Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
We are all New Deal socialists now
We are all New Deal socialists now
May 13, 2025 8:30 PM

President Trump is known for public unveiling his inner thoughts on Twitter. But one of the most ments he’s ever made came recently in a private discussion with lawmakers about trade policy.

According to Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., when senators visited the White Housethey told the president what farmers want is access to markets, not a payment from government. To this Trump replied, “I’m surprised, I’ve never heard of anybody who didn’t want a payment from government.”

Unfortunately, the president is probably right. In 1888, the British Liberal leader Sir William Harcourt declared, “We are all socialists now.” A similar claim could be made in America in 2018: We are all New Deal socialists now.

Currently, there are peting models of New Deal socialism in the U.S. The first is the democratic socialism represented by Bernie Sanders. The second type is the economic nationalism represented by Trump.

Both sides are attempting to be the heir of Franklin Roosevelt’s welfare state nationalism. Sanders is more overt about the connection. “Let me define for you, simply and straightforwardly, what democratic socialism means to me,” said Sanders in 2015. “It builds on what Franklin Delano Roosevelt said when he fought for guaranteed economic rights for all Americans.” But many of Trump’s economic policies are similar aligned with FDR vision of “economic rights.” Trump even admitted there was one area where he was aligned with Sanders: “We have one issue that’s very similar, and that’s trade,” Trump said in 2016. “He and I are similar in trade.”

Sanders and Trump—and their supporters—share much more mon, though, than just protectionist trade policy. Each side is collectivist and seeks to use the power of the federal government to advance the economic interest of the group over the individual. And when the individual is economically harmed by these protectionist policies, the federal will “protect” them by giving them “payment from government” (i.e., the profits earned by other Americans and collected by the government for redistribution).

This is why both Sanders and Trump, like FDR, want a federal government that is big enough and strong enough to control the economy. “Franklin Roosevelt’s nationalism was, first, a doctrine of federal centralization,” says Samuel H. Beer. “The principle of federal activism, which some have seen as the principal dividing line in American politics since the 1930s, was introduced by the New Deal.”

New Deal socialist believe free markets and free individuals are secondary to the national economic interest identified by the government. The individual is permitted to act only if it is in the interest of the collective. As Senator Elizabeth Warren has said, “We grudge no man a fortune in civil life if it is honorably obtained and well-used. We should permit it to be gained only so long as the gaining represents benefit to munity.”

Commenting on Warren’s remark, Kevin Williamson says,

The words “permit it” speak to the divide between traditional conservatives on the classical-liberal model and the (New) New Nationalists on the Roosevelt-Obama-Trump model. This permission mentality touches every aspect of nationalist economic thinking, which is how such meaningless bookkeeping exercises as the calculation of trade deficits and e e to be understood as pressing national concerns. Putting markets under economic discipline is where progressivism, socialism, fascism, and nationalism all intersect, each of those ideas being based on the superstition that the nation has interests distinct from those of the people pose the nation.

The reason Christians should reject New Deal socialism—and ponent parts socialism and nationalism—is because it makes an idol of national economic concerns. Under New Deal socialism we are no longer stewards of God’s resources, vice-regents of God’s creation called to fulfill the cultural mandate (Genesis 1:28). Instead, we are made stewards of the national economic interest, permitted to engage in economic activity with the permission of the national government, and subordinating the interest of real people to the interest of an abstract “nation.”

This is a form of subjugation that no free people should be expected to endure. But because we are all New Deal socialists now, we’re willing to trade our freedoms in exchange for, as our president says, “payment from government.”

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Verse of the Day
  Isaiah 52:7 In-Context   5 And now what do I have here? declares the Lord. For my people have been taken away for nothing, and those who rule them mock,Dead Sea Scrolls and Vulgate; Masoretic Text wail declares the Lord. And all day long my name is constantly blasphemed.   6 Therefore my people will know my name; therefore in that...
Work Is a Glorious Thing by Piper
This personal reflection explores the significance of Work Is a Glorious Thing by Piper in my life.
Verse of the Day
  Commentary on Today's Verse   Commentary on Acts 1:6-11   (Read Acts 1:6-11)   They were earnest in asking about that which their Master never had directed or encouraged them to seek. Our Lord knew that his ascension and the teaching of the Holy Spirit would soon end these expectations, and therefore only gave them a rebuke; but it is a caution to...
Verse of the Day
  Philippians 2:14-16 In-Context   12 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed-not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence-continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling,   13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.   14 Do everything without grumbling or...
Verse of the Day
  Commentary on Today's Verse   Commentary on 2 Chronicles 20:14-19   (Read 2 Chronicles 20:14-19)   The Spirit of prophecy came upon a Levite in the midst of the congregation. The Spirit, like the wind, blows where and on whom He listeth. He encouraged them to trust in God. Let the Christian soldier go out against his spiritual enemies, and the God of...
Verse of the Day
  Commentary on Today's Verse   Commentary on Philippians 4:10-19   (Read Philippians 4:10-19)   It is a good work to succour and help a good minister in trouble. The nature of true Christian sympathy, is not only to feel concern for our friends in their troubles, but to do what we can to help them. The apostle was often in bonds, imprisonments, and...
Verse of the Day
  Matthew 6:19-21 In-Context   17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face,   18 so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.   19 Do not store up for yourselves treasures...
Rev. Robert A. Sirico
Rev. Robert A. Sirico
Verse of the Day
  Commentary on Today's Verse   Complete Concise   Chapter Contents   Cautions against proud behaviour, and the mischief of an unruly tongue. (1-12) The excellence of heavenly wisdom, in opposition to that which is worldly. (13-18)   Commentary on James 3:1-12   (Read James 3:1-12)   We are taught to dread an unruly tongue, as one of the greatest evils. The affairs of mankind are thrown...
Verse of the Day
  Commentary on Today's Verse   Commentary on Matthew 7:7-11   (Read Matthew 7:7-11)   Prayer is the appointed means for obtaining what we need. Pray; pray often; make a business of prayer, and be serious and earnest in it. Ask, as a beggar asks alms. Ask, as a traveller asks the way. Seek, as for a thing of value that we have lost;...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved