My world is crushed. So Roosevelt was a total and complete dumb-ass? The only thing he did right was to go to war against Japan after Pearl Harbor? And he was elected four times (would have been more if he hadn’t croaked)? By the “greatest generation”?! Holy @#$#!!!! Some of them are still out there, voting and driving cars and everything!
Surely you jest.
Here are three good critical histories of the New Deal years, published within the last decade:
FDR's Folly, by Jim Powell
New Deal or Raw Deal?, by Burton Folsom
The Common Man, by Amity Schlaes
Reading these will enable you to thrash your Roosevelt-loving 'Rat friends and relatives when you debate with them. It will also enable you to see how Obama almost surely studied this history to emulate it in his own way.