Andrew Cuomo Adopts FDR’s ‘Common Sense Language’

Every crisis is unique, but the model for communicating in a crisis follows a time-tested formula. Leaders throughout history have used plain language to convince people to take massive action. 

In a press conference on Saturday, April 4, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo thanked the state of Oregon for sending 140 ventilators to treat COVID-19 patients. Cuomo said it was a kind gesture—and a smart one. 

Why is it smart? Cuomo channeled FDR to explain. 

On December 17, 1940, president Franklin D. Roosevelt held a press conference to announce Lend-Lease, a historic program to help England in World War II. France and much of western Europe had fallen to Nazi Germany. England was enduring months of aerial bombardment.

Winston Churchill needed America to send arms, ships and supplies, but he didn’t have the money to pay for it. Americans also didn’t want to be dragged into another world war, but Roosevelt couldn’t let England fall.

Roosevelt had to sell his idea. He used a clever analogy to do it.

“Let me give you an illustration,” Roosevelt began.

“Suppose my neighbor's home catches fire, and I have a length of garden hose four or five hundred feet away. If he can take my garden hose and connect it up with his hydrant, I may help him to put out his fire.”

Roosevelt explained that when your neighbor’s home is on fire, yours could be next. Lending your neighbor a hose is the smart thing to do. But if the hose costs $15, you don’t ask your neighbor for $15. Instead, you give them the hose to put out the fire and you expect your neighbor to return it. 

“But suppose it gets smashed up?” Roosevelt added. 

“I say to him, ‘I was glad to lend you that hose; I see I can't use it any more, it's all smashed up.’ He says, ‘All right, I will replace it.’ Now, if I get a nice garden hose back, I am in pretty good shape.”

Roosevelt was making the argument that if America lends equipment to England and gets it back, both countries benefit. The munitions that are damaged or destroyed will be replaced “by the fellow to whom you have lent them.” In other words, the two countries would work together to stop the fire before it destroys both houses. 

According to Erik Larson in the new New York Times bestseller, The Splendid and the Vile, FDR’s analogy “distilled his idea into something both familiar and easy to grasp, something that would resonate with the quotidian experience of countless Americans.”

Cuomo explained that it’s in Oregon’s self-interest to “stop the fire”—the spread of the coronavirus. Cuomo added that New York will return the favor. “I know New Yorkers and I know New Yorkers’ generosity. We will return it double-fold because that's who we are and that's what we believe.”

Cuomo says that “FDR had a beautiful way of taking complicated issues and communicating it in common sense language.” He’s right. Roosevelt paid particular attention to the power of words to make a case for action. Leaders in any field should adopt FDR’s communication strategies to navigate a crisis.