Thursday, April 13, 2023 | 2 a.m.
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I can’t help wondering: If President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave his inaugural speech today, would he still say we have nothing to fear but fear itself? If nothing else, it would require a serious update.
But in his defense, he never had to deal with the likes of Donald Trump or his cadre of right-wing extremists who laid siege to the very same Capitol building where he spoke so eloquently.
He has not been around to see the education of our youth come under attack by self-righteous, anti-woke crusaders.
And he could’ve never forecast the bloodshed that’s followed the easy accessibility of assault weapons. After all, his concept of mass shootings was limited to the battlefields of western Europe and the Pacific.
America today is one big battlefield, with revisionists demanding a new perspective on historical truths that exclude the in-depth studies of slavery, racial bias and gender inequalities. LGBTQ would’ve just been five letters of the alphabet in his day.
Surely, Roosevelt would be fearful of where this country is going — even if the resident of Mar-a-Lago has no place in our future. The seeds of hatred and division have already been sown and there’s no shortage of Trump-like anarchists waiting in the wings.
How tragic that there’s not another FDR to be found anywhere.
