years old. I still feel energetic, fortunately, but I want to put things in perspective, especially for young people. And this is this. And FDR will come into this. I assure you. So I looked, I thought about these failings, you know, the Corbina one and most especially these last couple of weeks, last few weeks, it's fairly devastating because at times I thought this was the one chance that I would have, because if it doesn't work this time, I'm not confident it's coming up that soon to actually see the creation of social democratic America, which by the way, as I'll talk about, was pretty much FDR's vision back in the 1930s and even before then. But here's the other thing I want. I want everyone to see if they wouldn't mind going with me on this little journey into past is this. So in the early part of the 20th century, there emerged in this country a very significant socialist movement. And that socialist movement had its roots in the late 19th century in agrarian populism and actually and in progressivism, and most especially in the labor movement. Okay. And it was a diverse left at that time. You know, you had that anarchists and you had socialists and you had these agrarian populists and the progressives who we too often dismiss as middle class folk. But on the local level in various locales, they made a dramatic difference, whether it had to do with the creation of a state bank in North Dakota, the pursuit in here in the Midwest of sewer socialism, which by the way, did not mean they were in the gutter. What it meant is that they were that they were creating a better life for working people by actually putting sewer lines into working class neighborhoods by taking control of water supply companies, by taking control of electric power companies. So there were these there were those kinds of successes. Now those came about because of alliances between socialists and progressives and in many other areas of the country out in the countryside, agrarian populists and socialists and so on. Okay. But here's the other thing. So, okay, they didn't create a populist nation. They lost elections of, you know, in 1896. And similarly, the socialists in 1912 came in, I think it was. Well, they got nearly a million votes under Eugene Debs and at other times they showed up well, but they did not become a majority party other than by way of maybe certain city councils and governorships and sending people to Congress. So here's the thing. However, if you look closely at what was going on and you think about the FDR presidency, FDR himself, and I'm going to come back to this later FDR himself is clearly rooted in early 20th century progressivism, capital P, the progressivism which we tend to associate with Robert La Follette here in Wisconsin, Teddy Roosevelt out of New York and then who becomes president and runs as a progressive in 1912. And then Woodrow Wilson, there were diverse kinds of progressives and Roosevelt, the FDR Roosevelt is coming out of the progressive tradition, but he's looking to go beyond that even as a young man. If people pick up this book of speeches in my edited editions and introductions and all that, they'll see that early on Roosevelt is reaching for what we would think of as social democracy. And by the 1930s he is significantly in pursuit. I mean he's strongly in pursuit of what we would call social democracy, even though he never uses the term. Now, I'm going to come back to that. But here's the key thing. So in the 1930s he pursues what is a social democratic agenda. That is, he believes in the imperative of the federal government, based on his experience as governor of New York, taking charge of the relief efforts and as much as he can go beyond relief and turn it into a real real series of recovery initiatives, what was often called the New Deal alphabet soup of agencies to mobilize Americans who are unemployed, young people to go in and young men in particular to go into the CCC Civil and Conservation Corps, others into the Works Progress Administration to create among farmers the rural electrification agency which were based on cooperatives. And if you look closely at all of these initiatives, in one sense they're basically just recruiting labor and enabling people to make some kind of income. But it's also the case that if you think that this is a two step. First of all, in some of those initiatives, there were highly Democrat small D Democratic initiatives, not only in the sense of working people becoming involved, but in the Agricultural Adjustment Act and the National Industrial Recovery Act. They're actually empowered in the case of industry workers to organize unions and in the case of agriculture farmers to organize cooperatives and actually take part in major decision making regarding the agricultural economics of farming themselves directly. And in fact, the irony of this is that some people dismiss the New Deal in terms of race but it's the case that black land owning farmers not sharecroppers land owning farmers in the south actually got to participate in those things and it's often said that the first opportunity to vote was as farmers in these agricultural cooperatives and similar kinds of initiatives. Now, think about us today. I mean, it's too easy to dismiss these efforts of 2015-16 and 2019-20 that Bernie has led these efforts for what he calls democratic socialism often and would have liked him to call social democracy and reaching back to FDR. He has generated a