Politics & Power Quote by James Roosevelt

There’s a particular sting in James Roosevelt’s “quite amazing”: it’s the polite phrasing of someone calling out a con. As FDR’s son, he’s not just disagreeing with privatization; he’s accusing its champions of laundering an unpopular project through a revered brand name. The line works because it weaponizes lineage without sounding like mere dynastic entitlement. He isn’t saying “I know best because I’m related.” He’s saying: you’re borrowing my grandfather’s moral authority because yours won’t carry the argument.

The context is a fight over the New Deal’s afterlife, especially Social Security. Privatization advocates have long tried to reframe FDR’s legacy as “innovative” and “pragmatic,” implying he’d approve of market solutions today. Roosevelt’s retort punctures that move. He’s pointing to an asymmetry: those pushing privatization need FDR rhetorically, but their policy goal cuts against the core New Deal premise that certain risks should be socialized, not individualized.

“From the president on down” widens the indictment. This isn’t a fringe reinterpretation; it’s an organized messaging cascade, a top-down attempt to canonize a revisionist FDR. And “keep invoking” suggests repetition bordering on obsession, the tell of a campaign that knows it’s swimming against historical memory.

Subtext: FDR’s name is being used as a shield against the charge that privatization is anti-New Deal, even anti-democratic in its transfer of security from public guarantee to private exposure. Roosevelt is insisting that history isn’t a costume closet. If you have to dress your idea up as Rooseveltian, you already know it isn’t.