The End of FDR's World
Roosevelt's Vision Almost Made it to 80
The mission of this Allied Force was fulfilled at 0241, local time, May 7th, 1945.
Eisenhower
With those 15 words, Supreme Allied Commander General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower told the Combined Chiefs of Staff, and the world, that Hitler’s Germany had been defeated, but only after the six bloodiest years in human history.
Having past away three weeks earlier, on April 12th, President Franklin D. Roosevelt would not be there to witness the result of his toil, dynamism or genius at creating the greatest coalition, the greatest military, and the great arsenal humanity had ever known.
VE Day, and the subsequent victory of Japan a few months later, would have been impossible without Roosevelt’s leadership. While there are plenty of arguments against the “Great Man of History” theory, it is difficult to see how the United States could have accomplished so much, in so many places, in such an overwhelming manner, in less than three and half years of active combat.
None of what happened during the war would have been possible had Roosevelt not laid the foundation of the world so many of us grew up in when he took office in 1933. Without the political, logistical, ideological, and spiritual force of the New Deal, democracy itself may have fallen in the wake of the Great Depression and facing two other powerful movements: Fascism and Communism.
In 1933, too, our grandparents and great grandparents asked if American democracy was up to the challenge. Roosevelt answered boldly, bravely, and broadly. But for his force of will and keen understanding that the nation and the world needed a system radically different from what had come before. The failure of unfettered capitalism brought us to the brink of tyranny, Roosevelt pulled us back.
In 1935, FDR signed the Social Security Act. By 1940, regular monthly payments were being distributed. The SEC, FDIC and the Glass-Stegall Act regulated and stabilized the financial sector. The Civilian Conservation Corps and Works Progress Administration put people to work, any work, at a time when 25% of the US was unemployed.
After September 1, 1939, the day Hitler invaded Poland, Roosevelt’s gaze looked outward and forward. How would America participate? Would we participate? With opponents like Father Coughlin, Charles Lindbergh, and the German American Bund, it was no sure-thing that US would once again come to the rescue of our European cousins.
For Roosevelt, the war represented the challenge of generations, but the opportunity to create a new world based on universal human rights, a community of united nations, and the end of (ideally) colonialism. He wouldn’t live to see his accomplishments. And as imperfect as they were, they provided a stable, understable system that saw the United States lead the free world for nearly a century.
Roosevelt was too much a realist and too savvy to know that the structures he’d created would last forever. His hope was that the world he helped create would survive until the last veterans of the war passed into history themselves.
He just about called it. FDR didn’t live to see his great accomplishments come to flower, and the longevity of his world broke down right on schedule. Today, America is allied with Russia, not out of common purpose, but out of convenience and distorted ideology.
The United Nations has become, despite its greatest intentions, little more than a debating society, twisted in knots by narrow-bore interests and a bureaucracy all its own. As the post-World War II world breaks down the UN’s mandate, such as it was, is murkier than ever.
In 1941, Roosevelt laid out his vision of the “Four Freedoms”
Freedom of Speech and Expression
Freedom of Worship
Freedom from Want
Freedom from Fear
The irony is brutal. As we celebrate victory over one of the most evil regimes in history, the foundations of the world that that victory provided; the blood and treasure it costs to build, are disappering before our eyes.
In 2025, Trumpism, like its step-grandfather, fascism, is roiling the world. What we knew is gone. What is to come is still unknown. The damage being done, and that will be done, is heartbreaking.
As we commemorate a great victory, and the incredible sacrifices that were made to achieve it, we should look back to Roosevelt’s ideals and idealism. When he had the opportunity, he didn’t tinker around the edges, he offered a new system, a new way of seeing the world, and a new foundation for the American people.
We need his inspiration now more than ever.
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Eisenhower’s Victory Message
The End of FDR's World is sobering. My hope is we can pick up the pieces and Move Forward Together into a bright unknown.
Part of Roosevelt’s greatness (unlike the current regime) was to surround himself with greatness; with brilliant, innovative people he respected and listened to. Not least of all was Frances Perkins, who was the impetus behind most of Roosevelt’s social reforms. And placing a woman in his Cabinet placed him well ahead of his time. We now have a band of stooges who understand nothing - not history, economics, foreign policy, or any other issue critical to running a nation. It is sad to watch the destruction of all that Roosevelt and others accomplished. Our only goal should be to maintain the vision of post-WW II and push back without ceasing.