movement. It's undeniable. You could feel the energy among young people, a lot of labor unionists, even in rural areas. There was a sense that this was an opportunity to create social democracy and we can talk later if you want about whether or not this can become more than a two election campaign kind of thing. But here's the thing, what was once considered verboten, forbidden to speak of in any fashion. I'm not even talking about socialism, I'm talking about social democracy is now in people's minds. Medicare for all right now may not have won the day, but it may well be the case that in order for, I mean, I don't know if he's willing to go there, but it's quite possible. The Democrats will, by the summer, have to go there if they're going to harness the energies that were generated. Or for that matter, or I should say and for that matter, the whole question of student debt, right? Not just free public higher education, but also the question of the unbearable. And I say unbearable because it's unbearable for both the individuals who have the debt and unbearable for the nation to continue to create that kind of debt and worry about it and have a generation that has become like serfs to the banks that hold those debts. So what I think is we're at this really interesting moment where there's lots of possibilities that Bernie has lost that Bernie may well have actually cut a deal with the Biden Obama camp. It may be disappointing because we don't know what it's involved. But it's also the case, it's also the case, not what Bernie does, what we do. That's the key thing. And young people shouldn't turn their backs on the political moment and the political opportunities. And I could tell you, if it wasn't for the fact that FDR was deeply imbued with the earlier socialist and progressive ideas in his own way, I doubt very much we would have faced the new deal. Sorry, the Great Depression and the way that we did. And he carried this with him. And many Democrats themselves who might not have thought publicly in those terms had come to think like that. And so FDR, as he said to a friend in 1931, actually said in writing to a friend, I think it's time for the country to go fairly radical for a generation. And similarly, we're in the makings of those kinds of moments. I hope, I hope people need, however disappointed they are, they need to vote. I'm not telling them who to vote for. Just turn out and make sure those Democrats all the way down the ticket. If you believe they're decent folks with good intentions and admirable aspirations, you vote for them. Okay. So now, sorry, I went, I went on a little bit of a journey. Forgive me. No, this is this is fantastic. I think that what you said about the movement existing, you know, post Bernie 2020 post Bernie 2016, that really is important because even though we lost these elections and we don't have political power in the electoral sense, I think that there's always going to be potential there so long as the movement lives on and I think that it will like I do genuinely feel optimistic that the movement will live on even if it's easy to be demoralized currently because you kind of, you kind of have this specific vision and steps that you kind of see in your mind forecast as to how the movement is going to harness power and actually influence change. And now it's not going to happen in the sense that we elect Bernie and he passes these policies, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the prospect for change has diminished. It just means that it's going to take place in a different form. Yes. And I'll add to that something I've been saying and I'm very, I'm eager to say it here that young people should understand young people don't have this quite the historical perspective on a personal level that I'm trying to cultivate in them. Consider this 10 years ago, shows like yours didn't exist. Okay, now think about this. So yeah, I mean, older folks are still watching cable news. Okay, by the way, I don't. I gave up on it. In the 90s, I felt a block watch the Fox News because my I felt somebody had to do it to keep up with the bullshit that they were saying. But so here's the thing. Okay. Here's the thing. So I said, I mean, I was thinking how remarkable it is. And I don't even like to call it alternative media because it's not, I mean, it's not all media. It's this, it's movement media is a good way of putting in fact, I hadn't said that before I like that. I like that. Yeah. Okay, so think about it now. Okay, however you feel about any one of these shows, think about this. So let's suppose on a daily basis, you wake you could wake up in the morning. Okay, if you've got the time, especially now so many of us are stuck at home, young and old, you could turn on your computer and you can catch segments of rising the Hill TV live thing with. I mean, you've got a conservative and a progressive on but crystal ball is definitely worth listening to. And even sagar is offering a fairly critical perspective from the right. It's worth, worth watching. During the midday hours, you could turn on majority report with Sam Cedar and his co host, Michael Brooks, and they've got, you know, two to three hours depending on how how you subscribe of content. Then later in the day, later in the day, you could go to the young Turks. Right. And there again, you've got conversation between Anna Casparian, who I pretty sure is a socialist or at least social Democrat. And, and Jank, Jank Uger, who is