Another Play Out of the FDR Playbook

Constitutional Guardian ^ | 9/10/11 | Nancy Tengler

[timesthattrymenssouls]

"Roosevelt had played around with economics, and economics hadn't served him very well. He would therefore give up on the discipline and concentrate on an area he knew better, politics." The Forgotten Man by, Amity Shlaes (246)

At almost precisely the same point in his first term as Roosevelt was in his, Obama seems to be shifting from playing around with the economy, to hard-boiled, special interest politics. Economics hasn't served him very well so he is returning to the divisive accusation-driven speeches that hallmarked his campaign.

Back to Shlaes for a moment: "If he (FDR) followed his political instincts, furiously converting ephemeral bits of legislation into solid law for specific groups of voters, then he would win reelection. He would focus on farmers, big labor, pensioners, veterans, perhaps women and blacks" (246).

This was Roosevelt's strategy for re-election in the face of economic failures and disappointing rulings in the court against his Great Government Centralization Plan. Obama is taking the same bet. He's just raising the stakes some with angry and accusatory rhetoric. FDR, too, lashed out at the media and Supreme Court when he lost the Schechter Brothers case to a unanimous decision signaling the death knell for the NRA. He tried castigation and abandoned it. Conciliation and clever co-opting became the new calculation. And it worked.

Luckily for us, there is not a conciliatory bone in Obama's body.

There are more similarities. Social Security legislation was assigned to Frances Perkins of the Labor Department. This was a high priority item. Think ObamaCare in measuring its importance to the Administration. Ms. Perkins worried that she would have difficulty getting her social insurance system past the Court. A little snag called The Constitution. She confided her worry to Justice Harlan Stone. Stone gave her the following advice: "The taxing power of the federal government...is sufficient for everything you want and need" (Shlaes 229). Justice Stone was providing the critical clue to how the Court would view the Constitutional test of Social Security. If it was insurance it wouldn't hold up. If it were simply another tax, it would meet the threshold.

In response to the various suits against the Constitutionality of ObamaCare, the government is now scrambling to take the same position.

One can hope they are just a little too clever too late. Setting your defense after the offense has already run the play doesn't usually work out so well.

Fingers crossed, set, hike.

[Verginius Rufus]

Obama has two things going against his being able to duplicate what FDR did:

1. Historical memory--people know this was tried before.

2. Likability--FDR was likable, Obama is not.

[Carley]

Read this book on FDR is a mirror image on Obama and his fellow travellers.

Following the identical unsuccessful path.

I have to believe it’s a deliberate attempt to destroy the economy.

[Logic n' Reason]

Obama has two things going against his being able to duplicate what FDR did:
1. Historical memory--people know this was tried before.
2. Likability--FDR was likable, Obama is not.

Please....take no offense, but I humbly comment on these two points.
1. There are few folks remaining alive who actually are aware that "this" was tried before. And those living now are decidedly not - as a whole - "up" on their US governmental history.
2. At least 42% of the American voters (if Rasmussen is to be believed) "Stronly Approve" of the little tin god. Morover, a) Rasmussen has a decidedly conservative bias, and b) other polls (if they can be believed) show higher "Strongly Approve" ratings for the little tin god from American Voters.

Does "Stronly Approve" equal "Like"???

I don't know....and it wouldn't matter anyway. With a 40%+ "Strongly Approve" rating, he doesn't need to be "liked". He just needs to stay in power.

Currently, he isn't even being threatened. This despite all the rhetoric of the Becks, Hannities, Limbaughs, Ingrams, and other rino/conservative spokesfolks.

More's the pity.

[griswold3]

Exactly!

1. Historical memory—people know this was tried before.
Like Ray Moley, FDR brain trust fellow traveler, realized that the US will not tolerate a central command economy. Moley said it would take a police state here to implement such policies. I totally agree.

2. Likability—FDR was likable, Obama is not
True to the Nth degree. I’ve never in my life heard a POTUS speak about the opposition with such contempt. Usually they’ve used humor to get their point across, but Obama’s words drip with hatred when he talks about Republicans. (Howard Dean, “I hate Republicans and everything they stand for” comes close but he was never a serious candidate.)

[Pessimist]

I just finished “FDR’s Folly”, and it too read like a cross between Rand and today’s news. Only it was all real.

Yet he got elected 4 times....

[UCANSEE2]

He just needs to stay in power.

Because being 'in power' is what it's all about, to them, instead of 'serving their country'.

[SoCal Pubbie]

Rasmussen reports today that only 25% strongly approve. 46% strongly DISapprove.

[Logic n' Reason]

Because being 'in power' is what it's all about, to them, instead of 'serving their country'.

Yep....

[Logic n' Reason]

Rasmussen reports today that only 25% strongly approve. 46% strongly DISapprove.

I don't think you and I are looking at the same report, so I'm going to go back and check. Be right back....

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OK...on the Rasmussen web site on today's date (Friday, Sep. 10, 2010), the little tin god's "Strongly Approve" percentage is: 22%.

However, his "Total Approve" is 42%.