First of all, as a general rule, there is an old expression that Americans travel fast because they travel light. This meaning that they tend not to give too much thought to history and the odds are that - particularly among the younger generations - you could not swing a dead cat on a crowded street and hit anyone who would have much of an opinion one way or the other about FDR - let alone about Woodrow Wilson!
(The latter of whom they likely could not identify if you showed them a photograph. Where you got the idea that Wilson is MORE popular than FDR is absolutely beyond me.)
Secondly, FDR was not uncontroversial in his day and among Americans today of a certain age - my (recently deceased) grandparents, for example - he remains a vivid figure. My grandparents were staunch Republicans and did not care for him. Except for my father's father, who was a Democrat and a staunch fan.
Thus, for a certain age cohort - my parents were a bit too young to remember him well (father born in 1940 and my mother in 1941 - 9 days after Pearl Harbor in fact) - he remains an object of controversy. However, overall, FDR is seen as a the man who got the nation through the Great Depression and most of WWII, and in that sense is veiwed favorably.
Again, it being noted that for most Americans in this day and ag, that is virtually ancient history. There are no strong feelings one way or the other. (As a further aside, I can remember my great grandfather - now long deceased - also a staunch Republican, seething over his memories of Woodrow Wilson. So again, where you sit depends a lot on when you were born and what for you are living memories.)
That said, FDR brought about the advent into American politics with his New Deal agenda Keynesian economics that would dominate American policymaking - in both parties - until the late 20th century. The idea that the government could "manage" the macroeconomy. This later being modified by President Truman's "Fair Deal" which gave Keynsian policy a microeconomic turn, then briefly John Kennedy's "New Frontier" - which took a technocratic turn - and then finally Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" - which would seek full on social engineering.
As noted, even the GOP accepted the basic premises of FDR's New Deal. Hence, Eisenhower's investment in infrastructure with the interstate highway system and of course Nixon would famously proclaim, "We're all Keynesians now."
Did the New Deal really end the Great Depression? No. World War II and the mobilization it required would do that. However, the New Deal did help a society that felt that the economic rug had been pulled out from under it feel as if it controlled its' fate, and thus an enduring legacy would be born.
That legacy lasting until the stagflation of the 1970s. At which point the country turned to Reagan - who as a young man had been a Democrat and staunch supporter of FDR - and his neoclassical economics. That then being the dominant ethos in both parties - it may be recalled that Democrat President Clinton declared before Congress "the era of big government is over" - until the advent of the Trump administration. This new era having a distinctly populist flavor but it not yet being clear what will be the dominant governing ethos and doctrines.
Put it all together and FDR - though not in the same league as Lincoln, Washington and Jefferson, about whom it may also be fairly said that Americans are more ardent than knowledgeable - is a reasonably popular, if somewhat diminished figure. Still a touchstone for a certain wing of the Democratic party, in the popular mind, to the extent that he is in the popular mind, he is the guy who got the USA through the Great Depression and most of WWII.
Thank you very much for this long explanation.
In fact on my first gag account, I asked people who they think was the best American president at all times, even if I'm not American I gave my opinion and I said that for me Roosevelt was the president which allowed American hegemony. And I had had responses like "this president is the devil" I caricature but I had really negative responses to his subjects and I didn't really understand why lol
I wish you a good memorial day to you and your family 😊
Thanks so much.
Oh, and we will have to discuss FDR obtaining for America its' "hegemony." Unintentionally and circumstantially perhaps, but I would tend to give President Truman a bit more credit. However, we'll discuss that some other time.
For now, for me, it's back to the s/o, my little Munchkins and the beach!!
Yes with pleasure when you have the time, come and explain to me in more detail 😊 Yes of course enjoy your family 😊
Just real quick, in brief. Recall that President Roosevelt died in 1945. Germany and Italy had been defeated but Japan was still fighting - FDR dies at about the time of the battle of Okinawa Island. The atomic bomb had not yet been successfully tested and the assumption was that there would have to be an amphibious and airborne invasion of Japan that would cost hundreds of thousands of lives and that the war might last until 1946.
In short, FDR's focus was on winning the war, including bringing the USSR into the fight against Japan. Churchill, you may recall, was quietly resisting this and FDR had cozied up to Stalin at the Yalta conference at the UK's (and France's) expense.
This then was not a matter of FDR looking to secure the US position against future rivals so much as simply win the war. FDR dies, Truman succeeds him, the atomic bomb is successfully tested and dropped and the war ends.
It was only after the Potsdam summit and subsequent Soviet actions in eastern Europe that the USA begins to assert its position. The "Truman Doctrine" toward Greece and Turkey. "Containment." The formation of the Rio Pact (1947) and NATO (1949.)
