What Would FDR Do/Say About the Billionaire Takeover?

"To some generations much is given."

So…

Elon Musk (who has had multiple calls with Putin) was on Trump’s call with President Zelensky!?

Jeff Bezos sent Trump a fawning, congratulatory note after spiking a Washington Post endorsement.

JD Vance rose to be VP, from nowhere (and hardly a moment in Ohio) and with no real experience, largely due to a single billionaire backer.

Trump is talking about another round of massive tax cuts at the top, while Musk suggests an era of pain for everyone else.

At the state level, in Ohio, business interests made sure that we have a Supreme Court that rules in favor of their interests and not everyday folks those interests injure. (Think the “chicken bone” case).

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg….here are some more tidbits of what’s already happening:

As I read nightmarish updates like this, I keep circling back to the FDR speeches I so like to review. My admiration grows for FDR as we endure what we are going through.

The era that has been setting in of late, and which is about to explode when it comes to who controls the federal government itself along with key policies, reminds me so much of what FDR confronted as he took the reins.

And more than any voices do today, FDR always reminded Americans about the continual struggle that had taken place since our Founding.

Here’s some of the speech he gave accepting the Democratic nomination in 1936:

“The age of machinery, of railroads; of steam and electricity; the telegraph and the radio; mass production, mass distribution – all of these combined to bring forward a new civilization and with it a new problem for those who sought to remain free.

For out of this modern civilization economic royalists carved new dynasties. New kingdoms were built upon concentration of control over material things. Through new uses of corporations, banks and securities, new machinery of industry and agriculture, of labor and capital – all undreamed of by the fathers – the whole structure of modern life was impressed into this royal service….”

“It was natural and perhaps human that the privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached out for control over Government itself. They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction. In its service new mercenaries sought to regiment the people, their labor, and their property. And as a result the average man once more confronts the problem that faced the Minute Man….”

“The hours men and women worked, the wages they received, the conditions of their labor – these had passed beyond the control of the people, and were imposed by this new industrial dictatorship. The savings of the average family, the capital of the small business man, the investments set aside for old age – other people’s money – these were tools which the new economic royalty used to dig itself in.

Those who tilled the soil no longer reaped the rewards which were their right. The small measure of their gains was decreed by men in distant cities.

Throughout the Nation, opportunity was limited by monopoly. Individual initiative was crushed in the cogs of a great machine. The field open for free business was more and more restricted. Private enterprise, indeed, became too private. It became privileged enterprise, not free enterprise.

An old English judge¹ once said: “Necessitous men are not free men.” Liberty requires opportunity to make a living – a living decent according to the standard of the time, a living which gives man not only enough to live by, but something to live for.

For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people’s property, other people’s money, other people’s labor – other people’s lives. For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness.

Against economic tyranny such as this, the American citizen could appeal only to the organized power of Government. The collapse of 1929 showed up the despotism for what it was. The election of 1932 was the people’s mandate to end it. Under that mandate it is being ended.

The royalists of the economic order have conceded that political freedom was the business of the Government, but they have maintained that economic slavery was nobody’s business. They granted that the Government could protect the citizen in his right to vote, but they denied that the Government could do anything to protect the citizen in his right to work and his right to live.

Today we stand committed to the proposition that freedom is no half-and-half affair. If the average citizen is guaranteed equal opportunity in the polling place, he must have equal opportunity in the market place.

These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power. In vain they seek to hide behind the Flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the Flag and the Constitution stand for. Now, as always, they stand for democracy, not tyranny; for freedom, not subjection; and against a dictatorship by mob rule and the over-privileged alike….

There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.

In this world of ours in other lands, there are some people, who, in times past, have lived and fought for freedom, and seem to have grown too weary to carry on the fight. They have sold their heritage of freedom for the illusion of a living. They have yielded their democracy.

I believe in my heart that only our success can stir their ancient hope. They begin to know that here in America we are waging a great and successful war. It is not alone a war against want and destitution and economic demoralization. It is more than that; it is a war for the survival of democracy. We are fighting to save a great and precious form of government for ourselves and for the world.”

What I so admire about these speeches is how crystal clear they are. No words minced about the terms and stakes of the larger battle, or the forces he is taking on.

No mistaking whose side he is on.

And what gives me hope, still now, is that it was on the strength of such bluntness and clarity—and the nation-changing reforms he undertook—that FDR led the country longer than any American in history. And arguably made more progress than any President in history.

Here was FDR’s victory map four months after he gave this speech—he took almost 61% of the vote:

And his words remain a call to action today:

We are indeed fighting to save a great and precious form of government for ourselves and for the world. Those who just won a major battle will work hard and in disturbing ways to cement their gains into place. And, they will overreach, just as those who came before FDR did. They will likely do so quickly.

With our help, the people will see that. And they will feel it in their own lives.

But convincing them to ultimately reject it requires that we NOT grow too weary to carry on the fight.

After all, as FDR said, we are generations to whom much has been given. Which makes our role especially important.

Specifically, we know what the world and politics looked like following the Voting Rights Act, following Roe, before Shelby County, before Citizens United, before Trump, before Dobbs, before the fraying caused by social media.

We know what the world felt like when Barack Obama won. When hope could win and hate lost.

We took that world for granted. But now we know how special it was.

And that means our collective memory of that world is absolutely crucial as younger generations experience something altogether different. And yes, there is a risk that having never seen the world we experienced, future generations will not expect or know to demand any better than what Trump and Musk give them.

So it for those generations, at the very least, that WE can NOT give up.