CBS This Morning hosts on Monday brought on liberal historian and media pundit Doris Kearns Goodwin to discuss what she and other leftists in the media deeply hope for: That election day on Tuesday will be like 1932 and the landslide Democratic win of that year. Co-host Tony Dokoupil trotted out a favorite trope, setting her up for hyperbole: “People are saying that this particular election is the most important of all time or of our lifetimes. But this time, that may really be true. You go all the way back to 1932 to find any election that is as significant as this one.”
Goodwin tried her best to equate 1932 with 2020: “I think there's no question but the level of fear, anxiety, panic, consequence that was felt in 1932 is where we'd have to go to give us a sense of where we are today. Just think of where we were in 1932: The Depression had gone on three years. It was getting worse and spiraling down. There was no national leadership.”
The last four years compare to the Great Depression? Until COVID, we had a booming economy. Does anyone at CBS know history? Perhaps they just hope their viewers won't.
She continued:
A quarter of the people were out of work. Other people were not working for full amount of wages. People were starving in the streets. The banking system was collapsing. And there was a real sense of panic in the air, and a sense of paralysis. And the two people running, Hoover, the Republican, and FDR, the Democrat, FDR had a plan to get us out of that. He comes in and it's amazing when you think about it.
Yes, about a quarter of Americans were out of work in 1932, 23.6 percent to be exact. The latest unemployment numbers are 7.9 percent. Not exactly the Great Depression. But it’s clear what Goodwin’s phony comparison is: Hoover = Trump. Biden = Franklin Roosevelt. Of course, the partisan journalists at CBS didn’t object to this.
Instead, Democratic activist turned host Gayle King prompted Goodwin to attack Trump as lacking: “What kind of leader do we need right now?” Not being subtle, Goodwin responded, “You need somebody whose word can be trusted. That's one of our problems today.”
But still, King didn’t get the slam she wanted so she tried again: “Of the qualities you named, which of those qualities does President Trump have at this time?” Okay, Gayle. We get it. Called to be specific with the comparison, Goodwin sputtered: “That's hard to see, to be honest. I mean, what he's been able to do is to mobilize his voters. He's out there in the field. He's got energy.”
The Democratic propaganda on CBS was sponsored by Hyundai and Sleep Number.
A transcript is below. Click “expand” to read more.
CBS This Morning
11/2/2020
8:34 AM ET
TONY DOKOUPIL: Doris Kearns Goodwin is a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian who's researched American presidents more than 50 years and her works have included biographies of Presidents Lyndon Johnson, Theodore Roosevelt and FDR. Her most recent New York Times best-seller is called Leadership in Turbulent Times and Doris Kearns Goodwin joins us to discuss the historical significance of the 2020 election. Doris, good morning to you.
DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: Hello. Good morning.
DOKOUPIL: Good morning. People are saying that this particular election is the most important of all time or of our lifetimes. But this time that may really be true. You go all the way back to 1932 to find any election that is as significant as this one. Tell us why.
DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: I think there's no question but the level of fear, anxiety, panic, consequence that was felt in 1932 is where we'd have to go to give us a sense of where we are today. Just think of where we were in 1932: The Depression had gone on three years. It was getting worse and spiraling down. There was no national leadership. A quarter of the people were out of work. Other people were not working for full amount of wages. People were starving in the streets. The banking system was collapsing. And there was a real sense of panic in the air, and a sense of paralysis. And the two people running, Hoover, the Republican, and FDR, the Democrat, FDR had a plan to get us out of that. He comes in and it's amazing when you think about it.
This is how things can change. At his inauguration, all he had to do in his inauguration to say, “The people have not failed. It's leadership that's failed and I am here 20 take that gift of leadership and get action. I will call an emergency session of Congress. We will get people back to work in public jobs. There will be unemployment that will be helpful for you.” And the mood of the country changed overnight. The headline said, “We have a leader! The government still lives!” There was even a great story, somebody wrote in. “My roof fell off, dog ran away, my wife is mad at me and I've lost my job but I'm okay because you're there.”
DOKOUPIL: Love that.
GOODWIN: So, it shows that leadership matters.
DOKOUPIL: Yeah. He had an infrastructure plan and he actually got it off the ground as well. It went into action. Division is something on a lot of voters minds this year. We’re anxious about election day, also the day after. Stores boarded up in many cities. We're more divided today than then. How so? What was the picture then? Why were they less divided and that we are now?
GOODWIN: I think there was still a sense that the people were in the problem, in the crisis together. What's happened, I think, in this time and Theodore Roosevelt warned about this at turn of the century a lot of situations like ours. Gap between rich and poor. Industrialization had really broken up the sense of the old paths in a way tech and globalization have today and he warned democracy would founder if people in different sections and classes began seeing each other as the other rather than as common American citizens. So I think right now we need a leader who can begin to tell us, you know, we have more in common with each other. People are hungering for that kind of unity. It's going to be hard put. It’s not going to happen going to happen in a day. It’s not going to happen in a week, but unless we feel that sense of coming together collectively as a whole, that's how American has been strong and we’ve beaten much worse things than today because we worked together on a nation.
GAYLE KING: Yeah. I want to pick up on that, Doris, for a second. What kind of leader do we need right now and do we have that?
GOODWIN: Well, you need two things, I think, in a leader right now. One thing you need ordinary qualities for a leader at any time, and they just get magnified at time of crisis. You need someone with humility. Ability to acknowledge errors and learn from your mistakes. We’re going to have to do experimental things to figure out how we get our country back together. You need somebody with empathy to be able to see the other side, what Teddy Roosevelt was talking about. Understand the other passions and prejudices and hopes of different people in different parts of the country. You need somebody with resilience because we're going through a crisis. You need that kind of courageous optimism that FDR had. You need somebody who whose ambition is not just for self but for the greater good. Somebody who can build a team with all sorts of people to argue and question his assumptions. And you need somebody whose word can be trusted. That's one of our problems today. Level of trust in the word of our government. But the greatest chance we have for that when you see huge numbers of voting now, that means people are beginning to put trust back in the system and maybe the government won't seem like a foreign body if they, themselves, are engaged and active. Where I would bet my hope on this election.
KING: Of the qualities you named, which of those qualities does President Trump have at this time?
GOODWIN: That's hard to see, to be honest. I mean, what he's been able to do is to mobilize his voters. He's out there in the field. He's got energy. I would say energy is one of the qualities that you need. Vitality and he certainly has that. The biggest quality we need from him right now is being able to see the other side and go beyond his base. If he were to win again, go right out to the states he lost. Just like Teddy Roosevelt did. He traveled the country by train six weeks in the spring and in the fall. Went to the places he knew he didn't have mobilized support and made people feel they were a part of him and a part of the country.
KING: All right, Doris Kearns Goodwin, always good to see you and have you here. I love picking your brain.
