By Tom Burke
These days a lot of radio is either background noise or the home of blustering, doctrinaire ideologues. But in the 1930s and 1940s radio was the peoples’ medium, an umbilical cord connecting Americans with the world.
And during one of the most challenging times in U.S. history — the Great Depression and World War II — a really smart politician, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, found he could use radio to talk directly to the American people without filters, interpreters or delay.
His 40 Fireside Chats (from 1933 to 1944) took the media, especially newspaper publishers hostile to his presidency, out of the equation. It was just the president talking one-on-one to the people. It was something very, very new. And it worked.
History tells us his talks were factual, inspiring, informative and credited with helping Americans weather the storm of the Depression and the calamity of World War II.
In the 84 years since that first White House radio broadcast there haven’t been any revolutionary changes in presidential communications. Until now.
It took candidate Donald J. Trump, now President Donald J. Trump, to fully employ the 21st century equivalent of the Fireside Chat. The tweet.
Can you believe it?
The business of the nation communicated in 140 characters. Life and death issues opined on at 2:30 a.m. Policy pronouncements affecting peoples’ lives, health, employment and the fate of the nation, indeed the fate of the world, on a medium formerly dedicated to pop culture and social networking (#Imorderinganicedcaramelmacchiato #whatareyoudoing #macchiatolove).
Now Trump isn’t the first politician to use Twitter. Candidates Obama and Clinton were tweeting way back in 2007. But today Trump has weaponized it, morphed it into a potent tool and escalated its use to that of his primary form of communications.
I’m afraid, however, the only similarity between FDR’s Fireside Chats and President Trump’s tweets is that both were innovations. Their messages couldn’t be more different.
Roosevelt simply, plainly, patiently unraveled huge, terrifically complicated issues, and then simply, plainly and patiently explained what he was doing about them. He used the radio to inform and build consensus.
Trump uses Twitter like a weapon of mass destruction. He threatens, insults, demeans or simply makes stuff up and posts. For him, it’s not a vehicle to inform and elucidate but to attack.
You ask, “I should care?”
Yeah, you should. A lot.
Obviously the president picks the target and gets the first shot, FDR did, DJT does as well. But with President Trump it’s the facts be damned. His Twitter boasts about the size of his inaugural audience, the 3 million to 5 million illegal votes cast for Clinton, or that Mexico will pay for the Wall are blatant falsehoods.
The media, of course, responds. But when he’s caught in a lie DJT doubles-down on his duplicity and accuses media, such as CNN, of promulgating “fake news.” Which is, in itself, a lie.
His supporters (less than 20 percent of the U.S. population) mostly buy his prevarications, while the other 80 percent of the population is either aghast at his ignorance (or cunning boldness) or simply confused. Instead of using real facts ala FDR, he uses “alternative facts” to sow distrust and force the public to pick between the President and the press.
Clearly his use of the potent power of the Tweet hasn’t brought the nation together, or explained complicated stuff; but rather expresses idiosyncratic pet peeves, bullies the powerless, threatens the vulnerable, further polarizes American society, or insinuates distrust in our strongest bulwark against tyranny, our free press. So far, FDR he ain’t.
To a cynic it might seem he is simply trying to suppress criticism. To me it seems we have a lot to be worried about.
Sports fans are notorious for out-coaching the coach, being critical from the bleachers and, having nothing at stake, “managing” the team.
Candidate Trump who, like those fans, had nothing to lose and all sorts of plays in his head, tweeted his ideas from up in the cheap seats.
But now he’s in the dugout managing the team and pacing the sidelines calling the plays. And he still has nothing to lose.
If he fails he still has his money. His ego might take a hit, but I doubt he’ll blame himself. No, if his pop politics fail, if he crashes the economy, pollutes the environment, starts a trade war, or a shooting war, we, not he, will suffer.
I worry that Roosevelt may have been wrong when he said, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” I fear, that what we have to fear, is that there are another 207 more weeks like the week that just ended.
Tom Burke’s email address is t.burke.column@gmail.com.
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