HERE’S WHY JRB IS NO FDR.
FDR and JRB both have slightly exotic middle names: Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Joseph Robinette Biden. Roosevelt’s mother was a Delano, Biden’s grandmother a Robinette. JRB was born Nov. 20, 1942. FDR died April 12, 1945, so they overlapped on the planet for 874 days. FDR was 51 years old when he took office; JRB, 78.
Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said FDR had a “second-rate intellect but a first-rate temperament.” People say the same thing about JRB. In fact, apart from his long experience of Washington, his main claim to office is his empathetic nature.
They are both known for their electric smiles and their skill at insider politics. And they both had a busy first 100 days, though the concept itself wasn’t part of American politics until in a radio speech shortly after his were over FDR pointed out just how busy he had been. During those 100 days, Congress wrote and passed 78 laws, the first of which closed the nation’s banks and set up deposit insurance in advance of their reopening. New laws also established the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, the National Industry Recovery Act, and the Tennessee Valley Authority, thus starting the alphabet soup of New Deal agencies (CCC, AAA, NIRA, TVA) to which many more letters eventually were added.
JRB has been busy, too, passing trillions of dollars worth of “infrastructure” spending that, in the malleable political vernacular of the 2020s, encompasses subsidies for childcare, eldercare, health care, R&D, and education (extending K-through-12 at both ends), as well as hardware of one kind or another for items more conventionally counted as infrastructure. We know now that FDR caused a big increase in the role of government in American society. Though he too ran as a moderate, it seems JRB’S philosophy is also “Go big or go home.”
There the similarities end, however. FDR took office 40 months into a deep economic depression and genuine crisis of capitalism. The entire social and economic system had run itself aground and, despite considerable effort, was seemingly no closer to being refloated than at any time since the stock market crash in October 1929. What led to the fear that FDR told Americans was the only thing they really had to fear was widespread bewilderment about how things had got that way.
Our own situation is nothing like that. Why we arrived at our current pass is obvious. We were hit by a pandemic that caused people to avoid some activities all on their own and induced government to shut down many others on their behalf. A solution is at hand in the form of newly-invented vaccines. Where vaccination is proceeding most rapidly, including in the U.S., economies are recovering. JRB boasted Wednesday night about the 1.6 million jobs created in his first 100 days, more than in any other president’s. But no business went out and started hiring because he is now president. They started hiring because, with vaccination well underway, it’s clear the U.S. economy is bouncing back. Thursday’s announcement of first-quarter growth of six per cent shows that.
FDR had an overwhelming mandate for change. He beat Herbert Hoover in November 1932 by 57.4 per cent to 39.7 per cent — 22.8 million votes to 15.8 million. His margin was the same seven million votes by which JRB beat Donald Trump, except that last year the split was 81.3 million to 74.2 million, or 51.3 per cent to 46.9 per cent, in other words, much narrower. FDR won the Electoral College vote 472-59. JRB won it by just 306-232.
In 1933, the Democrats took the Senate 58 to 36. Today the split is 50-50, with Vice President Kamala Harris serving as the tie-breaker. In 1933 the Democratic margin in the House of Representatives was 311 to 117 — not far off three-to-one. Today it’s 218 to 212, with five vacancies. It almost literally could not be closer. Because of saw-off the Biden administration is having to pass its program using the legislative gimmick known as “reconciliation,” which allows it to finesse the Senate’s normal requirement for a 60-vote majority.
The political split in Canada is just as close. As is their custom, Canadian Liberals will try their hardest to ride the ideological wave created by American liberal Democrats — even while piously professing their love for Canadian independence and uniqueness, which their Conservative opponents supposedly put at risk. But in fact they are a minority government that received fewer actual votes at the last election than the Conservatives did.
The test of a political program, especially one that tries to change society in fundamental ways, is whether voters validate it. They sometimes do. FDR won the 1936 election with an increased majority: 60.8 per cent to 36.5 per cent, 27.7 million votes to 16.7 million, and 523 Electoral College votes to just eight (those of Vermont and New Hampshire) for the hapless Governor Alf Landon of Kansas. The Democrats also increased their House seats by 12 and their Senate seats by eight, taking them to a 68 to 25 margin.
FDR’S transformative program did end up being approved by voters. My guess is JRB’S — and JPJT’S (Justin Pierre James Trudeau’s) — won’t be.