Things Worth Remembering: What Kamala Could Learn from FDR

 Americans need a vision. That’s what the New York governor gave us at the 1932 Democratic National Convention. Can the vice president do the same?

Tomorrow is the opening day of the Democratic National Convention, which will be scripted, slickly produced, and lacking in any serious debate. 

We will be expected to forget, among other things, that the party’s nominee did not win a single delegate, that she was selected by a handful of insiders, and that we still have pretty much no idea what she believes in or would do as president. (Her recent announcement that she would like to impose price controls on groceries is so preposterous and politically unfeasible that it doesn’t actually merit discussion.)

So, now is a good moment to remember the Democratic nominee who knew exactly what he believed, and what he intended to do—and whose election to the White House marked a sea change in American politics.

In the summer of 1932, in Chicago, Democrats nominated New York governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt to be their presidential nominee. 

It will not surprise you to learn that Roosevelt formally accepted the nomination with a speech—but, it should be noted, such a thing had never been done before. Roosevelt’s move, he admitted, was “unprecedented and unusual, but these are unprecedented and unusual times.”

America was in the throes of the Great Depression: Unemployment was nearing 25 percent. Millions of Americans had lost not only their jobs but their savings, their homes—their hope. In 1932, over 273,000 families were evicted—and two years later, half of all mortgage payments would be delinquent. (That figure was 3.2 percent in the first quarter of this year.)

Americans needed something to believe in.

Roosevelt’s rise was, like all successful political careers, a mixture of talent and timing.

He was no political novice when he ran for the highest office in the land. Under President Woodrow Wilson—whom he would refer to as “our indomitable leader” in his 1932 acceptance speech—Roosevelt served as former assistant secretary of the United States Navy.

In 1920, he was the running mate of Democratic presidential candidate James M. Cox, who had had to wrest the party’s nomination from a decrepit, power-hungry Wilson, who was reluctant to give up. (Politicians never change.) Yet when the election came around, Republican Warren G. Harding crushed Cox.

Soon after, Roosevelt was hobbled by polio, which left him paralyzed from the waist down, though he took pains to conceal as much. In 1928, he was elected governor of the Empire State—which, at the time, was the most populous state in the union. There, he bided his time, until the political conditions were ripe for him to challenge Republican president Herbert Hoover.

Roosevelt’s fight for the Democratic nomination was not straightforward. He faced intense and, at times, dirty competition from Al Smith—FDR’s predecessor as New York governor—and John Nance Garner of Texas, the Speaker of the House. Nor was it obvious, once he had the votes, that he would even be able to make his party’s convention in Chicago. Flying was not yet the done thing.

Yet, as Conrad Black recounts in his superb biography, Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom, the candidate left Albany by plane at 7:30 a.m. on July 2, 1932, accompanied by his wife, Eleanor; his children; his various aides and secretaries; and his security detail. The flight to Chicago took over ten hours, with stops in Buffalo and Cleveland. Yet, in turbulent skies, as in turbulent seas, FDR was still able to catch up on sleep.

“Serenity at key moments of his career,” Black writes, “never deserted him.”

Upon taking the stage at the Chicago Stadium, he apologized (sort of) for running late.

“I appreciate your willingness after these six arduous days to remain here, for I know well the sleepless hours which you and I have had,” Roosevelt said, eliciting laughter. “I regret that I am late, but I have no control over the winds of Heaven and could only be thankful for my Navy training.” 

It was time, FDR went on, to break the “absurd” and “foolish” tradition of presumptive presidential nominees pretending that they were unaware that they had been nominated by their parties until weeks after the convention.

 America was in dire straits, and, to show the country that he meant business, he had come to Chicago to thank the delegates in person and plunge headlong into his race against President Hoover.

In his speech, Roosevelt did a few things that have had an enduring impact on the American political scene: He referred glowingly to his party rivals. He spoke in grand (sometimes grandiloquent) terms about his policies. Most importantly, he introduced a phrase to the language that has stuck ever since—pledging a “new deal” for the American people.

It’s worth recalling—for the benefit of those who believe we are living through uniquely challenging times—that in the early 1930s, across the West, it was not just capitalism that was under assault, but democracy. The Bolsheviks had seized power in Russia, and the fascists were marching across Europe—first, in Italy; then, in Germany; soon after, in Spain.

In the same way that illiberalism today has about it a certain fashionable sheen, the illiberal impulse appealed to the scared and small-minded then, too.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt grasped that Americans needed a vision to rally around.

Even those who do not care for his policies can hardly deny his skill in summoning the delegates in the convention hall to his cause:

“Wild radicalism has made few converts, and the greatest tribute that I can pay to my countrymen is that in these days of crushing want, there persists an orderly and hopeful spirit on the part of the millions of our people who have suffered so much. To fail to offer them a new chance is not only to betray their hopes but to misunderstand their patience.”

Anticipating Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump nearly nine decades later, he added: “The people of this country want a genuine choice this year, not a choice between two names for the same reactionary doctrine. Ours must be a party of liberal thought, of planned action, of enlightened international outlook, and of the greatest good to the greatest number of our citizens.”

Note that the aristocratic Roosevelt, who had attended Groton before matriculating at Harvard, never lost sight of what was most important: his fellow Americans, whom he refers to as his “countrymen” and “our people” and “our citizens.” (Can anyone imagine a Democratic presidential nominee, in 2024, calling Americans, all Americans, “our people”?) His speech is serious and compelling, and it conveys empathy, intelligence, care.

In our day, Democrats have taken to imagining that America is locked in a kind of 1932 nightmare, and that it is either them or. . . the fascists. (Never mind that the United States is not Weimar Germany.) That has had an obviously lamentable effect on the party, which seems less and less capable of articulating a path forward.  

As she rehearses the speech that she’s about to give at this week’s convention—which, like 1932’s, will be held in Chicago—Kamala Harris might ask herself, as FDR asked himself, where she wants to lead America.

If she can paint a powerful picture of that hoped-for country, and if she can communicate a sense of shared urgency that stretches across social and economic and geographic boundaries, she might have a shot.

“Let us all here assembled constitute ourselves prophets of a new order or competence and of courage,” Roosevelt told convention-goers at the very end of his speech. “This is more than a political campaign; it is a call to arms. Give me your help, not to win votes alone, but to win in this crusade to restore America to its own people.”

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