Former President Donald Trump has offered to negotiate peace between Russia and Ukraine, a bizarre concept that illustrates just how far America has fallen from the days when leaders of both major parties collaborated to support global democracy.
Eighty years ago, in the midst of World War II, American Republican leader Wendell Willkie traveled around the world on a tour that Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt backed in an effort to bolster America’s attack on fascism. Willkie’s trip, which lasted from August to October 1942, was a stunning display of America’s powerful bipartisan defense of democracy.
Like Trump today, Willkie was his party’s most recent unsuccessful presidential nominee — he lost the election of 1940 — and was preparing another run for the presidency. Despite the risks, FDR provided an Army plane and crew for Willkie’s trip, explaining that it would show the world “we have unity and that we are going all out.”
