At times like this, when so much history is being made (for better or worse), it is sometimes hard to step back and look a little further back in history.
Eighty years ago, there was an important election in the US. The world was in the midst of a major crisis, that showed all the signs of getting much worse before it got better. Totalitarian, violent regimes on opposite sides of the globe were running rampant. Imperial Japan had brought war and devastation to large parts of China and Southeast Asia. In Europe, Nazi Germany had defeated France, and was preparing to invade Great Britain. The Battle of Britain, fought in the skies over southern England and London foiled that plan, but left Germany in command of most of continental western Europe.
Within this environment, Franklin Roosevelt was running for an unprecedented third term in office. Both he and his opponent, Wendell Wilke, knew that the US would be drawn into the war, but neither dared to be the first to acknowledge that to an isolationist electorate. They had sort of a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ to not make that part of the election.
The crisis revealed an ugly side of many prominent Americans. Charles Lindberg and Henry Ford were prominent voices for staying out … motivated in part by their virulent anti-semitism. Joseph Kennedy, our ambassador to Great Britain, joined their isolationist cause, if only because he felt that Hitler had already won, and we needed to just accept it as a fait accompli.
I highly recommend Susan Dunn’s book, ‘1940’, for a deep dive on these crises, and this election. It really does help to try on the lens that a view of history provides.
