FDR
Franklin Delano Roosevelt had lots of practice at being the national leader well before World War II. He became President in 1933, at the depths of the Great Depression. Unemployment was over twenty percent, most banks were closed, and the stock market hadn’t even begun to recover. While entering a World War called for all of the strength of the “Bully Pulpit”, entering office in 1933 required more than just words.
FDR had a plan, the New Deal. He knew the nation needed to see action, federal action, and in the first one hundred days of his administration he created the “alphabet soup” that became what we know today as the federal bureaucracy. They included: National Recovery Administration (NRA), Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), Civil Works Administration (CWA), Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA).
He communicated through action, and he communicated directly to the people through his “Fireside Chats”. FDR didn’t do it in 140 characters; he took time to explain and reassure Americans that their lives would be better. His Administration exuded confidence and competence. It’s a little like the press conferences Governor Cuomo of New York is doing now; talking about how people feel as well as the cold hard facts of the corona-virus pandemic and the actions needed to counter it.
The War
So when World War II came around, he had a strong staff, already used to taking the initiative and willing to take the lead in gearing the nation for War. He had the confidence of the country, and when he told us that “…yesterday, December 7th, 1941, a day that shall live in infamy,” Americans lined up to join.
When he needed an organizer to prepare his military, he found George Catlett Marshall, who managed Nimitz and MacArthur, Eisenhower and Patton to win the War. And when he needed a weapon, he found a single-minded son of a bitch, Major General Leslie Groves, who herded his scientists into developing a working atomic bomb.
Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was a War President. He made it clear from before the first shots at Ft. Sumter that there was only one condition for ending the War, reaffirmation of the Union. Slavery was not the issue, nor was “Northern aggression”. Stay in the Union, and almost anything else was possible. Leave the Union, and War was the only answer.
Lincoln made it clear that the Union was more important than even the law. Ask the Maryland legislators who found themselves locked away without charges in Ft. McHenry, the same symbol of Star Spangled Banner fame. It’s a little like Ohio’s Governor Mike DeWine, who knew that a statewide election would put Ohioans in greater danger. So he cancelled the election, and when a court ordered it back on, he had his Director of Public Health declare it a public hazard, and shut it back down.
Lincoln had a “team of rivals” as his cabinet, competitive and absolutely competent. But while it took him more than a year to begin to find that same competence in his military leadership, ultimately the people stood with him as he searched for General Grant. It was his rhetoric, his language that spoke to the American people, raising them to a willingness to defend, serve, and become “…the brave men, living and dead, who struggled here…”
More than Words
We know what a “War President” looks like. Even George W Bush found his place, as he stood at the side of first responders at “ground zero” and said, “I can hear you! I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you! And the people — and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!” Unfortunately he squandered that respect in an unnecessary War in Iraq.
A War President takes the lead. He doesn’t equivocate about whether the state or federal government is in charge, or whether getting ventilator machines out to the crisis areas is some “mail clerk’s” job. A War President uses the media to get out the information he needs people to have. He doesn’t spend his time disparaging them for “nasty questions” or claims they are all “fake” news.
And a War President finds a Grant or a Marshall or a Groves to spearhead an American effort to deal with crisis. Instead, this President put his Vice President in charge, and then steps in front of him to take credit for any positive results. And finally, a War President recognizes that trust and truth are ultimately what creates confidence and a willingness to sacrifice, not made up results or untested cures.
Trump
Why should the kids on spring break in Florida believe what our government is saying? Our current “War President” has spent three and a half years trying to convince them that the media constantly lies, while lying himself over 16,400 times since his inauguration. How does anyone trust or depend on that?
When our President claims it’s like being in a War, what he really wants is the laurels of victory that come with being a War President. What he doesn’t realize is that those laurels aren’t simply bestowed by the office and the situation. They are won by the leader’s hard earned actions and earned respect. That hasn’t happened.
By the way – as I write this — on top of everything else happening in the world, this morning’s storms have made my house “lakefront” property again!! Oh boy!
