I'm John Schwartz, a writer at the Intercept, filling in for Ryan Grimm on this week's

episode of Deconstructed.

For anyone with a progressive political perspective, this is a terrible moment.

The big democratic initiatives on increasing the minimum wage, making it easier to join

a union, starting to deal with global warming, and more, are stalled and seemingly dead.

Noversist Wade has just been struck down by the ultra conservative Supreme Court, and

most of the democratic party's leadership, including President Biden, seemed to have

few plans to seriously fight back on any of this.

But when you need to figure out where to go next, you always have to start by understanding

how you got to where you are.

That's especially true in America, where we're discouraged from remembering anything that

happened before the last ad for Dominoes.

And that's why Robert Cutner's new book, Going Big, FDR's Legacy, Biden's New Deal,

and the Sturple of the Saved Democracy is genuinely important.

Right now, Cutner is a prolific journalist.

He's the co-founder and co-editor of the American Prospect, one of the zestiest liberal

publications in the US.

He co-founded the Economic Policy Institute, one of the vanishingly small number of think

tanks in Washington DC that cares about regular people.

And he's just been generally agitating for a better country.

For over 50 years, going back to his first job working for I.F. Stone, the Muck Raking

reporter, and we'd like to thank Spiritual Father of the Intercept.

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