When FDR died, he imagined a world guided by the United Nations Organization. Not unlike Wilson - in whose sub-Cabinet FDR served in WWI - imagined the world would be guided by the League of Nations. He was not thinking in terms of power-politics and spheres of influence, but rather an "international community." Truman, then, responding in part to events on the ground, went in a different direction.
@nightdrot Ah yes of course, but in reality Roosevelt by wanting to win the war he too would have imposed American domination.
But are you explaining to me that Roosevelt did not want to impose American hegemony? But that it was Truman who had this project?
I'm sorry as my English is bad I'm not sure I understand everything lol
Quite simply, you cannot know what FDR would have done. An American "hegemony" - and I will use the term here for convenience - was not yet something he could look toward. It is pure speculation as to how he would have reacted to a post-war world.
As far as that goes, every national leader - even the sainted Charles DeGualle - seeks to advance his nation's interests. In that sense, EVERY leader seeks to impose his nation's "hegemony." In the case of Truman, he did so in reaction to Soviet actions and the increasing odds that a world order governed by international law as set by the UN was not in the cards.
Indeed, even Truman was initially reluctant to do so. Recall that Americans, by 1945, had been through the Great Depression, the "Forgotten Depression" (1919-1920), the Spanish Influenza Pandemic (1919), the First World War (1917-1918) and World War II (1941-1945) with only one period of relative peace and prosperity (the 1920s) in between.
Americans were exhausted and manifestly did NOT wish to engage with the world. They wanted very much to return to the isolationism they had followed before. Suffice to add that it would have been in Truman's domestic political interests to give it to them.
It was circumstance that pushed Truman to build the diplomatic and security architecture that you define as American "hegemony." Well after FDR passed away. Indeed, we can only speculate, but had Mr. Dewey defeated Mr. Truman in 1948, it is quite likely that the US would have stood aside from the Korean War (1950 to 1953) as it had stood aside from both world wars until circumstance forced it to enter those conflicts.
We can only speculate, but the idea that history was a foregone conclusion gives too much credit to foresight and too little to accident and circumstance. Suffice to say, FDR passed away in a very different world.
@nightdrot Oh yes each country tries to defend its interests and to impose itself then of course in this case nothing new with the Usa, it is what it is to pass all along the history.
But when I read the book Zbigniew Brzeziński he basically explains I no longer have his exact words in my head, but he explains that the US has never sought this world domination, basically it would be almost an "accident", and that I absolutely do not believe it, Thomas Paine already declaring "It is in our power, to start again the world." again this is absolutely not a complaint.
On the other hand, where the usa have innovated is that they invented I put it in quotes " juridical hegemony". these are some pretty amazing things when you think about it
Thank you for my English😅 if you want I can teach you a few words in French lol
Je vous souhaite une bonne journée 😊
Well, as I noted, Brzeziński has a point. The American public by 1945 looked set to return to the isolationism that it had fallen into after World War I. It was that isolationism, you will recall, that left the UK and France to the tender mercies of the Axis powers until Japan, Germany and Italy - the first via Pearl Harbor - declared war on the USA.
Please note: They declared war on the USA, not the other way around. That isolationism kept the USA out of the war from 1939 to 1941 and was not budged even by the fall of France. France, you will recall, having been America's ally going all the way back to the Revolutionary War and by default the War of 1812.
Bottom line, you are left then to explain how a people so deeply engrained in their isolationism suddenly turned on a dime and decided to impose their "hegemony" over the world. Also, you cite Thomas Paine - but he was never President.
By contrast, recall the words of President John Quincy Adams - "It is the inevitable tendency of a direct interference in foreign wars, even wars for freedom, to change the very foundations of our own government from liberty to power... Erroneous moral principle is the most fruitful of all the sources of human calamity and vice. The leaders of nations... are generally but accomplished sophists, trained to make the worse appear the better reason..."Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own."
Not exactly a guy seeking to impose world rule.
By the by, just as an aside: What, in your estimation, would the world look like if the USA had NOT decided to impose its' "hegemony" upon the world.
Frankly, I do not fully share your characterization - and as I noted, the national mood after September 2, 1945 was hardly clamoring for more engagement with the world. Grant again also that nations always seek to secure their interests - though I hardly think that can be called imposing hegemony.
No matter. For purposes of this question, I'll accept your premise. So then, how would the world have been different had the USA not sought to impose its' "hegemony"? Spell it out when you have the time.
