The Vote of a Lifetime
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
The New Yorker
4.3 • 3.9K Ratings
🗓️ 29 September 2016
⏱️ 20 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 1944, Roger Angell cast his first vote for president, a mail-in ballot for Franklin Delano Roosevelt. This year, Roger will vote in his nineteeth presidential election. It is, in his opinion, the most important of his life. He ll joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss why he believes the country to be facing a danger unmatched since the Second World War.
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| 0:42.6 | Yeah, eBay. Things people love. |
| 0:48.4 | This is the political scene, a weekly conversation with New Yorker writers and editors about politics. |
| 0:54.2 | It's Thursday, September 29th. |
| 0:56.4 | I'm Dorothy Wicenden, executive editor of The New Yorker. |
| 0:59.7 | Today I'm talking with Roger Angel, who joined the New Yorker in 1956. |
| 1:04.4 | He cast his first vote in 1944 when he mailed in an absentee ballot for Franklin D. Roosevelt from the Central Pacific, |
| 1:12.4 | where he was stationed with the Air Force. Here's FDR addressing the nation that year on D-Day, June 6th. |
| 1:20.5 | Almighty God, our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our |
| 1:32.0 | republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity. |
| 1:41.4 | Lead them straight and cruel. Give strength to their their arms stoutness to their hearts steadfastness in their faith |
| 1:51.4 | they will need thy blessings their role will be long and hard for the enemy is strong. |
| 2:01.2 | He may hurl back our forces. |
| 2:03.8 | Success may not come with rushing speed, |
| 2:08.0 | but we shall return again and again. |
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