clearly a progressive. Okay. And so you've got this kind of all day opportunity that if you need to catch up and hear a critical commentary, you've got it more over then during the during the week at your leisure. Right. You can tune into the humanist report. And everybody should. Of course, I'm talking to the converted here. You've got Michael Brooks show on Tuesday night and he seems to be multiplying his like Tuesday night and this night is doing great. You've got no McKee const, who's launched a show on YouTube. Very active. I mean, I'm always, you know, I could talk about left anchor with a couple of guys. I just absolutely adore great guys. Millennial review. I mean, I'll stop there. But you've got you guys are you and women are part of a of a movement. You're not simply an alternative media. You're, you're, you're the voice in many ways of the movement and all the more especially if we're not going to have a senior figure like Bernie Sanders leading, it's going to be your kinds of voices that there people are going to want to listen to in here. There you go. Yeah, that's a lot of pressure. But I will say that even though like one thing that I think was really clear was that indie media like movement media. I love that term. It isn't big enough yet to counter some of the narratives that were put out by the mainstream media. But I do think that just the fact that there's this hunger that's there, it's not going to just, you know, automatically go away like that once the election is over, it's going to exist. It existed before Bernie Sanders kind of harnessed this energy and I genuinely believe it will continue to exist. So I want to talk about because when when I think through history and everyone before us who fought for what we fought for and we're kind of continuing that fight, it does make me feel more at ease knowing that we're kind of we're not starting anything new. And we have a lot of, you know, history to work with to use as a guide because there have been many successes from progressives and socialists in the past. So one thing that I kind of want to pick your brain about is, as far as I know, FDR never said that he's a social Democrat, but I think that it's very clear that's what he was. One thing that is a conversation piece and I'm not necessarily sure where I fall here is Bernie Sanders using the socialist label that may have harmed him. You know, it certainly it excited a lot of people myself because I, you know, I don't know if he's a socialist, but in your view and this is difficult to gauge. I know. Do you think that him calling himself a socialist was an asset to him or do you think that if he maybe packaged his social democratic agenda in a different bow, you know, in a package with a different type of bow, would that have helped in your view as as FDR did. I mean, let's start off with the fact that he'd already been known as a democratic socialist. Therefore, he can only run so far from that label. And moreover, even if he called himself a social, I'm prefacing by the way, if he even if even if he said my politics are social democratic, they would have come at him as a socialist. But by the way, they're going to come at don't laugh too hard. They'll come at Biden as a social. I totally agree. Okay, but so here's the thing. But I do think Bernie should have spoken less of democratic socialism. I think he was, I mean, people get upset with me when I say this, I think he was wasting his time explaining it. I think he I think he didn't. He did it back in 2015. He should have stopped explaining it. And what he should have done is segue to the term social democracy. Look, historically, they're interchangeable terms. Okay, late as I was, I think I was saying before, at least to you late 19th century, the anarchists called themselves social democrats. The Socialist Party of the United States originally called itself the Social Democratic Party here in Wisconsin, even after Debs took command Eugene V. Debs, the great labor leader after he came out of prison. After the Pullman strike came out of prison, basically, and he became a socialist, even after he became the presidential candidate and did well as a candidate here in Wisconsin. The Socialist Party was called Social Democrats. So Bernie could have just grabbed hold of that. And I think it would have, it would have required less explanation. Okay, all he would have had to say is I believe democracy should not be limited to voting. Okay, or I believe this democracy should be extended into the marketplace and into the workplace. But somebody should have asked me to write his little lines for that's brilliant. That honestly is so easy. Right. I mean, what it comes down to is there was a historical sociologist named Th Marshall, British guy. And Marshall laid out this kind of, you know, as a faulty kind of historical picture, but he talked about look, there are civil rights, going back to the idea of, you know, free speech, worship, and so on. There are political rights, the most fundamental one of which is voting, but it involves a whole panoply of elements to having to do with voting representation, recall and such and such. And then there are social and economic rights. And that's what Bernie was going for, the social and economic rights. It was Bernie who harnessed the Economic Bill of Rights idea from FDR, his speech of the State of the Union message of 1944 when Bernie talked about 21st century Economic Bill of Rights. So I do think, I