Posted on 12/20/2025 4:27:24 PM PST by bitt
As the only president elected to four terms and who saw the country through two of its greatest cataclysms — the Great Depression and World War II — biographies of Franklin Roosevelt were certain to treat him as a magnificent figure of enduring accomplishment. In many respects he deserves this exalted regard: He transformed American government in fundamental ways, led the nation in the Second World War, created the building blocks for the postwar world order and left behind the durable New Deal Democratic Party coalition that dominated American politics for most of the next half-century, ending more than 70 years of Republican sway.
And academic history and the major publishers in the mid-20th century were largely populated with sympathetic liberals who easily found FDR a subject for a Whig interpretation — that is, FDR and the New Deal represented a major leap forward in the inexorable progress of human history.
By the 1950s, there began a steady stream of best-selling biographies and chronicles that bordered on hagiography.
He restored the nation’s confidence and tackled the Great Depression and then led the world to victory over totalitarianism.
The tiny handful of critical biographies were largely ignored and disappeared without a trace.
But this scene has started to change as a new generation of scholars — left, right and in-between — have begun offering more critical assessments of FDR and his legacy.
This revision has reached critical mass at a critical moment and with a large irony, as President Trump is in the midst of reversing some of the core constitutional changes FDR’s New Deal wrought — and doing so through the exercise of executive power nearly identical to how FDR wielded the power of the presidency to change the nation’s course.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
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Good post, thank you.
Failures??!! He succeeded SPECTACULARLY in planting the seeds of our welfare state demise, destroying the nation he hated so very much.
Unfortunately, it looks like this book “After Seven Years” is still in copyright. So I can’t start working on it as a public domain audio book any time soon.
I like stuff like this, would do it if I could.
It’s his successes that screwed us over.
Only two pictures of him in a wheelchair; think about that.
El Presidente for Life.
Ask me what vile evil monster took office in 1933 and died in office in April 1945 and my first response would be FDR whereas most people would say Hitler.
Any time some media type starts blathering about the integrity of journalists I recall the FDR disability—and how they lied like rugs for years.
I have zero interest in their excuses or justification.
Liars are liars.
I really wish that the Constitution explicitly required every Supreme Court decision (and lower court decision too) to point to the exact language in the Constitution which allows a branch of the government to exercise power in an area and make a specific decision.
Think of Gun Control — please point to the language in the Constitution which empowers the government to infringe this right.
Or, as you point out, creating a ban on personal gold possession — please point to the language in the Constitution which allows the Chief Executive to exercise that power.
Abortion?
Same sex marriage?
The federal government has power only if the Constitution says it has power.
Otherwise, it’s a 10th Amendment issue, and state government can do what they want.
FDR was a catastrophe. We will never fully recover. Never.
We would recover if we protested more.
Thank you Lord for allowing me to live long enough to see this...
👍 Even as a kid I wondered why all the people I didn't like, like him so much. I just shrugged it off, thinking that when I would grew up I would understand. I did grow up, and I learned about mass hysteria.
That said, the country really was in a shambles when he came in, some of the reforms like the FDIC were good. A national pension scheme made sense but they should have set up a fully funded system with individual accounts and mandatory savings and investments into approved investment vehicles rather than simple wealth transfers from workers to retirees.
He was against public sector labor unions and openly said prolonged reliance on welfare was a narcotic that destroyed self reliance. He cannot be blamed for the massive expansion of the welfare state in the 60s under LBJ. He was 100% right in identifying what bastards the Nazis were and the need to help their enemies and get serious about arming ourselves. Many others wanted to bury their heads in the sand.
Whoa! Great post! I’m a’gonna steal it 👍
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