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| -Short Attention Span Theater- |
| The Failed Presidency of Franklin Roosevelt |
| 2021-12-23 |
| by Francis Sempa [Spectator] Like many people my age (62), I was taught both at home and in school that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a great president. FDR, I was taught, saved American democracy in the 1930s with the New Deal and led the nation to victory against Hitlerism in the 1940s. That view of FDR was reinforced by many television documentaries and history books. And virtually every poll of historians — including the most recent C-Span poll — places FDR in the top five of all U.S. presidents (usually in third place behind Lincoln and Washington). This is so despite persuasive revisionist historical works that paint a very different picture of FDR’s presidency. Let’s start with the New Deal. In her book The Forgotten Man, Amity Shlaes shows that the New Deal — so lionized by liberal historians and Democrats — did not restore the U.S. economy as promised by FDR and his “brain trust,” but instead extended the sufferings of the Great Depression for seven more years. Unemployment remained well beyond 10 percent throughout the 1930s, only subsiding with the coming of World War II. “The cause of the duration of the Depression,” she writes, “was Washington’s persistent intervention” in the economy. The end result of the New Deal’s “bold persistent experimentation” was “inflexible statism” that has evolved into a gargantuan federal government exercising nearly unlimited powers to a degree that would have shocked the Founders of our country. But an even greater failure of FDR’s administration in the 1930s was the nation’s lack of preparedness for the Second World War. This is detailed most recently in Arthur Herman’s biography of General Douglas MacArthur (Douglas MacArthur: American Warrior). MacArthur was kept on as the Army’s chief of staff by FDR, and the two repeatedly clashed over the size of the military budget. MacArthur sensed as early as 1934 that another war was on the horizon, but FDR’s budget director proposed to cut the Army’s budget by half and to reduce War Department expenditures by $80 million. MacArthur called the proposed budget “a stunning blow to national defense,” and later told the graduating class at West Point that the “necessity of national defense” was being “sacrificed in the name of economy.” At one White House meeting between the secretary of war, MacArthur, and FDR, the president repeatedly resisted with harsh and bitter words the war secretary’s pleadings to provide more money for the armed forces. MacArthur interjected by telling FDR: “When we lose the next war and an American boy, lying in the mud with an enemy bayonet through his belly and an enemy foot on his dying throat, spits out his last curse, I want the name to be Roosevelt, not MacArthur.” By 1939, the U.S. Army ranked 19th in the world with 174,000 personnel, less than Portugal’s army. The Army Air Corps had 26,000 airmen and about 1,200 planes, many of them obsolete. The U.S. Navy was in a little better shape, with 15 battleships, five carriers, 18 heavy cruisers, and 19 light cruisers, but was still unprepared for global war. As late as the summer of 1941, some American troops were training for combat with wooden broomsticks instead of rifles. FDR’s defenders usually note that while FDR sensed the gathering storm of war abroad, the American people and Congress were wholeheartedly opposed to war preparation, and FDR would not move forward in this area without public and political support. That may be so, but really great leaders — like Lincoln and Washington and Britain’s Winston Churchill — took political risks when their nation’s security was at stake. FDR was unwilling to take such risks. He was above all a political animal — and a deceptive, devious one. General MacArthur once described FDR as “a man who would never tell the truth when a lie would serve him just as well.” Even as FDR covertly began involving the United States as a belligerent in the wars in Asia and Europe, he promised the American people in the 1940 campaign that their sons would not be sent overseas to fight in foreign wars. Even as he tightened sanctions against Japan in the late 1930s, he left our forces unprepared in the Philippines and elsewhere when Japan attacked. There's more at the link |
| Posted by:badanov |
#21 Ponzi Scams "work well" until they don't... Advanced civilizations "work well" until they don't... |
| Posted by: Bubba Lover of the Faeries8843 2021-12-23 12:10 |
| #20 S.S. has worked well for 90 years now Ponzi Scams "work well" until they don't... |
| Posted by: magpie 2021-12-23 12:00 |
| #19 ..you mean needing productive civilized kids to take care of you in your old age? |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2021-12-23 10:39 |
| #18 Imagine a life without Social Security and a Great Depression. S.S. has worked well for 90 years now |
| Posted by: Blackbeard Barnsmell6454 2021-12-23 09:02 |
| #17 a pattern of behavior favoring, and submitting to Stalin's unreasonable demands. See the POST. "The one thing we learn from history is that we do not learn from history." |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2021-12-23 08:45 |
