It's fitting that the Green New Deal pushed by many but popularized by Democratic phenom Rep.
Not of plastic bags or soda cans, but of ideas. Specifically, Franklin D Roosevelt's New Deal and the impulses behind it.
To her credit, Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) is fairly honest about her ideological recycling.
"None of these things are new ideas," she explained on the campaign trail last October. "What we had was an existential threat in the context of a war. We had a direct existential threat with another nation; this time it was Nazi
"We chose to mobilize our entire economy and industrialized our entire economy, and we put hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people to work in defending our shores and defending this country," Ocasio-Cortez continued. "We have to do the same thing in order to get us to 100 percent renewable energy, and that's just the truth of it."
Alas, AOC, as many now call her, started the story in the middle. The need to prepare for war marked the end of the New Deal. As FDR put it, it was time for "Dr. New Deal" to be replaced by "
Ironically, the New Deal itself was largely about war mobilization -- without war. Roosevelt campaigned for president promising to adapt
Even before Roosevelt was elected, his aides investigated whether they could use the Trading with the Enemy Act for a gold embargo. In his inaugural address, FDR proclaimed, "I assume unhesitatingly the leadership of this great army of our people dedicated to the disciplined attack upon our common problems."
Nearly the entire structure of the New Deal was copied from Wilson's "war socialism."
The military buildup began not as a response to the Nazis but as a jobs program.
Even the workforce was militarized. On
Under the NRA, breaking discipline was a punishable offense, which is why a tailor,
I could go on, but the important point is that ever since philosopher
This was the through line of 20th century liberalism, and now 21st century liberalism, too. Wilson's war socialism, FDR's New Deal,
Another irony: The militaristic organization of the domestic economy is a hallmark of nationalist movements. But nationalism is a dirty word among liberals today.
Instead, they name-check a thoroughly nationalistic enterprise, the New Deal, and slap the word "Green" in front of it as if it were a fresh coat of paint.
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Jonah Goldberg is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and editor-at-large of National Review Online.