Hillary Haters and the Roosevelts
Even some Democrats who agree with Hillary Clinton on every issue and consider her an effective, inspiring leader, fret that the blind, irrational hatred, that burdened her husband during his presidency and that continues to dog his wife, might impair her electability. "She is too polarizing" they say, parroting the verdict of television's Sunday morning gas bags.
It's worth recalling the historical parallels with an earlier presidential couple. "No other word than hatred will do," observed a May 1936, Harper's Magazine feature "They Hate Roosevelt" by Marquis W. Childs. "The phenomenon to which I refer goes beyond objection to policies or programs. It is a consuming personal hatred of President Roosevelt and, to an almost equal degree, of Mrs. Roosevelt."
Childs deemed this "fanatical hatred" so intense and irrational that it could only be explained as the product of "abnormal psychology." Historian William Manchester described how Roosevelt haters "abandoned themselves in orgies of presidential vilification." William Bird, curator of political history at the Smithsonian Institution said that "by 1936, the 'Roosevelt haters' had developed into a well-defined cult among the nation's business elite," their lackeys in the press and on the editorial boards and among right wing Christian theocrats led by fascist radio host Father Charles Coughlin.
"In history, this hatred may well go down as the major irony of our time," wrote Childs. "The majority of those who rail against the [Roosevelts] have to a large extent had their incomes restored and their bank balances replenished since the low point of 1933," before FDR came to power. "That is what makes the phenomenon so incredible. It is difficult to find a rational cause for this hatred."
Describing the same baffling dynamics, a bewildered contemporary magazine editor created an inventory of the most vitriolic Roosevelt haters, including the CEOs of Phillips Petroleum, National Steel, DuPont, General Foods, Monsanto Chemical and General Motors, and then recorded the tremendous growth in their stocks which had all flourished since the implementation of Roosevelt's New Deal policies.
The intense hatred of the Roosevelts was a dominant feature in the American political landscape during the decade of the 1930s and prompted efforts to impeach him and even a plot to depose him by a military coup planned by high ranking officers of Wall Street's richest corporations, including Goodyear, Bethlehem Steel, JP Morgan, and DuPont. The "vast right wing conspiracy" had its own Richard Mellon Scaife. Robert Clark, one of Wall Street's richest bankers and stock brokers pledged half of his $60 million fortune to help finance the coup. His deputy, former Commander Gerald Macguire of the American Legion, a Wall Street bond broker, equated Roosevelt's reforms to Communism and explained the purpose of the coup to a co-conspirator, "We need a fascist government in this country to save the nation from the Communists who want to tear it down and wreck everything we have built in America." The 1933 coup attempt was only averted by the courage of General Smedley Butler, the popular World War I warrior who had been tapped by Wall Street to lead the plot and who instead exposed and denounced it.
"People in power with privilege don't want to be challenged at all," Hillary told me recently as we discussed the repetitive rhythms of history. "FDR's policies rescued capitalism, thereby saving the fortunes and restoring the incomes of so many of the same people who would curse his name over the dinner table. They somehow still felt threatened because they don't like to be questioned."
"And there is something of the same going on today. If you challenge the pharmaceutical companies, the health insurance companies, if you think investment fund managers should be taxed at the same rate as nurses and firefighters, you run into this vitriolic response."
Irrational hatred was the powerful drug that intoxicated the Gingrich Congress to impeach President Bill Clinton at the time when he enjoyed 65% popularity with the American people and had steered the nation through eight years of peace and unprecedented prosperity.
Hillary's supporters should be heartened by the fact that intense hatred is often accompanied by equally strong support. Roosevelt won four landslide victories against his opponents and crafted the architecture for the most humane, successful, generous features of modern American government.
They can also take comfort in Hillary's proven ability to transform intense hatred into loyal support. I recently toured upstate New York's traditionally Republican counties which she has transformed through leadership and political acumen, into rock solid Hillary Clinton strongholds.
With a playful wink she told me, "One of my favorite pins in my political pin collection is "I Don't Like Eleanor Either." It reminds her that it's not just the president who is targeted by the haters. But "about anybody who cares about and stands up and fights for the changes that our country needs to have."
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How I long for revisionist history! You can bet that the truth has been suppressed, and that we are all programmed by our schooling to believe that the State---all hail the state and its benevolent leaders!- is the greatest boon to ever hit mankind.
Time to awaken from the dream.
Excellent post. This is exactly the same thing going on in today's political climate.
Hillary has really pushed the envelope to generate strong negative feelings from progressives in the Democratic base--a real problem for a her electability in a close race--especially if the Republicans play dirty with the ballots this round. It boils down down to her positions on Iraq and Iran. Pundits have pointed out the Hubert Humphrey gained potentially winning momentum when he finally came out against the Viet Nam war--he just made his move to late. Perhaps it is not too late for Hillary to admit she was wrong in giving Bush the green light on Iraq, that she is clearly committed to getting all troops out of that country and allowing them to work out their own path to self-determination, and that she made a mistake in supporting the Lieberman amendment on Iran and that she recognizes, as does General Wesley Clark, that Iran is not an existential threat to us and we should engage them in constructive diplomacy. That just might be enough to quell this Democrat's strong negative reactions to Hillary's cynical and/or naive war-mongering and allow me and others like me to support her candidacy if she wins the nomination.
I would imagine the son of a great leader, RFK, would know those same qualities when he sees it in another candidate. Thanks for the article.
Bobby,
I saw you once rolling in the snow with your brothers in the Sun Valley Mall. I sat through several masses next to your family at Lady of the Snows as well. I have wonderful memories of your family, and sad ones too. I loved your dad more than any politician ever, and I still get tears in my eyes when I see pictures of him and think about how he spoke to people in Watts after the MLK assasination. I read Crimes Against Nature, and felt it was among the most compelling books of that era.
