The Only Thing We Have to Fear is Fear Itself
It was a different time. There was no twitter, no Tik Tok, no FaceBook, no smartphones, no pc, no internet. There were whistles but no whistleblowers. There were scandals, exposes, gossip columnists, crime reporters, gangsters, but there were no presidents being impeached. At the highest level there was a circle of trust, what happens in the Oval Office, stays in the Oval Office. So, I was utterly flabbergasted when John Strausbough, editor in chief and Vice President of the then popular New York Press, revealed to me: that FDR, for the entirety of his three and one quarter terms as an elected American president, had been a paraplegic, paralyzed in both legs from the waist down and permanently assigned to a wheelchair.
He had been twice elected governor of New York but he did not think that the American people would accept someone in a wheelchair if he ran for President. (At that time, people with severe disabilities were not considered fit to be functioning members of society: and were sent away to institutions). So, he did everything he could to hide it. No one was allowed to photograph him in a wheelchair. He made sure, when he was required to make a public appearance, that he would not be seen in a wheelchair. He wore 10 pounds of iron braces that locked at his knees. He practiced standing behind the lecturn which he would grip with both hands as a necessary means of support. He exercised constantly. He never gave up on a lifelong dream that one day he would walk. His children were heartbroken at first, when they saw how hard he had to struggle to move even a little bit. Later when they got used to it, they would do everything they could to help him. Eleanor Roosevelt, his wife, tried to function as his nurse, administering vigorous daily massages to his crippled legs. She only stopped when the doctors told her that her massages were doing no good whatsoever. In spite of which, she was the one who encouraged him to pursue his dream of running for President. So, he designed a custom-made wheelchair that- considerably smaller, lighter and more maneuverable than the massive, bulky wheelchair of the day. Painstakingly, he developed a way of standing holding tightly to the strong arm of a nearby assistant and appearing to be walking.
In a recent column Maureen Dowd tells a heartbreaking story of her Dad, a hero cop being assigned to protect president Roosevelt during a traditional trip to an opening day ballpark. Roosevelt is to throw out the first ball. He does so vigorously. Afterwards a serious looking man approaches her father. He has heard that certain people were whispering that the President is a cripple. He wanted to know if it was true — because itf it was — he was going to track down such a person and beat them up. Maureen Dowd’s father reassured the man that, on the contrary, the President was in superb health and there was no need for such an extreme action. Satisfied, the man left. He has heard what he wanted to hear — what America had wanted to hear. Amazingly Roosevelt seemed to have been blessed with a constitutional performance. On a deeper level, he seemed to have had an indomitable spirit. He had a vision for America: a New Deal in which there would be an unprecedented extension of the social safety net to address the vital needs of every American without exception. He had a vision for the world in which every country, large or small, would be granted the right to self-determination and the freedom (from dictators such as Hitler), to pursue ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’ as they saw fit.
So here was a supreme irony. No one that’s physically disabled had ever occupied the Oval Office. No one had ever concealed sucha vital secret about the state of their body before. And never before did it seem to matter less to the American People. It was as though, regardless of the condition of his legs, the American people trusted his vision, his heart, and above all — his spirit. Somehow, he would soar and he would take America with him.
There is a story that shortly after winning the election in November 2020 — seeing a picture of FDR and pointing to it, Biden had said, “that’s the kind of President I’d like to be!”
The Kool-Aid
He had drunk the Kool Aid.
And presto — gone were the memories of being nicknamed “one percent Joe; “of his failure at the national level to make the slightest impact in his previous campaigns for presidency of the United states.
In the State of the Union Address, as New York Times columnist Peter Baker noted, Joe Biden “yelled his lines.” They wanted fire in the belly. He gave them “volume” as a substitute for intensity. He saved the best, or perhaps the worst, part for the end. Finally, with just minutes to go in his ambitious one-hundred and eight minute address, he addressed the elephant in the room: the almost six-month still-running genocidal Israel-Hamas war!
