Franklin D. Roosevelt as a president, on a scale of 1-10 how do you rate him? (insurance, governor)

[engineman]

My father used to refer to him as "Dopey".

Some people credit him with ending the depression, but it was really Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo.

Even his own people shot him down when he tried to pack the supreme court.

[t. raleigh fingers]

Originally Posted by CrownVic95

How many posters here were adults in 1932?

That's how many here are capable of intelligently rating FDR as President.

We are more capable now of accurately rating FDR than those alive in 1932. We have the benefit of hindsight, and of reams of history.

[lilyflower3191981]

6

[jbgusa]

Originally Posted by jetgraphics

Based on his declaration of emergency, stealing the people's gold money, and imposing national socialism (FICA), I'd rate him a minus 9. He was basically an evil slimy [expletive deleted].

I would give him a positive number, about a 1 or 2. I was going to rank him with Benedict Arnold but in many respects Benedict Arnold was a hero. Vidkund Quisling would be a better analogy. Maybe Pierre Laval of Vichy France.

Compared to other U.S. Presidents I'd rank him with Buchanan, Pierce, Fillmore, Carter and Nixon. So a 1.5.

Originally Posted by SanJuanStar

It payed off, We won the war and became a Super Power and could dictate the world's economy and commerce. If We would have lost the war, then his mistakes and policies would have been felt a lot harder today.

We won the war and surrendered at war's end to the rising Soviet bloc by the way Roosevelt designed the U.N. That is why I find him akin to Quisling and Leval.

[SanJuanStar]

Originally Posted by CrownVic95

How many posters here were adults in 1932?

That's how many here are capable of intelligently rating FDR as President.

You rate a president by his consequences that We have to pay today, domestic and foreign. It takes a better understanding of the bigger picture than just the moment and having a better attention span of 3 years. I don't need to be alive in the Soviet Union or China under Stalin and Mao to know how messed up their policies were and the consequences.

[t. raleigh fingers]

Reading up on the FBI for my FBI thread, I learned that the FBI went from 353 agents in 1932 to 4380 in 1945, when FDR died. The FBI were not even allowed to carry guns until around 1935, because the congress had been wary of having a national police force.

FDR was just the fulfillment of much of what Wilson started in his two terms from 1912-1920--national policing, war on drugs (Harrison Act of 1914), American military as world police, power concentrated in DC (16th amendment--income tax), major deficit spending.

The US was radically transformed from 1912 to 1945. Reagan in 1980 tried to turn back the clock, but it largely was a failed effort in the grand scheme of things.

[jwest09]

FDR was continuous warned that the Japanese were planning to attack the US Pacific fleet in the Hawaiian Islands. Did he have them prepared?

[djohnslaw]

Originally Posted by t. raleigh fingers

We are more capable now of accurately rating FDR than those alive in 1932. We have the benefit of hindsight, and of reams of history.

Exactly

[t. raleigh fingers]

Originally Posted by Lat30

I think Herbert Hoover was the poor handler of the Great Depression. The stock market bottomed in 1932 which was before FDR took office and Hoover refused to meddle in the market or in economic policies at all until the people needed desperate help living in shacks

FDR restored Trust in banking w FDIC, signed in SEC regulations, these things were absolutely necessary and market rebounded in 1936. If he was so disliked he wouldn’t have been elected 4 terms and he was popular in the North and the South and one of the few times ever that the North and South were politically aligned.

FDR's econ advisor Rexford Tugwell admitted later that most of the anti-depression policies enacted by FDR were just a continuation of what Hoover had started.

Hoover was a big-gov't guy just like FDR. In fact, both of them got their start in national politics working for the grandfather of progressivism, Woodrow Wilson.

[t. raleigh fingers]

Originally Posted by jwest09

FDR was continuous warned that the Japanese were planning to attack the US Pacific fleet in the Hawaiian Islands. Did he have them prepared?

This has been debated into the ground. My eyes long ago glazed over, but I've heard Michael Medved (a Republican) say repeatedly that the warning theory is false. I trust his judgement over that of random internet posters.