think that Bernie could have, if people are going to see us as we're taping, Bernie could have literally worn the cloak of FDR. Okay. And by the way, there were those in the campaign who were trying to get him to do that all the more. So I believe Ro Khanna, the congressman from California, John Cusack, my friend. We've talked, we talked about this a lot. And John I know is pushing for Bernie to literally become FDR if he could. And there were others. I don't know where David Sarota himself came down to that, but I have a feeling he was one of those people. That could be wrong. So I think that could have been effective. And by the way, it would have been effective as well, because in the debates, Bernie then could have stood as the champion of the FDR legacy in the Democratic Party. And when a question was given him by one of the moderators of whatever, he could have said, I think there's a bigger question. And the question is, are we the party of Franklin Roosevelt or are we not? And he could have just laid out a few ideas of Roosevelt's. And then if the likes of Klobuchar of Buttigieg, or, or what's his name, Biden? I was kidding. But if they had come at him, we can't afford Medicare for all. He could have said, that's what they told FDR about the new deal. That's what, you know, in other words, so they would have been attacking FDR and not him. If you get my, if you get my. That is really brilliant, because as you're speaking, there's so much, there's so much clarity because that not only makes it more, I think, familiar to Americans who don't like this idea of Scandinavian socialism. And, you know, they don't they don't know what that entails. It also kind of gives him cover from that, you know, annoying. He's not a Democrat label, which doesn't appeal to me, but some Democrats are just they have to have a Democrat. We've heard it. And, you know, that that could have kind of given him cover in two ways. And I also think about how this would have given him an opportunity if he really wore the cloak of FDR to kind of pitch himself in his campaign as extending that legacy, because I know that as much as we give FDR credit, this was someone who was, you know, he was a fallible human being. He didn't pass everything he wanted to. He did have some failings. So can you talk through some of FDR's failings and how Bernie maybe could have messaged, you know, him as not just a continuation, but really completing the vision of FDR? Yeah, well, let's start off with the three worst decisions FDR made, or at least two were decisions and one was a failing. So the first the worst, the worst was the internment of Japanese Americans. The sort of the continental Japanese. I know your I think your family comes from Hawaii, if I'm not mistaken. Right. Hawaiian Japanese Americans were not interned. Okay, it was mainland Japanese West Coast Japanese. In fact, it was just West Coast Japanese American. And that was a terror. That was one of the worst human rights civil rights abuses, travesties in American history. So no saint. Also, he allowed, and by the way, he allowed California property and conservative interest to persuade him and military interest to persuade him to do that. That was not intimately his decision. But then the other thing is this, that the US Army in World War Two was segregated white and black. Mexican Americans, by the way, were not in segregated units. And there were 400,000 Mexican Americans who served in the military during World War Two. It was it with Japanese Americans and African Americans. Japanese Americans were in a combat regiment, which by the way was the most decorated combat regiment of the Second World War. American combat regimen. And African Americans were in separate units, combat and supply units, then were their white counterparts. It would have been a remarkable thing if he had tried to overcome that, if he had not allowed the military brass to convince him to segregate the military in that way. Now, we can get into the argument of what should he or shouldn't he blah, blah, blah. The point is, it's a tragedy that marks his administration. And the other thing is that he couldn't overcome congressional opposition to opening the doors to greater numbers of Jewish refugees. And Eleanor was pushing for it. Roosevelt's chief of staff was Jewish, Samuel Rosenman. Robert Wagner, the great senator from New York State, who was actually called the pilot of the New Deal in the Senate, he was pushing for the opening of the doors for greater numbers of refugees. And he was German American, German born, and he couldn't persuade them to do it. And there were any number of anti-Semites in the State Department. So those are the three great tragedies or terrible decisions of his administration or failings. But it's also the case that when he first entered the White House, he knew, it was very interesting, he actually had the support of what we would today call the billionaires. Which people find surprising given the agenda that he had of expanding the powers of government in order to address the needs of American citizens. But the rich guys, and there were guys, the rich guys had one thing they were eager to see him do. And that is they wanted him to end prohibition. And what's important there is they didn't care less if people could, they didn't care less if they could drink because they were already drinking. They never had to worry about getting booze. But they didn't want their taxes to go up any