Harvey J. Kaye: Palin Seeks FDR's Endorsement
[Harvey J. Kaye is Professor of Social Change and Development at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and the author of Thomas Paine and the Promise of America (Hill & Wang). He is currently writing a new book, The Four Freedoms and the Promise of America]
Sarah Palin is running for President of the United States. In her new book, America By Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith, and Flag, she essentially declares her candidacy—not so much by what she says as by what she does not say. Even as she champions the Tea Party movement and professes her belief in God, the free market, and a conservative rendition of American exceptionalism, and even as she seeks to reignite the culture wars and portrays liberals and progressives as un-American, or at least as different than most every other American, she does not attack FDR.
In fact, taking a leaf from Ronald Reagan’s 1980 political playbook, Palin rhetorically enlists Roosevelt to her cause. Not the Roosevelt of the New Deal—the Roosevelt who refashioned American democratic government and empowered working people to more effectively address the crisis of the Great Depression and pursue programs of recovery, reconstruction, and reform. Instead, she evokes Roosevelt the war president: not the Roosevelt who enunciated the Four Freedoms and Economic Bill of Rights, but the Roosevelt who led the nation in a D-Day prayer on June 6, 1944.
Palin is smart. She is smart enough to know that Americans not only continue to revere FDR’s memory and value his legacy, but rank him alongside Washington and Lincoln as one of our three greatest presidents and, clearly, the greatest president of the twentieth century. Moreover, Palin is smart enough to recognize—as her hero Ronald Reagan did—that while you can win followers, garner high ratings on the radio, and win elections in states like South Carolina, you cannot win the presidency by attacking one of America’s “greats.” You especially can’t attack the guy who enacted Social Security and led the nation against European fascism and Japanese imperialism. And she is also smart enough to have secured a ghostwriter who can find words from that very president, along with the words of other progressive Americans, which she not only can embrace without losing her right-wing reputation, but can also use to exasperate her antagonists....
Read entire article at Dissent
Sarah Palin is running for President of the United States. In her new book, America By Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith, and Flag, she essentially declares her candidacy—not so much by what she says as by what she does not say. Even as she champions the Tea Party movement and professes her belief in God, the free market, and a conservative rendition of American exceptionalism, and even as she seeks to reignite the culture wars and portrays liberals and progressives as un-American, or at least as different than most every other American, she does not attack FDR.
In fact, taking a leaf from Ronald Reagan’s 1980 political playbook, Palin rhetorically enlists Roosevelt to her cause. Not the Roosevelt of the New Deal—the Roosevelt who refashioned American democratic government and empowered working people to more effectively address the crisis of the Great Depression and pursue programs of recovery, reconstruction, and reform. Instead, she evokes Roosevelt the war president: not the Roosevelt who enunciated the Four Freedoms and Economic Bill of Rights, but the Roosevelt who led the nation in a D-Day prayer on June 6, 1944.
Palin is smart. She is smart enough to know that Americans not only continue to revere FDR’s memory and value his legacy, but rank him alongside Washington and Lincoln as one of our three greatest presidents and, clearly, the greatest president of the twentieth century. Moreover, Palin is smart enough to recognize—as her hero Ronald Reagan did—that while you can win followers, garner high ratings on the radio, and win elections in states like South Carolina, you cannot win the presidency by attacking one of America’s “greats.” You especially can’t attack the guy who enacted Social Security and led the nation against European fascism and Japanese imperialism. And she is also smart enough to have secured a ghostwriter who can find words from that very president, along with the words of other progressive Americans, which she not only can embrace without losing her right-wing reputation, but can also use to exasperate her antagonists....