(No, not that fantasy about Debbie Harry… although Ms. Harry is certainly invited…)
Today I started re-reading Nothing to Fear: FDR’s Inner Circle and the Hundred Days That Created Modern America by Adam Cohen of the NY Times. Great book, underappreciated. Relates how FDR blazed through his first hundred days as president knowing that he didn’t know the answers to solving his era’s depression, but he sure as hell was going to make things happen until working Americans were in a better place.
And WOW, did he try! He tried all kinds of stuff!
FDR’s first hundred days were astonishing. In his first week, he literally turned the country’s long-boiling banking crisis around. In one week. (I’ll bet you didn’t know that he turned it around using the advice of Hoover’s advisers – advisers that Hoover had ignored and hidden away. If you’d read this book, you’d know.) In all, 15 major pieces of legislation were pushed through in 100 days (and 30 press conferences!).
It was a big chaotic mass of well-intentioned legislation created by incredibly smart and pragmatic people from backgrounds that ranged from banking to social work. Some stuff worked, some didn’t. But on whole, the thing was a staggering success. The number of unemployed Americans dropped by more than 40% in FDR’s first term, and GDP grew 8% per year. (Then he went all austerity-licious at the start of his second term, which didn’t work well at all – but it was soon corrected). In a few short years, our industries grew so mighty from the ashes that we were able to save the world from the Axis powers on two distant fronts. And for more than three decades after cleaning up that mess, America’s 99% flourished and prospered. Heck, the 1% flourished and prospered too. It all worked.
Then came the darkness. And here we are.
Many believe we are back in a depression today. Certainly, the number of Americans in poverty grows daily – as do the rolls of the homeless and the hungry. Almost one in four American children lives in poverty today.
I believe that FDR’s successor in the White House was right when he said that “The only thing new in the world is the history you don’t know.” And that’s why I’m spending time with FDR again. I want to know how we solved this problem last time, so I’ll know what we need to do to solve it this time.
We need another hundred days. What will they look like if they are to succeed?
So, on to my (wholesome) fantasy… I have a dream that I can find some other Newton/Boston-area Liberals (or even non-Liberals if they’re open-minded) who are likewise interested in how we fixed our last depression, to also read Cohen’s book and to get together regularly over appropriate beverages to discuss it, a few chapters at a time. How do our times parallel those of the last depression? How are they different? Which ideas might work? Which ideas have been tried and failed?
There, I confessed: a book club for thinking Liberals.
Will you join me?
Now being reality-based, I understand perfectly well that the likely outcome of this offer will be nothing but confusion, mirth and derision. And as I’ve been a Liberal for 20+ years, I’m very used to confusion, mirth and derision. But as a Liberal, I also know that I need to try.
So… any like minds out there?
Christopher says
At one point I suggested BMG keep a running list of book recommendations from readers. No mirth and derision from me, though I’m not sure I personally have the time.
thinkliberally says
Are you talking to me?
mannygoldstein says
Uncle Manny wants YOU.
You in?
Mr. Lynne says
This is what you get when an executive in a crisis realizes its a crisis and acts like its a crisis.
Must have been nice.
SomervilleTom says
FDR did not conduct his administration under the intense media scrutiny of current administrations. The press conference of his day was one of a handful of alternatives available to him to communicate with the public. The “fireside chat”, broadcast by radio, was a revolutionary new medium that FDR created. Its more recent reincarnation was an appeal to nostalgia, rather than a bold new communication initiative. That was a time when it took at least hours, if not days, for a White House reporter to get a president’s remarks into print, and days more for any response to them to occur.
Today, literally every sneeze and nuance of ANYTHING a president does or says is immediately available around the world. Response is immediate, and often unpredictable. An offhand remark can instantly send markets plunging and provoke far-flung diplomatic crises.
I share your nostalgia for FDR-style press conferences, and at the same time I think we have to acknowledge the vastly different world that a current president serves in. While there are advantages to today’s instantaneous communications network, there are disadvantages as well.
Mr. Lynne says
… but what they were symptomatic of that I’m pining for. They were symptomatic of the fact that the WH was in crisis mode and acted like it.
mannygoldstein says
For the remainder of his presidency.
IIRC, questions were not submitted in advance and nothing was off limits.