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December 16, 2007

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: Hillary Haters and the Roosevelts

Filed under: Opinion — Volt @ 8:52 pm

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., The Huffington Post, December 16, 2007

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.

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7 Comments

  1. My position during the first Clinton administration was that it kept the Neo-Cons too
    busy trying to bring down My president for them to work thier hidden agenda,the agenda that never is spoken of on the Sunday morning political shows but which after these seven long and bloody years have manifested itself similar to the horsemen of the apocolypse.

    Comment by Rainlander — December 16, 2007 @ 10:10 pm

  2. It’s curious that the Moneyed Elite would hate FDR so, but one explanation would be that they wanted it all for themselves and they resented him giving away even a fraction to the poor to keep the peace.

    As we’ve seen with Bush and his privileged cronies, that’s the bizarre and stupid way these rich folk think.

    Someone once said that first generation riches — the ‘self-made’ kind — usually results in a decent person with money but succeeding generations come to think of wealth as an entitlement. They also, as the Hapsburgs, the House of Windsor, and Junior and Neil Bush prove, tend to inter-breed and produce more than their share of idiots.

    Comment by RS Janes — December 17, 2007 @ 8:35 am

  3. FDR knew from the very start that the way to restore the economy was to provide security for those hit the hardest by the depression. Ever since then the conservatives have tried to take that security away. I wonder if they realize how close we came to a left wing communistic style goverment(i.e. Huey Long).

    Comment by greyhawk — December 17, 2007 @ 1:43 pm

  4. From the old folks I’ve talked to who were alive during the early days of the Great Depression, many were convinced either we were going to have a Communist or fascist dictatorship — Russia or Mussolini’s Italy. They also didn’t think the aristocratic and wealthy FDR would do much — he was just a tad better than the loathed Hoover, who did nothing.

    Seems like we’re going to have to dodge that bullet again as the economy crumbles.

    Comment by RS Janes — December 17, 2007 @ 7:51 pm

  5. I’m sold, Hillary’s FDR. The rest of the top Democratic presidential candidates would be too if they were truly principled Democrats. Kucinich and Dodd better represent what FDR stood for.

    Comment by DC Madman — December 17, 2007 @ 11:58 pm

  6. I think Biden’s a loud-mouthed dipstick (with occasional flashes of sanity), but even he’d be better than any of the Republicans.

    FDR wasn’t even FDR until he took office; we have no choice but to toss the Dem dice and hope whoever it is grows into the office.

    Comment by RS Janes — December 18, 2007 @ 9:38 am

  7. Isn’t it more like, Bill’s term was FDR and Hillary’s is Truman? Bill’s term showed us how the economy could be fixed and things could run well. Hillary’s job is to defend and continue that deal, hopefully with a better congress.

    Hillary doesn’t need to grow into the office: the Clinton team already did enough growing in 1992-2000 to balance the budget, keep us out of wars except the one they won with iirc zero US casualties, etc etc.

    Give ‘em hell, Hillary!

    (Sorry, a little nostalgia there….)

    Comment by 1950democrat — December 22, 2007 @ 9:41 pm

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