There had been a sharp pivot in the Biden administration’s stance towards Israel. For the first time, the U.S. criticized Netanyahu directly: “There must, must, must, must be an IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE!” Chuck Schumer, the Democrat’s highest ranking Jew, gives a stirring speech. Without cancelling The United State’s overall commitment to the future and welfare of Israel. He signals the end of America’s endorsement of Netanyahu’s personal leadership. “Dramatically Shumer petitions for the calling for an immediate Israel election for the purpose of ousting Netanyahu.” Immediately, on queue (as though pre-arranged) President Biden signals his approval, praising the speech as “superb.” Predictably Netanyahu doubles down and reminds the US that Israel is not a Banana Republic, not a slave-state”, and does not take marching orders.
There was a moment in the State of the Union speech towards the end that stood out for me. Biden was working himself up into a frenzy, citing The Times, “we as a country had stood up to threatening would-be dictators. Suddenl;y raising his voice he started to scream: “we will not back away!…I will not back away!”
It was meant to be a magical moment, the dramatic ending “to his fire in the belly speech.” It served only to infuriate me. How stupid did he think I was…how stupid did he think the American people were? But, the answer, which was blowing in the wind, was even worse. He could care less how smart, or credulous the American people were. What mattered was how good it sounded to him. The actual truth of the statement was beside the point. What mattered was whether it would motivate people to vote for him. Biden was counting on a well known short-term memory loss of the American voting public. If he could get them in the right frame of mind when it came time to pull the lever — that was all that mattered.
But, what about the genocide that was gound on and had been going on for the past six months in Gaza. The genocide that was going on exactly as he was speaking? By talking about everything under the sun — except that — wasn’t that backing away? By agreeing to partner with Netanyahu in his vengeance-driven demolition of Palestine’s two million residents- wasn’t that walking away? Why did he choose when he had the chance to stand up to Netanyahu and say, in his words, loud and clear,
No. Absolutely not on my watch. America is and will always be an ally of Israel, but under no circumstances will we be a partner to genocide. You have every right to defend yourself from Hamas, every right to retaliate for the unthinkable atrocities of October the Seventh. But in what universe do you think one day’s (October the Seventh) horrific terrorist attacks entitles you to wholesale genocide upon two million people? So, if you do not immediately order a cease-fire, you can say good-bye to billions of dollars in US Aid and weapons for self-defense!
Why didn’t Joe Biden do that? What could he have lost? Nothing…except perhaps the chance to be reelected: outraged, progressive, proIsrael, pro palestinian, Jewish donor voters might have turned against him. Their abandonment at the polls could have resulted in a crucial tipping point that would have cost him the reelection!
But so what?
And the horrible, chilling answer is that Joe Biden’s primary, non-negotiable motive is he wants to be reelected! It is not that he loves his country less but that he loves his legacy more. Like every politician, his only vision for America is the one in which he wins whichever reelection he is running in. Like every politician he claims that a vote for him is a vote for peace, for posterity, for freedom and democracy. He cannot see, doesn’t want to see, that the separation between what he proposes and promises, what every politician promises and what actually happens is almost infinite. How could it be otherwise? No single person on Earth could come close to accurately predicting tomorrow’s headlines — so how could they predict the headlines of the future? Unless of course, they are an emissary from God — someone whose mission it is to win the race- because this race ‘is for the soul of America!’
I am aware, of course, as I am saying this, that if I were in his shoes, I might very well do the same thing (or try to) — but that is why I chose not to be in his shoes. And that is why 99.9999% of the people on Earth do not dream of being in his shoes. The odds of wanting to be the President since he was a little boy and then seriously devoting his life to it (JFK, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, etc.) are less than one in a million. Which means that for every one million people that aspire to be like FDR there could only be one.
Which is why New York Times columnist, Jennifer Seinor, in her absorbing profile of a young Joe Biden (“A lion in its Prime”) characterized him right from the start as a “furnace of ambition.”
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Gerald Alper is the author of Portrait of Artist as a Young Patient (Psychodynamic Studies of the Creative Personality), and his latest book: God and Therapy (What We Believe When No One is Watching).
