American cities are burning. Civil unrest is beyond a boiling point. Racial tensions are flaring up from coast to coast. Riots are everywhere. A familiar and often repeated narrative from the media is a likening of today’s America to another tumultuous time in our shared history, that of 1968. In ’68, a pivotal presidential campaign was underway against the backdrop of a divided America. The assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, coupled with a growing opposition to the war in Vietnam, had America appearing to tear itself apart at the seams.
In this election year, there does indeed appear to be a great many similarities to the turbulence of 1968. Yet that is not the election year Democrats, and their allies in the media, are attempting to recreate. Rather, they appear to have their collective eyes set on 1932, and the first election of Franklin Roosevelt. That was the election year that bares the most striking resemblance to today, and the one that the left is hoping will repeat itself.
1932 saw the Great Depression taking hold throughout the country. People were out of work. Businesses were closing. People could not acquire their basic needs. The economy was in free-fall. In July of that terrible year, some 60,000 veterans of World War I descended on Washington to demand an early payment of bonuses, then set for payment in 1945. Although President Hoover insisted the protesters be given food, tents, medical care, and beds, when the Senate, equally divided between Republicans and Democrats, rejected the early disbursement of bonuses by a vote of 62-18, tensions flared, and a riot soon ensued. A riot sparked by the flagrant actions of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, contrary to the president’s explicit orders. It was upon hearing this news that presidential candidate, and then Governor of New York, Franklin Roosevelt turned to a friend and gladly stated, “Well, this elects me!”
It is of little wonder that Democrats and the media would seek to foster a replay of 1932. Herbert Hoover did not cause the Great Depression or the economic despair it brought. But he took the blame. Hoover tried his best to ameliorate both the frustrations of the “Bonus Army” and the effects of the riots. Yet the responsibility for both was thrust upon him. These were essential seeds in the election of FDR, and the most consequential pivot to the left this country has ever seen.
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The last few months have seen the global pandemic of the coronavirus wreak havoc upon the U.S. economy. An economy that, prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, was both soaring and a clear asset in President Trump’s bid for re-election. Throughout the past week we have borne witness to the boiling over of racial tensions and riots across the nation. This election year we have seen the creation of a political and social environment disturbingly similar to that of 1932. And Democrats appear to be not only aware of this, but committed to preserving it, to the undoubted detriment of the nation, but the realization of their political ends.
The coronavirus came from China, not the White House, just as the Great Depression came from a Wall Street crash, not the Hoover administration. The global pandemic has had a disastrous effect on the U.S. economy. People are out of work, businesses are closed (some may never re-open), and many people cannot obtain their basic needs. The administration has taken laborious steps to the lessen the effects of this crisis on the economy and enable Americans to return to work. The administration has been battled on this front from Democratic governors and mayors throughout the country. A pro-America policy frustrated by a 21st century left committed to replicating an economy of 1932.
The riots engulfing the country stem from the murder of an American citizen, George Floyd, in Minnesota, not from the White House or any policy of the current administration. As the president attempts, just as Hoover did in ’32, to prevent further riots and quell the civil unrest, he is met with obstacles just as Hoover did. In this case, the domestic terrorists of Antifa step in for Douglas MacArthur to pour gasoline on the fire of discord, and Democratic politicians such as New York Governor Cuomo and NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio refuse to either act against the violence or accept help in the situation.
There is no escaping the fact that when the administration moved to re-open the American economy, Democratic leaders fought long and hard against such a necessary move under the guise of protecting their citizens and the public well-being. Curiously, or perhaps not so when considered in the long term, such concern for citizens and public health appeared to vanish when the riots began. Democratic mayors and governors who refused to allow people to go to work or to church over a professed concern for the public good, dropped any concern for that good upon the realization that economic strife, anxiety, and civil unrest and rioting could serve their political ends.
The left has done its collective best to maximize the damages of uncontrollable circumstances and the negative effects thereof on their very own citizens. They have taken a global tragedy and maximized it for political gain. The have taken a national outrage and the fallout therefrom and attempted to capitalize on it. They have watched while their citizens suffer without jobs, access to food or medical prescriptions, as their cities and communities burn. They have nurtured violence, unrest, anxiety, and fear, then sat back to watch it formulate into a political advantage. Fortunately for America, it is not 1932, and even more fortunately, Joe Biden is no FDR.
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