further. And they figured if you enacted a new, if you loosened or literally liberated Americans to drink, you could tax every beer that a working guy drank. And if you did that, you literally liberate them from any kind of further tax burden. Now, they got very upset when in fact, very soon into the course of his 12-year presidency, he began to push for higher and higher taxes on the wealthy. And those guys organized the American Liberty League in 1934-35, and they spent millions trying to bring down his presidency. I can tell you millions on advertising, public relations, film strips, radio shows, but they utterly failed because working people loved FDR. And in 34, Democrats took even more seats in Congress, and in 36, they literally romped over the Republicans. So the American Liberty League was a failure. There's no question about it. So at first, his first mistake was that he actually did allow certain freedoms to business to basically break the laws regarding trusts and cartels and collusion, we would call it today. But it's also the case that he built into the very same law that sort of gave them those privileges, the right to organize labor unions on the part of workers. Later, it turned out the law needed to be revamped, not only because it was declared unconstitutional, but also because labor unions were literally being cheated by their employers. The employers would set up company unions rather than have the workers organize their own. So in 1935, FDR, it's called the Second New Deal. He signed into law the Social Security Act, and he signed into law the National Labor Relations Act, which wasn't just saying workers had the right to organize. The federal government would back up their right to organize. Very powerful kind of move. So at the outset, he may well have done a little too much business with the rich guys and business. But he learned his lesson, and he came to realize how much they hated him. In fact, in a famous speech in Madison Square Garden, he said, I welcome their hatred. And the only president who's ever done that since, well Truman did something like that actually, but it was Bernie Sanders basically. Billionaires, I welcome your hatred. It's a positive sign. Now, the other thing was that in 1937, after Roosevelt won the 36th election by a landslide, he decided that the Supreme Court was his biggest obstacle to passing the laws that he believed working people needed to strengthen labor unions and so on and so forth. So he actually proposed what people came to call packing the court, which, by the way, was a subject we've been talking about quite a bit these last few years. And what that meant was, he had this thing where when a member of the Supreme Court reached the age of 70, I think that was the age. There should be another person added to the Supreme Court to lighten the load for the old folks with the idea that you would add judges based on the ages of the judges or the justices already on the court. And not only conservatives, but quite a few Republicans, but also quite a few Democrats were horrified at the idea. But there were a lot who were not horrified, who were willing to go to bat for him, but he realized it was a mistake to talk about and he withdrew that proposal eventually. The other thing was, and here's another mistake he made, keep this in mind, is that although he was prepared to go big, create government initiatives, empower labor, all of that kind of stuff. One of the things he still held on to this notion that you don't go too deep into debt. So which is why he was willing to tax the rich and corporations as he was going to do. So as a consequence, I guess it was also in 37 when it seemed like they were winning the war against unemployment and the depression. When Social Security taxes started to be collected, that was pulling money out of the market, you might say. He was also willing to cut back on federal expenditures and they went into a recession again, which really did weaken his administration to some extent. So those are the kinds of things that he made a mistake at. But in terms of messaging, he was brilliant. So for example, you know how I don't know if people realize he was the first radio president, his fireside chats. He loved broadcasting his messages. But the other thing is he knew that the print media editors and publishers were conservatives. Honestly, conservatives. So the radio gave him, liberated him from depending on editors and publishers in the print media. He could go around them and go directly unfiltered to the American people. And the other thing is he was very, guy was very, very, call it wily if you wish. He knew that the journalists themselves were generally more liberal than their own editors. So he held regularly press conferences off the record with the journalists. And now we have available the texts of those, the multi volume texts of those news conferences. And the understanding was I will meet with you regularly and I'll let you know you have to, I have to trust you and you have to trust me. If there are things we don't want to get out, you've got to hold on to that, which I know seems a little devious, but it was his way of getting around the editors and publishers. So Bernie, Bernie, I think did a good job in terms of trying to reach people getting out there on the on the hustings as they say. He discovered YouTube when he realized that the media was going to ignore him. The tragedy with Bernie's messaging was what he was doing on YouTube. He didn't take into the debates. So on YouTube, he would, he would, he would speak in a way that was more, if you like, lighthearted, serious, but lighthearted. You could see smiles emerging on his face. He more often might have said in a rally or maybe even on YouTube something about FDR, but he never went into the debates bringing what I was talking about before to bear on that debate. Sorry, I'm sorry I'd go on forever, but it's. It's absolutely fascinating. These are terribly, you know, what's that thing out of Dickens? What was the novel about the French Revolutionary Years? Well, you know, these are the best of time. These are the worst of times. These are the best of times. And let's hope that there's a prophetic side to that best of times. