It was a vicious campaign. The Republican challenger to the incumbent Democratic president hurled scurrilous accusations that he was conspiring with others to alter the election outcome.
No, this was not 2024, but the campaign of 1940.
The Republican nominee for president that year, Wendell Willkie, accused Franklin D. Roosevelt of plotting to inspire the onset of World War Two. Willkie falsely accused Roosevelt of telephoning Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, urging them to “sell Czechoslovakia down the river.” Willkie maintained that Roosevelt “courted a war for which the country is hopelessly unprepared” and “emphatically does not want” for the sole purpose of remaining in office.
These allegations enraged Roosevelt who described himself as being “fighting mad.” In a Philadelphia speech, he rebuked the scurrilous charges, telling a crowd of partisan Democrats: “Truthful campaign discussion of public issues is essential to the American form of government.”
But, he added, “Willful misrepresentation of fact has no place either during election time or at any other time.” Among those “willful misrepresentations” Roosevelt cited were that “the unfortunate unemployed of the nation are going to be driven into concentration camps,” and that “the election of the present government means the end of American democracy within four years.”
Roosevelt described the method used by foreign dictators abroad and his political opposition at home to win support: “It is the very simple technique of repeating and repeating falsehoods, with the idea that by constant repetition and reiteration, with no contradiction, the misstatements will finally come to be believed.” The result, he argued, was to instill “fear” and “doubt” both in the government and in democracy itself.
Nonetheless, he reassured his listeners that democracy would prevail thanks to a free and fair-minded press: “I cannot bring myself to believe that in a democracy like ours . . . repetition of deliberate misstatements will ever prevail.”
Today, Donald Trump engages in repeated willful misrepresentations without universally trusted media sources to refute them. Weekly newspaper circulations have fallen by more than half since 1940. And audiences for the three network evening news programs are a fraction of what they once were. There is no Walter Cronkite to conclude a newscast with the saying, “And that’s the way it is.”
Instead, a plethora of news outlets exist that are often not designed to convey information, but comfort. Conservatives flock to cable channels such as Fox News and Newsmax while liberals tune into MSNBC. A recent Pew Research Center poll found most Americans want reporters to share their politics more than any other personal trait.
Making viewers comfortable means that partisan news networks enjoy high ratings. Fox News is the ratings king. But with the re-emergence of Donald Trump and his courtroom theatrics, MSNBC — derisively referred to by Trump as “MSDNC”— has seen its viewership rise to second place. Meanwhile, CNN, the more traditional news outlet, has seen its ratings fall to historic lows.
This development has created tensions within traditionally minded newsrooms. The New York Times recently described how MSNBC’s number one host, Rachel Maddow, chastised her bosses on air when the network aired a live portion of Donald Trump’s victory speech on Super Tuesday. According to the Times, NBC’s established journalists “have cycled between rancor and resignation” at the partisanship displayed on its sister network. Local NBC stations have demanded that network executives do more to preserve its nonpartisan brand.
The result is a journalistic and partisan minefield. The editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer describes how some pro-Trump readers regularly denounce him for “ignoring the Biden family crime syndicate” and other alleged actions of criminality. His answer was direct: “The north star here is the truth. We tell the truth, even when it offends some of the people who pay us for information.”
But fact-based, trusted reporting is quickly becoming irrelevant. Viewers often tune in to news channels or log into their favorite internet websites, not for information but for ratification of what they already believe.
The result is that Franklin Roosevelt’s assurances that our democracy would hold thanks to a free and fair-minded press are no longer valid. Talented showmen, like Donald Trump, can denounce the “fake news” and find news executives for whom ratings matter most.
During the 2016 campaign, then CBS executive chairman and CEO Les Moonves said of Trump’s rise, “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.”
Addressing the news media at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Joe Biden said: “In the age of disinformation, credible information that people can trust is more important than ever,” adding, “And that makes you more important than ever.”
Returning to that Philadelphia speech, Franklin Roosevelt reminded us that the presidency “is not a commodity to be sold by high-pressure salesmanship,” but “a most sacred trust.”
Preserving that trust is not merely incumbent upon those who seek the presidency. It is the media’s responsibility to make sure voters have accurate information when they enter the polling booths to perform their most sacred duty as citizens.
Today, those bonds of trust have been broken. And our democracy is at stake.
John Kenneth White is a professor of politics at The Catholic University of America. His latest book is titled “Grand Old Unraveling: The Republican Party, Donald Trump, and the Rise of Authoritarianism.” He can be reached at johnkennethwhite.com.