If we can survive Franklin Roosevelt, we have a chance with Trump
Jan 17, 2017, 6:05 AM | Updated: 9:46 am
Those worried Donald Trump being president should remember that the nation survived FDR, who was considered by his critics to be “an intellectually second-rate, rich mama’s boy," KIRO Radio's Dave Ross points out. (AP)
(AP)
Some people seem genuinely frightened by the rapidly approaching Trump inauguration.
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They harbor a deep foreboding that on Friday, at the stroke of Noon — 11 a.m. Central, 9 a.m. Pacific — a dark churning cloud will settle over the Capitol, and as they watch helplessly, Scylla and Charybdis, who haven’t had a decent meal since the Odyssey, will ravenously devour Obamacare, the Civil Rights Act, the First Amendment, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and then burp it all up on the White House lawn.
Now, people are entitled to their anxiety.
But for some perspective, let’s look back at the inaugural speech our grandparents heard in 1933.
Here’s the famous part: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” Franklin D. Roosevelt said.
And here’s the not-so-famous part: “I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis — broad executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.”
Franklin Roosevelt, considered by his critics to be “an intellectually second-rate, rich mama’s boy,” was talking about martial law to end a jobs crisis. And yet the nation not only survived, it won a world war, rebuilt the world’s economy, and spawned the Baby Boom which then grew into the largest mob of rebellious pot-smoking teenagers America had ever seen.
If we could survive all that, don’t you think we have a decent chance of surviving this too?
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Tune in to KIRO Newsradio weekdays at 5am for Dave Ross on Seattle's Morning News.