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'm curious to know. Go ahead. Yeah, go ahead. Sorry. You know, I wanted to ask you about what you think the catalyst is for change, because the New Deal era, this was changed like reform legislation after legislation. There was so much that happened in such a short time. And right now I think the left is really looking for what will ignite that spark specifically. And I think it's probably a complicated answer. But in terms of like what it was that really initiated, if you're able to kind of figure out what that was, was it FDR pushing it? Or was it the, you know, organized labor? Like was it top down or bottom up? What do you think was the main catalyst? Because this is something that I struggle with. I don't know what it is that really was conducive to change. Right. Well, first of all, as I think we talked about last time in January, Americans during times of crisis somehow find it in themselves to transcend. They transcend themselves to confront the mortal crisis, the American Revolution, the Civil War, and here with FDR in the 1930s. So a crisis, it's a mortal crisis for the nation. It's the worst economic and social catastrophe in American history. An important thing and people will find this in these speeches when they look at them. I really did try to craft the editing of these of these speeches so that it would really reveal that it would reveal itself in a way. FDR knew, he really seemed to have this confidence that he knew what Americans wanted. Now look, there were unemployed leagues that were being organized in 19, during the middle of the Great Depression, the early Great Depression. Communists organized some socialist organized others and radical slash progressives organized others. But there were in every major city, these unemployed leagues and they would take to the streets in their hundreds and some cases, thousands trying to garner the attention of their fellow citizens and also political leaders to do something. That's first. Second of all, labor did not actually shrink in the face of the crisis. Increasingly, keep in mind that labor did not have autonomous unions. They mostly were company unions and labor movement during the 20s was a shrinking a shrinking movement. But there was energy inside of the labor leadership and inside of workers. They wanted action and they were willing to march to try to secure the right to organize and to hold on to their jobs. Now, FDR was sensitive to this. There was, oh, I left out the bonus marchers, the veterans of World War One who were demanding the bonus they were doing in 1945. They should receive it in 32. So they marched on Washington and they occupied parts of the city. When FDR runs for office, he has the advantage of his running against a failed Hoover administration. But he's not oblivious to what Americans are communicating and wanting. And this intersects with his own political aspirations. In the 1920s, Eleanor, even though FDR himself has suffered a polio and he'll never walk on his own again. Eleanor is bringing back to the house European Jewish socialist women organizers from New York City who are educating FDR to working people's needs. Not just the needs of the men, but the needs of the women as well. So it's this grand intersection. But now I'm going to throw in a good old Marxist term dialectic. Okay. The dialectic is what the relationship was like this democratic dialectic of president slash president or leader and working people. So FDR encourages them and empowers them. He mobilizes them and he enables them to actually pursue the organization of labor in 1933 when they enacted the National Industrial Recovery Act that I mentioned earlier. Labor leaders were calling it the Magna Carta of labor. Well, do they realize they'd have to revisit it in 1935? But it's the case that for every agency that FDR created, an alphabet soup agency, you know, CCC, the WPA, the PWA, the REA, I could go on and on. Labor itself, working people themselves are organizing their own, if you like, alphabet soup. The UAW, USW, United Steel Workers, United Rubber Workers, the International Longshoremen out on the West Andes coasts. And moreover, young people who are not necessarily organizational in terms of work, they're organizing in diverse kinds of movements. Everything from the YMCA to the young communists and young socialists, and they come together. And this is, this is the kind of thing we ought to, we'd like to see here. They organized the American Youth Congress, which had like four and a half million members given all these diverse organizations. And they were a force and they were demanding, they were demanding monies to be able to