What have we done with FDR’s America?

It was serendipitous that I ended up at the FDR memorial on Monday. After an absence of many years.

I took off on my bike in Bethesda and headed south on the Capital Crescent Trail to Georgetown. And then I followed the Potomac to the Wharf, where I met Jill for lunch at an Irish pub.

On my way back I saw signs for the FDR Memorial. And it stirred distant memories. And perhaps a bit of nostalgia as well.

The first, and last, time I came to this marvelous amalgamation of granite, bronze and tumbling water I was accompanying my two children and many other kids on their 5th grade Safety Patrol trip.

It was a big deal for the kids. And a big deal for us parents who were charged with keeping them safe, engaged and accounted for.

On that day, my biggest worry was keeping rambunctious boys from snatching fruit off the cherry trees and smearing it on their shirts, as though they were wounded soldiers newly arrived from the front. (Alas, I failed in that endeavor.)

Even with one eye on all of those kids, it was not difficult to become lost in the history, the solemnity and, yes, the gravity, of all that lay all around us.

What innocent times those earlier days seem now.

Coming back now, and taking in all that our longest serving president said and did through terrible times of depression and war, I was struck by what small, self-serving people so many of our “leaders” have become.

And, yes, I’m talking about you, Ron DeSanitizer. And you, you self-aggrandizing “I am your retribution” buffoon.

What small expectations we have set for ourselves. And what a diminished America we are consigning to our children and grand children.

Roosevelt led America through a global economic crisis and a bloody world conflict with determination and courage. And above all, a resolve to defeat fascism and secure freedom.

So many of today’s politicians want us to believe that our own government, not international terrorism or tyranny, is the greatest threat facing America today.

Death to the IRS! Purge the Justice Department! Abolish civil service!

To pull America out of depression, Roosevelt launched an ambitious New Deal, a massive public works project called the TVA, and a Civilian Conservation Corps to build things that needed building and restore things that needed restoration.

Today when we speak of “infrastructure,” we mostly mean adding more traffic lanes to support more strip shopping centers and endless exurban sprawl.

When Roosevelt declared that we Americans have a “rendezvous with destiny,” he intended for America to emerge from World War II the undisputed leader of the free world. And America did.

Roosevelt vowed there would “be no forgotten men and no forgotten races.”

Today, politicians want us forget all about “forgotten races” by limiting what our schools can be teach, read or even say about such “forbidden” issues as racism, diversity, equity and inclusion.

Now we are expected to believe that slavery wasn’t all that bad because slaves were taught “job skills.”

Roosevelt said we must “scrupulously guard the civil liberties” of all Americans.

Generations later, the most hateful man ever to occupy the White House schemes to get back there by vowing to “root out” Americans “that live like vermin within the confines of our Country.”

And I can’t help but suspect that, in that terrible man’s eyes, I am one of the “vermin.”

I have been to war in the service of my country. I have paid my taxes, obeyed our laws, raised a family and been an enthusiastic participant in the daily argument of public life.

But now I despair for my country.

I was a “post-war baby.” My life, my education, my ambition and my opportunities were all built upon the sacrifices of a generation that pulled itself out of poverty, waged war, dreamed big and built an America that recognized no limits.

Go to the moon? Why the hell not?

I fear for my country.

Too many politicians cling to power by spewing hateful rhetoric that is poll-tested to induce Americans to hate and fear fellow Americans (and yes, I’m talking about you again, Ron D. And especially you, you deranged buffoon.)

The democracy that our fathers fought for and, in too many instances, died for, is in peril.

We are one election away from surrendering this country to the very sorts of tyrants and profiteers that my father, and so many other fathers, waged war to defeat.

I am 75-years old. I may well manage to live whatever time I have left in relative comfort. No matter what the gathering forces of anarchy, ignorance, authoritarianism and me-first politics manage to wrought in my final years.

But what about those kids I was sent to watch over the very first time I visited the FDR Memorial?

My children are now in their mid-30s. And the long proffered “American dream” is crumbling around their very ears.

Where is their TVA? What is their New Deal? What will be their “rendezvous with destiny”?

What did we do with FDR’s America? How do we get it back?

I have no answers. So I despair.

Happy Thanksgiving America.