The National Review: Kevin D. Williamson: 'FDR's Nationalism Presaged Donald Trump's'

Source:The National Review- "President Franklin Roosevelt delivers a fireside chat from the White House, 1933 (National Archives)" President Franklin D. Roosevelt (Democrat, New York) 32nd President of the United States.

"Professor Samuel H. Beer of Harvard, once a speechwriter for Franklin Roosevelt, lived nearly a century, from 1911 to 2007. If he’d lived a bit longer, he might have made a good speechwriter for Donald Trump."

From The National Review

I don't want to sound like I'm trying to offend, but Kevin Williamson's who I tend to respect at least politically, has nationalism and progressivism, mixed up with a what I call unitarianism and not the religion, but in governmental sense.

Source: Wall Street Journal- Donald J. Trump, the first Nationalist POTUS 

The United States unlike the United Kingdom and like the Federal Republic of Germany is a federal republic. We have decentralization of governmental power in America. We have checks and balances, as well as branches of government. National, state, and local, and in many cases Americans tend to live under two local government's. County and city and if you live in the City of Los Angeles, or in Chicago (to use as examples) you know exactly what's that life. Since the City of Los Angeles is part of Los Angeles County and Chicago is part of Cook County.

Source: IZ Quotes- Truer words have never been said than what Sydney Harris said here 

In a country that has a unitarian government or is a unitarian state like Britain, most of the governmental power, but not all is centralized with the national government in London. 

The U.K. Government runs the education system for Britain, as well as health care and health insurance for the entire country. Whereas in America each state even city, county has their own public education system and make their own governmental decisions for all other local matters that go on in their local jurisdiction and state.

President Franklin Roosevelt, was neither a Nationalist or a Unitarian when it came to government policy. The man led us along with our allies through World War II and saved the European Jews from ethnic destruction from the German Nazis. 

If FDR was a Nationalist, we would've stayed out of Europe and perhaps Japan as well, especially if he were truly a Democratic Socialist who didn't believe in government force and a strong military during World War II.

According to Wikipedia

"Nationalism is a political, social and economic system characterized by the promotion of the interests of a particular nation, especially with the aim of gaining and maintaining sovereignty (self-governance) over the homeland. The political ideology of nationalism holds that a nation should govern themselves, free from outside interference and is linked to the concept of self-determination. Nationalism is further oriented towards developing and maintaining a national identity based on shared, social characteristics, such as culture and language, religion and politics, and a belief in a common ancestry.[1][2] Nationalism, therefore, seeks to preserve a nation's culture, by way of pride in national achievements, and is closely linked to patriotism, which, in some cases, includes the belief that the nation should control the country's government and the means of production."

President Franklin Roosevelt, was a Progressive in the true sense of the term. Someone who believed in progress and that progress could obtained through government action. That government could be used to promote and achieve progress in the country. 

FDR inherited the Great Depression and believed government should be used to help Americans through the Great Depression with things like Unemployment Insurance and Social Security, but that government could also be used to help us get out of the Great Depression and back to strong economy health. 

Pre-New Deal, there was no public safety net or a national infrastructure system of any kind and with President Roosevelt we saw the Federal Government pay for the financing of American roads and other infrastructure projects in America.

If FDR was a Unitarian or Socialist, he would've nationalized the public education system in and all public welfare policy would be complete run by the Federal Government. No more local public hospitals, because now the Feds would be running those hospitals, as well as public housing, no more private health insurance.

Under FDR the Federal Government got a lot bigger and spent more money than it did before especially as it related to the economy, but our National Security State was also created under FDR and we became a world economic, military, and diplomatic power under FDR. Because he was a liberal internationalist who believed in a strong America both at home and abroad. 

Democratic Socialists, who tend to be very dovish on foreign policy and national security. FDR, was a Progressive Democrat in the truest and best sense of the word, he did put limits on what government should do and try to do and who also believed in individual success in America.

