I believe is was a combination of things. First, many people were fresh off the farm or out of the hills and were working in mass groups in the factories. This created a familiarity of following the boss. Secondly, and probably more important, was radio. The era was replete with politicians using radio to give people the impression of familiarity. FDR, Will Rogers, Father (whats his name) all used radio to enter people's homes or local meeting place, seeming more like a friendly neighbor than a distant stranger. People just weren't familiar enough with this to have their guard up. Look at it like some let strangers into their bedrooms via the internet today but believe they know the person. We can't forget Hitler used radio very effectively to ease himself in to the hearts of Germans.

So FDR wormed his way into peoples homes and had fireside chats. But also, he promised government largess when people didn't know what it was going to cost. In many ways FDR poisoned the well for Obama by selling the public on what are now failing policies.

JKB has some spot-on observations to which I could only add that the burgeoning newspaper industry also had an industrial mindset and hierarchy common to the era. As the City Desk went, so went the city.

The availability of information at our fingertips may have brought more insight at the expense of our trust. I often wonder if our Internet isn't a modern-day Tower of Babel. It makes us seem god-like, as though anything is possible. And yet, the confounding of our trust and the compounding of our cynicism fractures social adhesion. It will not be pretty to watch.

Not to be unduly harsh, but the premise of the question is false. Most voters are not genuinely anti-incumbent; as will be demonstrated in November when a large majority of politicians in both parties will be re-elected to office. The MSM is promoting the anti-incumbency meme in order to deflect attention away from the economy, which is the best that they can do to help liberal Democrats stay in office. As to FDR, he was the first president to buy votes en mass using the federal treasury. He proved that the common citizen can be bought off rather cheaply.

Imagine the political world of today not only without the alternative media, but with the barest smidgeon of electronic media (three national radio networks, mostly devoted to entertainment), no "video" save a scant few minutes of carefully scripted newsreels a week and little access to out-of-state newspapers; that's what obtained back then. In his various memoirs of the 30's H. L Mencken frequently complains of many newspapermen that he knew and once respected who were totally in the tank for FDR and that even the most gentle criticism of FDR's worst policies was seldom heard in the land.

This was a world in which, while FDR still frequently appeared in public in his last years, only a handful of people in this country knew that he was unable to walk or stand and had to be carried by attendants to and from photo ops. The news that he was confined to a wheelchair was not fit to print. His declining health was well known by all newsmen, but it was simply not reported. Not a word. JournoList got nothin' compared to the media co-ordination back in the day.