“Unprecedented”, “Terrifying”, “The End of the Republic”, these words and more fill our screens after the election of our 45th president, Donald J Trump. We have a tendency to see our world and its issues through the limited time frame of our modern lives. With the prevalence of social media and its focus on the individual, its tendency to herd our friends, their views and our worldview into a narrow slice of our known information, it takes a conscious effort to maintain perspective and learn from our country’s rich history.
The 1932 election brought FDR to power, swept Republican President Hoover out of office and ushered in New Deal policies utilizing government control and organization to pull the nation back from the brink of the Great Depression. While some of these policies worked, others failed miserably and worse was yet to come. After his 1936 reelection, a premature attempt by FDR to balance the budget failed and caused a second recession and FDR’s popularity to nosedive. On top of that Roosevelt attempted to pack the Supreme Court with justices of his choosing using dubious reasoning and was scuppered in the attempt even by members of his own party.
Many saw the attempted court packing as a sign of a man that had been in office too long and was developing dictatorial tendencies. When it became clear he would not refuse to serve an unprecedented third term in 1940, the accusation of “dictator” was thrown around freely. Even members of the Democratic Party opposed the third term on principle.
The Second World War started in September 1939 and the country was deeply divided with interventionists pitted against isolationists. FDR and some in the Democratic Party were soft interventionists while the GOP and a large section of the population were committed isolationists.
This staunch isolationism began after the First World War as many vowed to never again get drawn into a European conflict. They ensured this wouldn’t happen by passing the Neutrality Act that stated the US must remain neutral in overseas conflicts. Key isolationists included famed aviator and national hero Charles Lindbergh who wholeheartedly opposed any foreign intervention and was one of the best known leaders of the “America First” movement. While some America First supporters were fascists, many were not. A key isolationist argument was that to enter another European conflict was a waste of resources and humanity. Many felt that big business and “special interests” (for some a code-word for “Jews”) made a fortune off of the First World War at the expense of the prosperity and well being of the American people and saw the Great Depression as evidence of that. Not only that but many had lost loved ones whose remains littered foreign battlefields.
The divided populace became even more so as Paris fell to the Nazi Blitzkrieg and London came under sustained bombardment of Hitler’s Luftwaffe. Seeing beleaguered Britain as the “last man standing” caused national opinion to shift slightly towards assisting the Allies while maintaining neutrality. FDR was careful not to get too far ahead of the people but he did skirt around both popular opinion and the Neutrality Act with his Destroyers for Bases Agreement which allowed England to get assistance in the form of old WW1 destroyers. His critics once again claimed that these were the actions of a power hungry dictator who disregarded the will of congress and the people. FDR forged ahead anyway. Fears of many that FDR was turning into “another Hitler” hellbent on getting the US into the war seemed to be justified.
Yet the GOP was not in much of a position to oppose FDR’s third term. Despite some gains in the 1938 midterm election they did not have an obvious front runner to challenge the incumbent. It was in fact the dark horse candidacy of a lawyer turned businessman with no political experience that upended the 1940 race for the White House. His name was Wendell Willkie, a former pro-business Democrat who had defected to the GOP when FDR proposed breaking up the big utility companies.
He was a likable guy from Indiana, and unpolished speaker, an anti-politician and stridently pro-business. He was also the only candidate at the convention that was not an strict isolationist. During the convention news reached the delegates that France had fallen to the Nazis and Willkie’s soft interventionism began to seem more attractive than isolationism. It was enough to earn him the nomination after numerous rounds of voting and a huge shock to the GOP establishment.
On the campaign trail Willkie was able to use folksy charm to challenge FDR’s patrician bearing and win over voters. He chastised Roosevelt for his run for a third term. Campaign badge slogans such as “Dictator? Not For US”, “Dictators Don’t Debate” and “No Internationale, Third Reich, Third Term” were prevalent.
Willkie reversed his soft interventionist stance as the polls tightened and began to accuse FDR of actively attempting to bring the US into the Second World War. FDR stridently denied the charge with a phrase that would go on to haunt him – he promised “your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars”. Despite FDR’s assurances Willkie’s charges worked and brought many late isolationist voters into his camp.
As the results came in on election night it looked very close and FDR shut himself up in his Hyde Park home and demanded to be left completely alone as the votes came in. This was not his usual election night behavior when he was surrounded by aides and others counting returns. However once it became clear he was headed to victory he invited everyone back in and the celebration began.
What happened after is known to posterity. Pearl Harbor was attacked a year later bringing the US into the war as a matter of self defense. Willkie for his part joined with Roosevelt and the interventionists to help move the country towards better preparedness and became an ambassador for FDR once the US entered the war. He did a great deal of work to help heal the rift between the isolationists and interventionists and bring the country together to face and help defeat the Axis Powers.
In the end Willkie would not have been able to run for a second term had he denied FDR his third. He died after multiple heart attacks on October 8th, 1944 at the age of 52.
History took its course and the Allies went on to win the war with American intervention, an intervention which Willkie, despite his temporary isolationist turn, helped to make successful. Yet for the people living through that time the stress, uncertainty and fear must have seemed insurmountable. Would my sons be sent to Europe to die? Will our president succumb to the power of a third term and become a dictator? Will an unqualified businessman who wavers back and forth on intervention become our president?
With hindsight these fears seem unfounded and even silly but that made them no less real to Americans at the time. The country pulled together and did what had to be done, including people who had been at each other’s throats only months before. In the aftermath of one of the most contentious and brutal elections in US history it is important to look at instances in our past that give us a better understanding of the present. Our capacity as Americans to come together from a very divided place to not only survive but thrive is a lesson we learn time and again. We should take heart from this history and recognize the potential of our nation to overcome division for the greater good.
Further Reading:
Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh and America’s Fight Over World War II, 1939-1941 by Lynne Olson
1940: FDR, Willkie, Lindbergh, Hitler – The Election Amid the Storm by Susan Dunn