All that said, just to reinforce the love I feel for you and your family, your comparison of FDR and HRC may have a kernel of truth in it, but the more compelling comparison is between FDR and John Edwards who has the same populist theme. I suspect that in 1932, we were in a deeper economic hole than we find ourselves today, so populism resonated better with the voters. I don't believe that Hillary has the same folksy appeal that FDR did, and I can see fireside chats much easier coming from JRE. Merry Christmas, Bobby, I still love you guys, but I can't follow you on this one. Giordy
Didn't FDR make a deal with media baron William Randolph Hearst to cinch the Democratic nomination?
Or does the similarity end before that?
I like Hillary but I like Edwards better. Hillary has been abused for decades by the Republicans and has gone underground emotionally. Edwards comes straight out with his positions and does not triangulate. One would have expected that Hillary would be the first to introduce a universal health care plan, but she said that she would introduce it during her second term in office. She later introduced her plan six months after Edwards broke the ice and made it politically safe to do so. He is fearless and leads. (He could use a speechwriter alter-ego, like Ted Sorenson was, to expand further his repertoire and the impact of speeches. But his current speeches do fit like a glove and sound totally authentic because they come direct from his heart.) America does not need any more dynasties for now. Coming so soon after the turbulent Clinton years and the Bush Dynasty, people are exhausted at the thought of another Clinton.
It seems there are Hillary haters, and anti-Hillary people who are sort of knee-jerk progressives.
My primary belief for this election is that the last eight years have seen America going to the right on so many levels, so much consolidation of right wing power and wealth...
someone with truly progressive rhetoric will be squashed by the conservative propaganda machine.
We need a candidate who can function in the REAL political climate we find ourselves in.
I niether hate nor love President Bush, Hillary Clinton, or any other candidate/official. This is not a football game, or tribal conflict. I will vote for the person I think may REASONABLY have a chance of moving things back the other way, toward what I consider a more humane and progressive political environment. Just like the Democrats taking the senate - They were not able to have a velvet revoultion because there are still 150 million people out there who believe in the conservative agenda. The next president will have to function in a post-Bush America with all that that entails. The insurance and Pharm lobbies are real functioning entities on the contemporary political stage. Deal with it. Dennis Kucinich is not going to ride in on a hybrid stallion and save the day.
I believe Senator Clinton would do a good job within the context of my previous statements.
And God Bless her, she doesn't have a southern accent!
Maybe so, Bobby. But the difference is that FDR championed strong policies fearlessly. Hillary? Not so much. She is a study in fearfulness, caution and poll-driven me-tooism. Where are the radical policies that FDR championed? The amendment she proposed to the constitution to ban free speech aka burning the flag?
The bill she sponsored condemning violence in video games while voting to attack Iran?
Hillary is no FDR. She isn't even a Hillary anymore. She's a product of Mark Penn, and we don't need any more 'products'. We need a leader. In that most basic of tasks, she has already failed.
Alas, a sane post about the truly irrational nonesense heaped on Hillary. As if the Rush Limbaugh plague had jumped hosts and infected large segments of the populace. The blob at work.
I see it more as the mob mentality - generally mindless attacks worthy of the most deluded Boosh republican.
Kudos on this piece Mr. Kennedy.
Hillary is Not Roosevelt. Roosevelt was ethical.
usually i try to read all the posts before adding my own, but 333 is too many.
just wanted to point out that, for all the good he did, roosevelt tried to dump the constitution when it was in his way, and he also committed american forces to combat when we were neutrals.
that is, the people who hated him didn't do so without reason, whether or not their hatred was reasonable.
This is one of those jokes that writes itself.
Hillary says: "People in power with privilege don't want to be challenged at all...They somehow [feel] threatened because they don't like to be questioned
Doesn't that just describe her and Slick Willie to a "T"? Hillary is drowning right now, and scrambling because her own "inevitability" is being challenged, even though she was supposedly the all-powerful political juggernaut of 2008. She should feel threatened - she's going to lose.
Hillary Haters? Say it ain't so!
I have to say Robert, I'm disappointed. Slogans such as "Hillary Haters," like its country cousin "Bush Bashers," seeks to silence honest debate and dehumanize the critics by sliming them and making them appear unhinged. This is a form of propaganda "labeling-
The comparison to FDR is a fantasy she is trying to will into being. She just doesn't have the track record.
Suggesting she is taking on the pharmaceuticals is similarly false.
Your alleged quote from her where she indirectly compares herself to Eleanor Roosevelt echoes like several other hollow attempts at making her seem more down to earth. If she is authentic she needs to show us that herself, not in little anecdotes by others. If she can't do that, then she lacks emotional intelligence. We've had enough of low emotional intelligence, overly controlling false-self types.
We need a president with some honest self-reflective depth. She doesn't show that, even though she's had years and years of getting that kind of feedback to take it seriously and develop it in herself. She apparently doesn't see it as important or she would have done something about it in the last 15 years.
I am a "friend to her soul," as I struggle to be for Bush and Rove, et. al, though I may rant on them from time to time. I care about her spiritual development, and I hope she takes this seriously instead of continuing to use people like you to shoot the messenger of feedback she doesn't want to hear.
By the way, despite my disappointment in this post I'm still a fan, in fact I looked for a long time to add you to my favorites, but it wasn't possible for some reason. Be well.
If Hillary just went with her gut and stop with the "triangulating," I think she could easily secrue the nomination and even general election. That's one of the reasons people like Obama and even Edwards. People feel that they are getting a sense of their real selves.
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