@nightdrot OK, I don't have much time to answer so I will give a full answer later
u Your understanding of the American people is incomplete. Most Americans know the name Woodrow Wilson but could not tell you when he was president or what he accomplished in his administration.
Before FDR, our federal government had a much more limited purpose. It served those functions for which it was uniquely qualified, such as foreign affairs, national defense, regulation of interstate commerce, etc., but it was not seen as the great rich uncle who was obligated to fix our problems for us.
While many people credit FDR and the New Deal with resolving the Great Depression, the truth is that the depression continued throughout the 1930's and did not resolve until WW II began. While all of his "stimulus" programs obviously did help unemployment to some extent, he created an entitlement mentality: if the people have a problem, the federal government should fix it. This, of course, promotes bigger and bigger government which centralizes power at the federal level and that is contrary to what our founding fathers envisioned in the years leading up to the adoption of our Constitution in 1789.
FDR also began the Social Security program, and since it immediately began paying benefits to the elderly - people who had never contributed to Social Security - it began doomed to being not actuarily sound. That is a tremendous source of conflict in our partisan political system.
Some people view FDR as a savior of our country but many others view him as the political opportunist who took advantage of the entitlement mentality to guarantee his re-elections and his place in American history.
@OlderAndWiser
Thanks for that information on FDR. My political education needs some work, and this helped.
@spartan55 I am always glad to know that I have contributed something useful to someone!
I think of him in the same way that most people think of Hitler and Stalin. Before the USA entered the war, England was begging the USA to help them. The problem was, the American people wanted to keep the country out of the war and remain neutral. Churchill and FDR cooked up a pretext to get America into the war. FDR began to insult the Japanese government and they demanded that Japan stop their war against China. There wasn any reason for this, as the USA did not have any interests in China at the time. The democrat-controlled American newspapers began a campaign of racist attacks against Japan, that was another slap in the face. Then, FDR decided to block all oil deliveries going to Japan, to shut them down. Japan does not have any oil resources of its own. Those blockade ships all came from Pearl Harbor. FDR had made sure that all of of the ships in port were due to be decommissioned soon anyway, so it would not be much of a loss. He goaded the Japanese into attacking Pearl Harbor just for a pretext to enter into the war. Several navy ships saw the Japanese fighter planes flying for Hawaii. The commanders radioed the information to US naval command, and these ships were told to stand down, and it was a not a threat. Everyone who died at Pearl Harbor did so because of FDR. Years later, after FDR died, his son admitted that FDR knew about the attack before it happened, and he was told the day before. There is a book called "Infamy!", by British military historian, John Toland that tells the true story about this. The republicians in congress investigated all of this right after the war and this is all public knowledge.
Thank you.
If America had stayed an isolationist nation, there would have been no D-day which would have allowed the Nazi's more to time to mass produce jet aircraft, more advanced V-2 and V-3 weapons of mass destruction. Oh yes one other thing there would have been no Manhattan project
So guess who would have had nuclear weapons first?
At first I was kind of shocked at your response since I expected many posts on here to be positive... then I saw your name and I was like 'oh... yeah that explains a lot.' And for the record, you are absolutely right. FDR was the silent tyrant, if you will. I don't like him at all.
Wilson endorsed the birth of a nation film. And i think it’s easy to like lincoln or washington as they’re both kinda old figures and have big stories about them. FDR was okay, he did try a lot with his new deals and he was obviously popular...
Opinion
19Opinion
He went along with the proposition of interning his own citizens, so he is a piece of fecal matter.
@pjf1958 The bad things he did outweighs the good things he did. Then again it’s debatable whether or not social security is actually a good thing.
If you’re going to praise him for anything good then praise him for forming the 442nd RCT which paved the road for civil rights.
What? Most americans couldn't tell you a single thing about Woodrow wilson let alone like him. The few that can say something about him would mention how he helped revitalize the Clan by airing the first movie in the white house which happened to be the propaganda film "birth of a nation". So yeah, completely incorrect.
Most would say FDR but that is because they haven't really done their research into him, how he pretty much single handedly destroyed our entire system and violated most of our laws, attempted court packing, and arguablly caused the great depression to go on longer due to his interference (though to be fair, this is not just him, most politicians make it worse by attempting to intervene (and end up in drawing it out longer then necessary).
However most would tell you the unarguable best presidents are probably Lincoln (though he did do some bad things he gets a pass because of the extreme issues of his time (ending slavery, trying to keep the union together etc.), washington, and I personally would say Teddy Roosevelt (even though he did some things i dislike).