continue to get their education. They were demanding some kind of guarantees of jobs. They were doing exactly what you would imagine us doing today. So Roosevelt didn't, he didn't dismiss these people. He would make every effort to bring them to the White House and they would push their causes. And what he would say to them is, I'm on your side, now make me do it. And what he meant by that is keep up the pressure so I can tell Congress you have got to act. And there's any number of occasions where it's actually, I could even give you one, but we don't really have the time. Some other time when we're talking, remind me to tell you the story of A. Philip Randolph in FDR. But it's the case that FDR actually told his cabinet in 1935, when you go out to speak to organizations, tell them to organize all the more. And he gave a speech himself, which included the words, new laws in themselves do not bring the new millennium. And what he meant by that is, even once the law is passed, you've got to be ready, organized, because there are going to be people who are going to try to crush your movement and deny the validity of the law. And that's exactly what happened. The labor movement had to continue fighting all the way through the late 30s to secure the rights afforded by the laws that had been enacted in 35 and even in 38, the Fair Labor Standards Act. So what was the catalyst? The catalyst was, of course, the crisis that Americans remember who they were because FDR was constantly speaking in historical terms, reminding them of the revolution, reminding them even of Abraham Lincoln. I mean, FDR was brilliant. Lincoln was a Republican. And yet FDR said to this leading Democratic Party intellectual who was a historian, a historian of Jefferson, he said to him, I think we ought to make Abraham Lincoln one of our own since the Republicans don't seem to want to have anything to do with him. So it's often said that if you look at FDR's political career or presidency in the 30s into the 40s, in the 30s, he's Thomas Jefferson at his best, and in the 40s, he's Lincoln at his best. I mean, it's actually entertaining. He even brought into the White House as a, what do you call it, speechwriter, a guy named Robert Sherwood, and Sherwood had a surprise playing. That's really, it's nice to hear this because it feels like there's a blueprint that's already been established and we just kind of have to follow that blueprint. And in some ways, even though the situation does look bleak, it feels like we have more tools than our predecessors had. Like we have the internet, as you pointed out. That's something that is incredible at organizing. It makes it so much easier and gives voices to people who previously didn't have voices. So if they can do it back then, I think we can do it now. So to me, like what I think people should do is take the energy and the passion that they have and try to harness it. Join the DSA. Get involved. Local politics is incredibly important. I think that, you know, that's something that we all overlook myself included and it's really important. It can have a concrete impact on your life. So this is all, I find it incredibly fascinating. Before we go, do you want to leave us with any lasting words and we'll have links in the description to the book? Okay. This is something else that I discovered about FDR and I saw it in Bernie and I was tweeting a lot about it. One thing FDR did, what really made him great. All the things I could tell you, he was the history teacher in chief. He had a progressive agenda that I would call social democratic. He encouraged and responded. He got pushed by the labor movement and by a housewives movement that I didn't mention and so on and so forth. But this is the thing. We need leaders who will not simply tell us they want to fight for us. We need leaders who will encourage the fight in us. That is perfect. We will leave that there. Professor Harvey JK, thank you so much for coming back on. Anytime we are, we just love to have you back. Thank you. If anybody is at all interested in communicating with me, I'm on Twitter at H-A-R-V-E-Y-J-K-A-Y-E. Harvey JK. Perfect. Can you tell us your website? Let me make clear. I think you got a great show. Thank you. I almost want to write another book quickly to get back on. Well, I really appreciate that. Tell us your website because you have links to your other books as well that people will definitely be interested in. Actually, I don't want to say the name Amazon, but it's a place where they're all OK. Shit. Excuse me. But if they go on to Twitter, if they go on to Harvey JK, there's a picture on the page of the four books. But the link, and the link, you have a choice of links. You can either go directly to the link of that book. And for those of you who feel desperate, you can go to the Amazon link. But Bards of Noble has them too. The problem is that Amazon's got this monopoly going, and it's just so hard to avoid. You can go straight to the publishers to order it that way. But for example, you're in Portland, Oregon. Let me tell you something. Powell's Books does not stock take hold of our history. Can you imagine? They claim they can't even get it, which I don't understand. But they do have this book. So if people are interested, go online, go to Powell's. They can order this. Go to your independent bookstore. Ask for it. You can get this book, FDR, OK, on democracy. All right, perfect. Well, thank you so much, Professor. Thank you, Mike.