Donald Trump’s recent electoral victory is reminiscent of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s in 1932 in that, in each, the voters gave permission to transform the relationship between the citizens and the federal government.

In 1932, Americans were scared as the Great Depression was reaching its climax. “Real GDP fell 29% from 1929 to 1933. The unemployment rate reached a peak of 25% in 1933. Consumer prices fell 25%; wholesale prices plummeted 32%. Some 7,000 banks, nearly a third of the banking system, failed between 1930 and 1933,” reports the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis.

In his campaign in 1932, Roosevelt connected with the pain of voters running as the “progressive candidate with constructive policies,” as opposed to incumbent Herbert Hoover, who asked voters to stay the course. Roosevelt’s campaign was one of addition and multiplication; he expanded the Democratic Party by adding, according to the Miller Center, “lower-income groups in the great cities — African Americans, union members, and ethnic and religious minorities, many from recent immigrant groups — and the traditional source of Democratic strength, ‘the Solid South.’” Intellectuals and classical liberals joined them.

Roosevelt won 42 of the 48 states and swept Democrats into control of the Senate, where the party gained 12 seats, and the House of Representatives, where........

© The Hill