Homer, Though I don’t respond very often I really appreciate the threads. It’s fascinating to see history through the eyes of the times rather than through the lens of “historians” who often bring a biased view. Today, the story of Wilkie warning of dictatorship if FDR wins is interesting. I wonder what would have happened if FDR was actually not sickly and lived another 10 years or so. Would he have continued to run for Pres? What would a 25 year reign have done to democracy? What would happen today if we repealed term limits. Interesting mental exercise.
Here's my impression of Wilkie's hard hitting speeches against Roosevelt: a man with a huge hammer, flailing away, pounding mightily but never quite hitting the nail he's aiming at.
First Wilkie accuses FDR of being the biggest appeaser of them all at Munich, then of wanting to send American troops to Europe.
Wilkie promises that unlike Roosevelt, he will really, truly, honestly, by-golly for certain keep America out of Europe's war.
But what if the US is attacked?
Nothing from Wilkie about that.
As for the US becoming a dictatorship if FDR reelected -- from the point of view of the average American of 1940, America today is a national-socialist dictatorship run by the Demican-Republicrat party of the RINOs & DINOs and dedicated to the proposition that the US Federal Government shall forever be the most powerful physical entity in the history of the Universe.
So, what can we say, except that Wilkie was right? ;-)