FDR was a garbage president, relatively speaking. For someone who had nearly twice as much time in office as any other president, he accomplished remarkably little, was extremely corrupt (and many cold war era "corrupt" politicians such as LBJ were directly mentored by him), prolonged the Great Depression to justify unnecessary government expansion, and gets a "pass" in history almost entirely because he happened to be the sitting president during the onset of World War 2. Despite the US being a major world power for almost 50 years by that point, there's no question he personally was never seen as a major world leader beyond our own borders, who instead looked to Winston Churchill as that icon.
But under absolutely no circumstances, not even in a fantasy world, would I rank him lower than Woodrow Wilson. The ONLY good thing Wilson ever did in office was keep the US out of the League of Nations, which was in part his idea in the first place. Overall, it would be very easy to label him the worst president the US ever had, again propped up as a recognizable figure entirely by his position during a global war.
Lincoln is overrated or misunderstood in a lot of ways, but he's in a completely different league than those two. I would place Washington higher than him however, because his presidency effectively set the tone for all others, and he not only led a nation through it's own fight to exist, he also led it through recovery from both a war of independence and the failures of the Articles of Confederation. While most US presidents have eagerly abused or pushed the limits of their authority, Washington is one of the only exceptions in this regard.
That he whas a idiot for not listening Churchill and make the D-day in the Balkans so the aliace cut USSR acces to so many country in Europ.
He is an asshole for cheating his wife and a fucking alchoolic and a huge smoker.
A weak president who obay Salin and at an old age and poor healt condition accept to go all the way from Washington to Crimea to negociate future plans.
A traitor who know my contry whas forced by NAZY Germany to take some actions and still bomb us when we whas already in big problems whit USSR.
He fucking back stab up and fight against a nation that didn't have a chance to fight USA, and they still did it.
FDR WAS the more known and popular- he was the one who mortgaged the future of the country and began so many "entitlement programs". This was the perfect opportunity for him to buy future votes by promising people this freebie, and that, a new thing called SocialSecurity, and others.
I’ve always been so nice about your country I didn’t realize that you were so pro France and now you are trying to bash our president’s. Don’t forget about World War II D day if we didn’t go over there and help you would be speaking German to this very day. Adolf Hitler was going over there to destroy your country and actually had control of Paris France. Three hours from now we are celebrating our memorial day be respectful to the American fallen soldiers
Roosevelt was the most popular president in U. S. history based on the fact that he was elected president for 4 consecutive terms. You would know this if the Republican party hadn't defunded the educational system 40 years ago.
Regardless of my own personal opinions of the man or his policies, most Americans would rank FDR way ahead of Woodrow Wilson. Where did you get that impression?
Wilson and FDR are the two presidents most responsible for ruining America, and why it is on a suicide mission to this day.
If I was in a room with Hitler, Stalin, and FDR, and had two bullets, I'd shoot FDR twice, because Hitler would kill himself anyway, and Stalin posed no threat to the U. S., he'd only fuck up the Soviet Union.
In many ways, FDR finished and fulfilled what Wilson started. He was the third president with monarchical power after Washington and Lincoln, and installed the current American regime.
Did he abolish Congress, the Senate and the Judiciary? I was unaware.
@englisheuropean He did not have to abolish the form of government. It did not prevent him from exercising roughly absolute power. His party had total control of Congress and he publicly threatened to act without congressional authorization if they obstructed his plans. They fell into line. He threatened to pack the Supreme Court with additional loyal justices if they persisted in blocking his agenda. The court fell into line. He confiscated property and set production quotas that greatly exacerbated the severity of the depression.
Now that you mention it I do seem to remember something about him trying to confiscate everbody's gold.
@EnglishEuropean He criminalized gold by executive order (without Congress). Many wealthy people knew about it ahead of time and sent their gold to Europe, where it was not subject to confiscation. The confiscation forced most Americans to endure a massive devaluation of the dollar.
i think its funny he regularly banged prostitutes in the white house but is thought of as very presidental. every president is a pervert... we just have more cameras nowadays
FDR is my fave, tho he imprisoned Japanese Americans and turned away German Jews. History is complex.
Wilson was majorly racist, but had some good post WW1 policies. I think he’s in top 20…
I dont care for him, because he was the 1st president make socialism mainstream in the USA.
That was the start of the fail of USA. I say by 2035 America will be collapse and freedom will die
I thought he was a great President, and he deserved to see the end of WW II.
Seriously overrated. He made the depression worse by adding more government and taking more out of people's pockets as a result.
I think from what i read he's in a big way partially responsible for why the Chinese republic fell to communism and now we have china taking over the world thanks to his decisions
I don't know who he is just a U. S president.
He was a socialist before socialist was even cool
Probably cause he created the federal reserve.
Worse than trump
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