Forward With Roosevelt: Paul M. Sparrow- FDR’s Four Freedom’s Speech Remastered

Source:The New Democrat

President Franklin Roosevelt with his Four Freedoms speech, was essentially arguing for a society where everyone would be free not to have to go without. Because there would be a big federal government big enough to prevent that and be able to take care of everyone. Because everyone would have what they need to live well, because it would be provided for by government. At least for people who didn’t work, or simply didn’t make enough money to support themselves on their own.

If you’re familiar with this blog, you know I’m a big believer in both Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion. But this idea that we would have freedom from want, or freedom from fear, sounds very utopian and like someone’s fantasy. Perhaps a fantasy that comes from drinking too much, or smoking pot that is stronger than you thought it was before you smoked it. I don’t make fun of people who want a world where there is no poverty and fear. But coming from and living on Planet Earth my whole lifetime, I’ve learned that it helps to have a healthy sense of reality in life. What’s possible and what might be out-of-reach and what is the best that we can do at the given time.

To create a society where there’s no such thing as poverty and fear, you got to create an economy where everyone has the ability to succeed.Where everyone can get themselves a good education, where their good jobs and modern infrastructure in every community. Where people have the, yes freedom to succeed and even take risks even if some risks don’t pay off. And then you have an insurance system for people who truly need it to help them when they fall down. And need help getting by in the short-term, but also get help to get themselves up and live in freedom on their own.

You create a society where everyone is essentially dependent on government to take care of them and people won’t feel the need and freedom to succeed on their own. And more people will end up dependent on big government to take care of them. And people can point to Scandinavia all they want to, but very small countries in population, with a lot of land, that are not just energy independent, but export their energy and use those resources to fund very generous big centralized welfare states. America, is obviously not like that. Which means for this country to succeed the people need have to have the ability to succeed on their own.

The Nation: Richard Kreitner: FDR Signs The Emergency Act, Launching The New Deal: March 9, 1933

The Nation: The Almanac: Richard Kreitner: FDR Signs the Emergency Banking Act, Launching the New Deal: March 9, 1933

This post was originally posted at The New Democrat on WordPress

If you think President Barack Obama had it tough when he became President of the United States back in 2009, imagine being President Franklin Roosevelt when he became President in 1933. A country where the economy is literally in free fall. The economy shrinking at ten-percent or thereabouts, twenty or thirty-percent unemployment and about that or more people living in poverty. Without a functioning public safety net to help people who are going through these harsh realities. But that is what President Roosevelt inherited from Herbert Hoover and I’m sure people close to FDR were asking or at least thinking, “President Roosevelt, are you sure you still want to be President?”

Within the first two-years a lot of the New Deal was already passed and I’m sure that had some positive effect towards the Depression. Putting money directly in people’s pockets who perhaps otherwise wouldn’t of had it. But the new infrastructure investment and the public works projects was where the real improvement in the economy started happening in the 1930s. Because those projects literally put people back to work with good jobs repairing and building the country. But to be completely accurate it isn’t until the 1940s with World War II when the economy starts to completely climb out of the Depression and we start to see income and unemployment levels start to look like they were pre-Great Depression.

What the New Deal was and still is was the creation of the public safety net in America. We are still not like Europe and I imagine never will be as far as what the central government provides to the people as far as taxpayer-funded social insurance programs. But we’ll always have a public social insurance system, at least as long as we need it for people who truly need it. And have been knocked off their feet economically and need help getting back up. Which is where we should be as a modern liberal society. That helps people in need, but also helps them help themselves so they can live in freedom. And not have to be taken care of indefinitely because they can take care of themselves.

Moyers & Company: Joshua Holland: Outrage Over ObamaCare is Nothing Compared With FDR's New Deal

Source: Bill Moyers-

Source:Moyers & Company

In the 1920s and 30s, the U.S. economy was a pretty freewheeling affair. Taxes were low and regulation of the economy was minimal.  Libertarians were as close to utopia as they had ever been.  When the first Franklin Roosevelt administration took office, they were confronted with the Great Depression.  The New Deal that they fashioned in response, though it seemed radical at the time, was actually a very practical, mainstream, economic response.

