Let me begin by saying I am not the greatest student of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I have never read a biography on him. I know only what tidbits I have gleaned from history and politics classes, and incidentally from my personal studies in which he sometimes comes up.
I do not know the man’s mind intimately, and I could not tell you what he might think of our present circumstances were he able to somehow witness and comprehend them.
What I can do, however, is read the things he said, or listen to the speeches he made. I think there are two parts of two speeches that are of great pertinence to our present moment.
The first speech is the Address at Madison Square Garden, New York City, on October 31, 1936:
Tonight I call the roll—the roll of honor of those who stood with us in 1932 and still stand with us today.
Written on it are the names of millions who never had a chance—men at starvation wages, women in sweatshops, children at looms.
Written on it are the names of those who despaired, young men and young women for whom opportunity had become a will-o'-the-wisp.
Written on it are the names of farmers whose acres yielded only bitterness, business men whose books were portents of disaster, home owners who were faced with eviction, frugal citizens whose savings were insecure.
Written there in large letters are the names of countless other Americans of all parties and all faiths, Americans who had eyes to see and hearts to understand, whose consciences were burdened because too many of their fellows were burdened, who looked on these things four years ago and said, "This can be changed. We will change it."
We still lead that army in 1936. They stood with us then because in 1932 they believed. They stand with us today because in 1936 they know. And with them stand millions of new recruits who have come to know.
Their hopes have become our record.
We have not come this far without a struggle and I assure you we cannot go further without a struggle.
For twelve years this Nation was afflicted with hear-nothing, see-nothing, do-nothing Government. The Nation looked to Government but the Government looked away. Nine mocking years with the golden calf and three long years of the scourge! Nine crazy years at the ticker and three long years in the breadlines! Nine mad years of mirage and three long years of despair! Powerful influences strive today to restore that kind of government with its doctrine that that Government is best which is most indifferent.
For nearly four years you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves. We will keep our sleeves rolled up.
We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.
They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.
Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.
I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master.
The American people know from a four-year record that today there is only one entrance to the White House—by the front door. Since March 4, 1933, there has been only one pass-key to the White House. I have carried that key in my pocket. It is there tonight. So long as I am President, it will remain in my pocket.
Those who used to have pass-keys are not happy. Some of them are desperate. Only desperate men with their backs to the wall would descend so far below the level of decent citizenship as to foster the current pay-envelope campaign against America's working people. Only reckless men, heedless of consequences, would risk the disruption of the hope for a new peace between worker and employer by returning to the tactics of the labor spy.
Here is an amazing paradox! The very employers and politicians and publishers who talk most loudly of class antagonism and the destruction of the American system now undermine that system by this attempt to coerce the votes of the wage earners of this country. It is the 1936 version of the old threat to close down the factory or the office if a particular candidate does not win. It is an old strategy of tyrants to delude their victims into fighting their battles for them.
Every message in a pay envelope, even if it is the truth, is a command to vote according to the will of the employer. But this propaganda is worse—it is deceit.
All emphasis is mine. I do not think I should really have to articulate to you why I bolded the sections I did, nor do I feel that I have to try and explain President Roosevelt’s remarks for him.
I think that FDR could probably commiserate with President Biden about the present-day activities which the press, party elites, and billionaires are now engaged in. It’s well-known that many of our Presidents have spoken with the portraits in the White House in times of crisis. Has Biden talked with the portrait of FDR?
How many might now see that as a sign of mental infirmity, I wonder?
The second speech, I think everyone knows, but they should probably read it again anyway; it is the Inaugural Address in Washington D.C., from March 4, 1933:
I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our Nation impels. This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.
In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone.
More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.
Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and have abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.
Once again, all emphasis is mine. I also, yet again, feel no need to try and interpret FDR’s words.
I do not doubt that many of the people who have their concerns over President Biden have sincerely held beliefs rooted in their feelings and observations. I generally believe those feelings are true, and it is not anyone’s business to judge this or that feeling as more or less valid. Feelings are feelings.
Feelings are not thoughts, however. They are not words. They are not actions. Everyone must choose what feelings they allow to inform their thoughts, words, and actions.
I have the sense that all of the concerns were driven by a feeling of fear.
Now, I could wax sci-fi fantasy, and add in some quotes from Dune about how fear is the mind-killer, or cite Yoda from Star Wars saying that fear leads to “the Dark Side”, but I believe FDR should suffice:
let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance
There has been a nigh incalculable number of characters spilled on this site, let alone elsewhere, about whether it is advisable or not that President Biden should stay in this race. I am not relitigating those arguments here, for or against, and trying to weigh them up in some kind of pro vs. con listing. What I would instead like to do is note three things.
First, I would like to point out that no matter how reasoned or logical, or not, the arguments for him dropping out may or may not be, they all stem from fear. I believe FDR’s quote speaks for itself.
Second, I would like to note that Donald Trump’s entire 2016 campaign was predicated upon an attack upon elitism. We saw this with his “drain the swamp” line (not that he did any such thing). We saw it with the framing of his “lock her up” attacks on Hillary Clinton. We saw it with the talk of “flyover country”, and the attacks on “liberal coastal elites”. We saw it with his claim that only “I can fix it,” as he positioned himself as an outsider. We saw it in the reflections after the fact, with the media’s incessant fixation on things like J. D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy. We see it in the trolling of right-wingers, who love nothing more than “drinking lib tears”, and who are loving every minute of the present circular firing squad.
The animating logic of the right which can propel Republicans to victory is not the delusional fantasies of The Heritage Foundation as embodied in Project 2025; nor was it the trickle-down, supply-side Reaganomics of Jack Kemp; nor was it the cries for small government, small enough to “drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub”, of Grover Norquist; nor was it the the deficit reduction of Paul Ryan.
People who vote Republican have generally never given a good goddamn about what any Republican ideologue or thinker has trotted out should be their raison d'être.
Something they have always cared about, regardless of the issues of the day, is that in their minds, there was a sneering, moneyed elite which looked down upon them as less human, less worthy of life, less worthy of a say.
Do you really think that a bunch of Democratic staffers and Democratic billionaire donors working in secret to throw out the results of Democratic Primaries in order to install their own guys is going to appeal to those people—or anyone at all really? Do you think anyone actually wants this plot, brought to us by many of the same people dumbing our nation’s children down, poisoning the air and water, and so on?
If you support replacing Biden because of your fears, I want you to go look at yourself in the mirror and earnestly tell yourself that you want to have your candidates appointed by billionaire backers by threat of blackmail, that that makes you comfortable, and that you think most people will like that. Come back to this after you’ve gone and done that for me.
Third and finally, I simply want to note that FDR was elected four times, and not only brought America out of the Great Depression, but shepherded it through most of World War II, while addled with Polio and often confined to a wheelchair.
I wonder how many now would have declared him unfit for the job from the outset?
Remember: the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.