Sometimes we can use a little FDR optimism.
All my life I have read books about President Franklin Roosevelt. It's given me perspective on the politics of today. No matter how awful the dark right fed rumors about President Obama (He was born in Kenya. Bill Ayers wrote his books) or the junk about President Biden that gets published on FR today, it was nothing compared to the right wing sludge that was spread about FDR: He was a crippled imbecile controlled by Eleanor. He was secretly Jewish (that sort of story is always with us). He planned the bombing at Pearl Harbor. And on and on. FDR faced opposition from the conservative elements of his own party. He faced a reactionary Supreme Court. He couldn't pass all of his agenda. He wanted there to be health care component to Social Security but couldn't get it through. He tried to expand the Supreme Court. He just came close but couldn't quite do it.
Through it all he never lost faith in the country or in the ultimate triumph of his policies. Maybe something to bear in mind as we deal with similar problems today.
I do have one FDR story that I think tells us something about his personality and his way of dealing with the issues that confronted him. Admittedly this comes at the very end of his life.
Arthur Krock was the then very conservative columnist for the New York Times. In maybe March of 1945 he was attending a public dinner where FDR was present. As FDR was rolled down the aisle at the end Krock noticed the grey pallor, the slack jaw, the fact that FDR was slumped over in his wheel chair. The look of concern must have been evident on Krock's face. Then FDR spotted him and everything changed. The President was sitting up straight, his cigarette holder was clenched at a jaunty angle, the famous Roosevelt grin spread across his face.
"Cheer up Arthur." He said as he was rolled by. "Things are rarely as bad as you say they are."
We've been here before. We are going to keep making progress.
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