The Conservatives were saying that this was a natural fluctuation of the market and that it would recover on its own.  On the Far-Left, the Socialists were saying that this is capitalism at its worst and a great example of how it doesn't work.  We need to replace it and come up with a completely different  economic system.

FDR was a pragmatic Progressive and didn't enter the White House with a bold agenda for dealing with the Great Depression.  He had ideas but nothing big and bold.  In airplane pilot's lingo "He created the New Deal by the seat of his pants."  Saying that the Roosevelt Administration made it up as they went along is probably too loose but they put in ideas as they got them.  They had not developed a New Deal agenda as far back as the 1932 presidential campaign.

The Socialists were calling for steep new taxes on the wealthy.  I'm sure they wouldn't have left what was left of the middle class off the hook.  They called for nationalization of industries and creation of a Nordic-like welfare state.   The Libertarians were saying that government should stay out of the way and let the economy fix itself, if anything lower taxes and regulations on private capital.

FDR's New Deal was in the middle.  It affirmed American capitalism as a good system that empowers millions of Americans to be successful.  What it lacked, and what the New Deal provided, was an insurance system, paid for by the economy itself, for people who need help when the system failed.  This is how Social Security, Unemployment Insurance and Welfare Insurance were created.  The New Deal, included, as well, new infrastructure investment to do needed work that the private sector was neglecting and to provide employment to millions of Americans.
Mr. Science: FDR- A History of The New Deal

PBS: The Great Depression

Source:The Daily Journal

In 1933 when Franklin Roosevelt became President of The United States he inherited the Great Depression. Basically an economy that was sinking and collapsing with basically no money anywhere, or no money being created. And anyone who had money at this point in the private sector was not spending, or investing the money. The Federal Government was literally the only game in town that it could spend and afford to borrow the rest to make up the difference of money.

America need money to be invested in the country to get people working again. And creating jobs so people had money to spend to generate economic growth, or at least create a floor for the Great Depression and buy time for the American economy to recover. Which is very similar, but not exactly how the Obama Administration and Congress responded to the Great Recession in 2009. We can argue about the effects of these proposals, but that’s how they were designed. And at least to a certain extent were effective in dealing with the Great Depression in a successful way.

The New Deal represented democratic socialism in the United States. And the creation of the safety net. The New Deal and President Roosevelt wasn’t looking to end American capitalism, but to save it and create a system that could respond to people who fell through the cracks of it. And be able to spend money and invest in the economy when no one else had the resources. In a very centralized and anti-federalist way putting a lot of responsibility with the Federal Government to respond to economic crisis’ like this.

Which is generally what you get from Socialists Democratic, or otherwise and Franklin Roosevelt was certainly Democratic. But bringing a social democratic, or democratic socialist response to the problems of the country. Which is one of the reasons why his critics on the right as well as left, like Wendell Willkie a Classical Liberal similar to me called President Roosevelt a Socialist. Thats the situation that Franklin Roosevelt inherited as president in 1933 and how we got the safety net in this country known as the New Deal. Our first phase of the safety net in this country. Where previously we were more of an economic libertarian country, where support for these policies seemed extreme or far-left, or something. President Roosevelt made these polices seem mainstream.

All Histories: New Deal 1930's Government Promotional

Source:The Daily Journal

The New Deal I believe has a mixed bag when it comes to the Great Depression as far as how it dealt with the Depression. Social Security and the minimum wage and perhaps a few other things like the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, have all been success’. But the American economy ten years into the Depression which stared in 1931, or so and again the Depression took up most of Franklin Roosevelt’s first two terms as President, the economy was still in fairly weak shape. A lot of what you probably see in this video is probably true, but they’re not going to give you the whole story. Americans went back to work during the 1930s, but a lot of other Americans were still out of work. Or not making the money that they use to and perhaps now working part-time.