| #16 "The one thing we learn from history is that we do not learn from history." ~ G.W.F. Hegel |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2021-12-23 07:26 |
| #15 But an even greater failure of FDR’s administration in the 1930s was the nation’s lack of preparedness for the Second World War. No that was the American people in general. They wanted no part of foreign wars. It's a long tradition. Many believed we got burned by the results of WW1. The Senate refused to ratify the Versailles Treaty (instead they retracted the declaration of war). PS I would never use Mac as a 'expert' given his record of handling of the Philippines defense at the same time. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2021-12-23 07:22 |
| #14 FDR the Father of US Communism |
| Posted by: Sheba Sholuper1566 2021-12-23 07:03 |
| #13 FDR kicked off the big Government Ponzi scheme called Social Security. It was obviously unconstitutional but later sold to Supreme Court as a tax with no earmark to any specific program. FDR did throw Japanese Americans into internment camps; luckily, that big GIVERnment program did not catch on as did Social Security. He did rid the world of The Axis powers so it was not all bad for FDR. |
| Posted by: Airandee 2021-12-23 06:24 |
| #12 FDR's Manhatten Project saved an estimated 1 million lives because the Atomic Bombs eliminated the need for a conventional invasion of mainland Japan. |
| Posted by: Blackbeard Barnsmell6454 2021-12-23 03:04 |
| #11 ...and FDR could give concessions because he started something that would give the U.S. superiority over Stalin and the rest of the world in short order called the Manhattan Project... |
| Posted by: Blackbeard Barnsmell6454 2021-12-23 02:54 |
| #10 Stalin and FDR worked together to defeat Hitler. Stalin was a critical ally in WWII. |
| Posted by: Blackbeard Barnsmell6454 2021-12-23 02:41 |
| #9 I suggest Mr. Barnsmell read some books by Sean McMeekin. his history of the relationship between FDR and Stalin is most instructional. His meticulous researched facts reveals a pattern of behavior favoring, and submitting to Stalin's unreasonable demands. Read "'Stalin's War". Jaw-dropping revelations based on new research. |
| Posted by: Sgt.D.T. 2021-12-23 02:33 |
| #8 An MIT economist and numerous journalists call Amity Shales book misleading and inaccurate. |
| Posted by: Blackbeard Barnsmell6454 2021-12-23 02:31 |
| #7 I see the left, aided by "revisionist history" is now comparing the Biden presidency to that of FDR. An attack on Guam, Pearl Harbor, or Taiwan should further validate the comparison. Had he not died in office, FDR would still be president today. The left hates term limits. I give you Biden-Obama as an example. Read Amity Shales. She nails it. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2021-12-23 02:15 |
| #6 FDR made the U.S. a Super Power. |
| Posted by: Blackbeard Barnsmell6454 2021-12-23 01:43 |
| #5 ^ NOT TRUE. FDR built industries, factories, schools which gave the workers hard cold cash. That cash was spent on the economy. It is called stimulus that time and again presidents still do when the economy starts sinking. I went to school in buildings built by FDR's New Deal. Quality buildings that would not have been there without FDR. |
| Posted by: Blackbeard Barnsmell6454 2021-12-23 01:23 |
| #4 The economic policies pursued by Roosevelt were advertised as "pulling the country out of the depression" but it is not at all clear that they did not have the opposite effect, though I am sure that the intent was to help the economy. The problemis that government interventions to help usually do have the opposite effect. What used to happen in the 19th century, when there was a recession, was that industries , which had debt, which was most of them, went bankrupt That means the owners lost all their investment,. But the lucky onews who bought the businebankrupt business es had all the assets, without the debts, so that could quickly restart the businesses with a much better chance at success than the predecessors ha. The old owners still had their brains and experience, and also could quickly recover using them. FDR's interventions prevented this natural process and so led to eight years of suffering rather than one. His predecessor was no better and started in the wrong direction. Roosevelt followed along the same stupid track. |
| Posted by: Goober Choluque6459! 2021-12-23 01:12 |
| #3 My comment at #1 of exasperation wasn't for Badanov but for the author Francis Senpa. My father and his brothers sisters and parents suffered the Great Depression. They credit FDR for restoring the economy and my father and his brothers fought and were all wounded on both WWII fronts. They are all gone now and I HATE what these revisionists are doing to their legacy. |
| Posted by: Blackbeard Barnsmell6454 2021-12-23 00:26 |
| #2 The nation was in the Great Depression. People were suffering. FDR put the economy as priority over the military. The factories, industries, infrastructure that resulted provided the military hardware needed in WWII. If the military had been prioritized instead of the he ravaged economy, the military would not have the industrial might that won a two front WWII. |
| Posted by: Blackbeard Barnsmell6454 2021-12-23 00:17 |
| #1 ^ Bullshit. |
| Posted by: Blackbeard Barnsmell6454 2021-12-23 00:12 |