Your mention about Roosevelt's fireside chats reminded me of this post by 'idlewords that covered similar topics:

http://idlewords.com/talks/ancient_web.htm

> I'm hoping that we'll all inoculate ourselves with some kind of generalized agenda aversion next.

I'm hoping people will inoculate themselves with the following meme: "Almost everyone has an agenda. All those agendas mostly cancel out."

The way I see it, people these days are (still) quick to blame individuals (usually "evil wealthy elites") for what really are systemic problems, out of anyone's direct control.