If you look at the American economy in the 1930s and then go up to the 1940s, there’s no comparison. The 1930s, America is either in depression, or recession most of if not the whole decade. And was looking at unemployment levels of twenty-percent or more. The 1940s, thanks to World War II and I’m sure some government infrastructure investment, is where you see Americans go back to work and working good jobs. The 1940s and World War II, were huge economic booms for the American auto industry and the American military industry. All of those vehicles and equipment that was needed to fight World War II in Europe and Japan. And you obviously need good workers to build those vehicles and that equipment. And that is where the jobs are created.

Of course any government propaganda video is going to show you the highlights of what the current administration is working on and show their success’. So this film isn’t any different in that way. Which is why people need to know the difference between the whole truth and propaganda and do their own research. Not that government will lie to you necessarily of course, at least not all the time even though the best administration’s do lie, but they’re not going to tell you the whole story. But what they want you to hear, which is really the definition of propaganda. So what you need to do is find out the rest of the story and then be able to judge for yourself what is really going on. And how bad or good it actually is.

Brent Abrahamson: President Franklin Roosevelt's Second Bill of Rights Speech

Source:Free State MD

When President Franklin D. Roosevelt became President in 1933 he obviously inherited the Great Depression and created the New Deal to respond to it. By the early 1940s, we were committed to World War II thanks to Japan bombing Pearl Harbor and Nazi Germany murdering European Jews. President Roosevelt creates the New Deal, we get out of the Great Depression by the early 1940s, we win World War II by 1944-45 and President Roosevelt was looking to complete his Presidency. He was President for twelve years, 1933-45 and had plenty of time to figure out what to do with it. And he decided to build on the New Deal, which he called the 2nd Bill of Rights. Which has also been called the Fair Deal, which was about economic security for all Americans.

FDR wanted to create things like national health insurance, perhaps national healthcare as well. Education reform, perhaps a national higher education system. And all the economic rights, like a right to a good job, a right to a living wage, a right to health care and health insurance, a right to a pension. Europe has these things or at least once they did, but once you guarantee that all Americans have a right to a good job and other things like that, it makes it very difficult to remove unproductive workers. As long as they are not stealing or abusing coworkers that sort of thing. Because they now have a right to that job. Like someone would have the right to free speech and other things.

For any of these economic rights to be real, they need to be part of the U.S. Constitution. Which they currently are not, otherwise they can always be removed just by statue. And President Roosevelt was never successful in accomplishing that. What he should’ve focused on, was creating an economic system where everyone would have the opportunity to be successful. Based on what they contribute to society and that means quality education for everyone.

James Miller Center: FDR Fireside Chat 6: Government & Capitalism

Source:Free State MD

President Franklin Roosevelt, did not become President of the United States, to destroy American capitalism. As some Conservatives and Libertarians have suggested. But he became President to save it, by changing it. Before 1933, when FDR became President, we were essentially a Libertarian Society. Where we were all on our own and if we needed help, we were basically at the mercy of our families, friends and private charity. Had we had a functioning safety net pre-1933, the Great Depression, which essentially lasted for ten years, wouldn’t of been as bad. Because all of those unemployed workers would’ve had some public assistance. They could count on, I’m not saying this as a fan of the New Deal, because I’m not.

A safety net, should be designed to empower people to get themselves off of public assistance. Not just pay people while they are on public assistance. But if we had a safety net back then and we had an FDIC with the Stock Market Crash and we were regulating Wall Street and Corporate America properly, not trying to run it, we could’ve saved ourselves a lot of pain from the Great Depression. So FDR basically ended up trying to create a safety net while people needed it the most. And creating these programs on the fly. FDR, wasn’t trying to turn America into Russia, with a state economy. But more like Europe, with healthy private and public sectors.

FDR didn’t set out to destroy American capitalism, but to save it. By putting in regulations so irresponsible people in business, wouldn’t be able to destroy the economy again. And lead to another Great Depression. And so people who fall through the cracks, can get help and not end up homeless and on the street.