Politics & Power Quote by Franklin D. Roosevelt

Roosevelt sells a paradox as common sense: liberty survives not by starving the state, but by balancing two kinds of strength that keep each other honest. The line is built like a civic seesaw. A government must be "strong enough" to protect people from private power, chaos, and economic predation; the public must be "strong enough and well enough informed" to keep that government from becoming its own predator. In the middle sits the word that does the heavy lifting: "bulwark". Liberty isn’t a natural condition in this view, it’s a fortified one, continuously defended against erosion.

The intent is unmistakably New Deal. In a country burned by depression and jolted by the rise of authoritarianism abroad, Roosevelt reframes strength as a democratic necessity rather than a militaristic temptation. He’s arguing against the idea that minimal government automatically equals maximal freedom. A weak state, for FDR, doesn’t liberate citizens; it abandons them to whoever can fill the vacuum. The "interests of the people" is also carefully chosen: it implies that policy should counterbalance concentrated wealth and organized influence, not simply referee them.

The subtext is a warning shot at both extremes. It cautions anti-government libertarianism (because power doesn’t vanish; it relocates) and also preemptively disciplines Roosevelt’s own expanding executive ambitions: legitimacy depends on an electorate that can audit, dissent, vote, and organize. "Well enough informed" makes the democratic project contingent on education and media health, implying that ignorance is not just a personal failing but a structural threat. Liberty, in Roosevelt’s telling, is less a right you possess than a relationship you maintain.