FDR created his frequent “fireside chats” using the then-new-technology “radio” to speak directly to the American people - and, by the wa -, bypass the existing (very powerful monopoly) print media (newspapers) that were arrayed against his New Deal. Not all newspapers of course, but many. There was no TV to compete with each town’s newspaper editor, no 3-network monopoly of information, no Internet to share information and remember history, and only the black-and-white movie shorts as visuals.
Trump is using Twitter to do the same thing that FDR did in his much-applauded fireside chats.
His followers are using Facebook and internet pages (FreeRepublic, Townhall, WND, Drudge, etc, etc.) to talk among themselves and to reinforce themselves with knowledge otherwise concealed AGAINST the monopoly of today’s national press corpse and the national socialist party’s ABCNNBCBS using them/being used by them.
FDR gave 31 fireside chats between 1933 & 1944. That’s only about three per year (I thought it was a weekly or monthly event until I looked it up). But the three major radio networks CBS, NBC, & Mutual rebroadcast all of his speeches that were considered newsworthy giving him far more air time than the chats alone.
But neither newspapers or radio in those days were captive to the uniformly totalitarian ideology that grips the MSM today. A newspaper that was anti-FDR or anti-New Deal reflected the views of its editor or owner rather than conformity to industry-wide groupthink.
The genie is out of the bottle nowadays as far as sources of information. Corporate attempts to suppress conservative views will IMO not effectively shut down debate. And tweeting one’s thoughts of the moment becomes part of a permanent virtual archive. All that bigwigs like Brennan can reply is “harrumph-harrumph, I am a distinguished public servant so don’t you dare criticize me, you peasants”.
BTW I hope Pres. Trump swings the hammer and yanks the clearances of those 156 critics & more. What are they going to do, REALLY condemn him now?