Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Maybe It’s Time to Stop Calling Ourselves Democratic Socialists and Start Calling Ourselves FDR Democrats

Republicans have spent the better part of a century turning the word socialist into a political boogeyman. Never mind that most of the people using the term couldn’t define socialism if their lives depended on it. To many voters, the word has been conditioned to trigger the same response as “communist,” “Marxist,” or whatever scary label happens to be trending that week.

Politics isn’t just about policy. It’s about language. And Democrats have been losing the language war for decades.

So maybe it’s time to stop arguing over labels that have already been poisoned and start reclaiming one that Americans already respect.

Call ourselves FDR Democrats.

Think about it. Franklin Delano Roosevelt remains one of the most consequential presidents in American history. He inherited an economy in freefall, restored confidence in the banking system, put millions of Americans to work through public projects, created Social Security, strengthened labor rights, and laid the foundation for the American middle class. Whether someone agrees with every New Deal program or not, few can honestly deny that Roosevelt fundamentally reshaped America during one of its darkest moments.

Imagine someone asking, “What’s an FDR Democrat?”

That’s an easy answer.

“We believe government should work for ordinary Americans. We believe workers deserve a fair wage. We believe retirees earned Social Security. We believe infrastructure creates jobs. We believe investing in people makes the country stronger.”

An FDR Democrat also believes in something that has somehow become controversial despite being one of the pillars of America’s most prosperous era: progressive taxation.

That doesn’t mean punishing success. It means recognizing that those who have benefited the most from America’s economy have a greater capacity—and a greater responsibility—to help sustain the country that made that success possible.

During Roosevelt’s presidency and for decades afterward, the wealthiest Americans and the largest corporations paid significantly higher tax rates than they do today. Yet those same decades produced the strongest middle class in our nation’s history, unprecedented economic growth, expanding homeownership, and an explosion of American manufacturing. Asking those at the very top to contribute more did not destroy capitalism. If anything, it strengthened it by giving ordinary Americans the purchasing power to become the engine of the economy.

An FDR Democrat believes that a nurse should not pay a higher effective tax rate than a billionaire whose wealth is largely derived from investments. An FDR Democrat believes multinational corporations that benefit from America’s infrastructure, educated workforce, legal system, and consumer market should help pay to maintain those advantages instead of spending billions finding loopholes to avoid taxes altogether.

It’s a simple principle: those with the broadest shoulders should carry a little more of the load. Not because they’ve done something wrong, but because they’ve done extraordinarily well in a system that all Americans helped build.

Notice something about all of this?

There’s no need to utter the word socialism at all.

Even politicians routinely branded as “socialists” by conservatives often advocate policies that fit comfortably within the New Deal tradition. Bernie Sanders, while an Independent, frequently champions expanding Social Security, strengthening labor protections, and using government to improve economic security—ideas with clear parallels to Roosevelt’s philosophy. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has been labeled a democratic socialist, yet many of the policies he advocates—strengthening public services, investing in infrastructure, expanding affordable housing, and using government to improve the lives of working people—fit comfortably within what I would call the FDR Democratic tradition. Former President Joe Biden’s major legislative accomplishments—from rebuilding infrastructure to encouraging domestic manufacturing and investing in clean energy—reflected the same belief that government should help build prosperity from the ground up instead of simply hoping it trickles down from the top.

That sounds far more like Roosevelt than revolutionary socialism.

The same philosophy stretches beyond Franklin Roosevelt himself. Theodore Roosevelt, though a Republican of his era, challenged monopolies, fought corporate abuses, protected consumers, and believed concentrated economic power threatened democracy. Wisconsin Governor “Fighting Bob” La Follette championed progressive reforms that strengthened democracy and curbed corporate influence. Different parties, different eras, but the same underlying belief: government exists to serve the public before serving concentrated wealth.

The point isn’t to recreate the 1930s.

The point is to reclaim the tradition that built America’s strongest middle class.

One of Roosevelt’s greatest strengths was that he wasn’t governing to maximize quarterly earnings reports. He understood that corporations are essential to the economy, but they are not the economy. Workers are. Families are. Consumers are. Small businesses are. A healthy nation requires healthy people, not simply healthy stock prices.

An FDR Democrat believes government exists to serve the people, not merely those with the largest lobbying budgets. It believes elected representatives should listen first to the citizens who sent them to Washington, not the corporations writing campaign checks. It believes prosperity grows from the bottom up and the middle out—not from hoping that enough wealth trickles down from the top.

Some will immediately scream, “That’s socialism!”

Fine.

Then ask them a few simple questions.

Do you support Social Security?

Do you like national parks?

Do you appreciate rural electrification?

Do you drive on publicly funded highways?

Do you expect clean drinking water?

Because none of those things appeared by magic. They came from a government that decided some investments benefit the entire nation and cannot simply be left to the marketplace.

The irony is almost painful. Many of the same people who recoil at the word socialism fiercely defend programs born from the very philosophy they claim to oppose.

Democrats have spent years trying to explain that nuance. Maybe that’s the wrong strategy.

Maybe the better strategy is to remind Americans of a president they already know.

An FDR Democrat isn’t asking government to control every aspect of life. An FDR Democrat believes government should create the conditions where ordinary Americans—not just the wealthiest corporations—have the opportunity to succeed. It believes those who have benefited the most from our economy should contribute a little more to preserve the opportunities that made their success possible. It believes that democracy works best when government answers to voters instead of corporate boardrooms.

That isn’t socialism.

That isn’t class warfare.

It’s citizenship.

Maybe that’s the brand Democrats should embrace.

Not because it’s new.

Because it’s one of the most successful American ideas we’ve ever had.