“The data adduced here underscore … that the collective memory about the public's focus on the 1960s crime issue is inaccurate…
“[T]he 1960s' insurgency actually prevented the crime issue from becoming the number one domestic problem. That insurgency, however, inevitably ebbed, and globalization and its political expression, Neoliberalism, have been ascendant since the 1980s. In the face of this, it might seem that turning away from more punitive crime policies is hopeless. Yet, this study also points to the prospect that a social movement of sufficient force and influence could once again breach the public agenda normally set by elites.”
In other words, while Krugman calls for Obama to be bolder, shifts of this nature do not originate from presidents/elites. They are spawned and carried forward by mass movements. FDR absent the 1930s and 1940s insurgencies would not have brought forth the New Deal.
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