About the authors: James Roosevelt, Jr. is a grandson of President Franklin Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Henry Scott Wallace’s grandfather, Henry A. Wallace, served President Franklin Roosevelt as Secretary of Agriculture, Vice President, and Secretary of Commerce.
Pop quiz: Who said this?
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
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Well, most recently, it was Donald Trump, in an angry Truth Social post on the second day of his criminal trial in New York, demanding that his supporters be allowed to protest on the front steps of courthouses, to “rally behind MAGA. SAVE OUR COUNTRY!” (Shades of his “will be wild” invitation to his January 6 rally.)
Before that, of course, it was FDR. And candidate Trump’s repetition of it is spectacularly ironic, because he is running on a platform of nothing but fear.
Fear of immigrant “vermin” and “animals” poisoning the blood of America. Fear of crime and “American carnage.” Fear of the “Radical Left,” communists, socialists, George Soros and Black Lives Matter. Fear of white Christians being “replaced.” Fear of China intentionally spreading viruses, and fear of the vaccines that cure them. Fear of taxes, of the Deep State, of the Justice Department and FBI, of government agents confiscating the guns of patriotic Americans. Fear of windmills, and of Obamacare. Fear of the “fake news” media—the “enemy of the people.” Fear of mail-in ballots, rampant voter fraud, and (Black women) election workers stealing suitcases of ballots from him. Hell, fear of democracy itself.
Run for your lives! We have EVERYTHING to fear, including “fear itself.”
FDR’s “nothing to fear” line is one of the most memorable in history, and perhaps one of the least understood. Surely everybody fears something—like, say, death. And why would people fear “fear itself”?
Only by considering the context of that day—FDR’s first inauguration—can we begin to grasp what he was talking about, and why the line resonated so deeply. It was a time when the Great Depression was raging and a quarter of all workers were unemployed. Industries had withered. Farmers found no market for their goods. Banks failed and family savings were wiped out. Foreclosures and bankruptcies were rampant. FDR acknowledged the “dark realities of the moment.” People were fearful.
But this was just the launching point for his bright sweeping vision for the future, to respond to Americans’ demand for “action, and action now.” He proposed vast public jobs programs, putting the unemployed to work building the nation’s infrastructure and protecting natural resources. He proposed agricultural reforms, foreclosure relief, and reining in irresponsible speculation by banks and Wall Street. He spoke soaringly of leadership “which aims at a larger good,” acting on “old and precious moral values.”
“Our constitutional system has proved itself the most superbly enduring political mechanism the world has ever known,” he exalted. “It has met every stress … of foreign wars, and of bitter internal strife.”
He reassured a desperate public that “this great nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and prosper.”
So, yes, America, times are tough, said FDR, but they’ve been worse, and with “the warm courage of national unity,” there is no obstacle we cannot overcome. With resolute action by a newly invigorated government, there is nothing at all to fear.
He had campaigned throughout with “unadulterated joy” (in the words of close aide Ray Moley) for his rosy New Deal for the American people, and brought great happiness and confidence into the White House, according to the Secret Service chief who oversaw the transition from Hoover to Roosevelt.
Trump turns this visionary optimism upside down and inside out. From a period of what he describes as darkness, he promises … more darkness. Retribution against his political enemies. Gutting the nonpolitical civil service and requiring personal loyalty. Making the Justice Department his personal instrument. Pardoning those who savagely attacked police and waged an insurrection against our Constitution. Harassment or de-licensing of unfavorable media outlets. Backsliding on climate pollution, gun violence, reproductive rights, civil rights and voting rights. Giving Putin some or all of Ukraine. “I don’t give a shit about NATO.”
Follow-up pop quiz. Who said this?
Trump is “more dangerous than anyone could ever imagine.”
Answer: Trump’s Secretary of Defense, General James Mattis.
What’s truly dangerous: Trump inviting comparisons to FDR. No way can that go well for him.
