Dr. Jack Wheeler
June 14, 2012
If you want to trace back all America's woes caused by the pathologies of liberalism to their original source, you'd focus on the inception of the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1932.
True, Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism places the blame earlier, on "America's first fascist presidency," that of Woodrow Wilson. But much of Wilson's assault on our Constitutional freedoms didn't last, and was reversed by his successors, Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge.
Coolidge chose not to run in 1928, resulting in the debacle of Herbert Hoover, the Dems gaining the House in 1930 (first time since 1916), and the complete entrenchment of the Dems at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue in 1932. FDR became America's first president-for-life (he finally died in office in 1945), while the Dems held a monopoly of power in the House for the next 62 years (with two irrelevant interregnums, 1946-48 and 1952-54; the Pubs finally got the House back, 1994-2006).
Yet the FDR/Dem victory of 1932 was far, far more than an electoral victory of one political party over the other. It was transformational, so deeply altering the fundamental relationship of Americans to their government and to their Constitution that the alteration lasts to this day - and is now, in fact deeper than ever.
For conservatives, FDR's transformation was and remains disastrous for America's freedom, America's culture, and the integrity of America's Constitution. Today, as we reach the final economic consequences of FDR's transformation, it has proved to be equally disastrous for America's prosperity.
What we need is a president who can not only reverse FDR, but who can generate a transformation of his own, altering the relationship of Americans to their government that restores their freedom, their culture, their prosperity, and their Constitution. We need our own FDR. The question is: will Mitt Romney be that president?
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