Quote:
Originally Posted by tater
Yep. FDR was likely elevated because he was a more socialist than most others. I think FDR did grave damage to the US in the long term since the Entitlements are going to ruin us.
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How is this even possible? It's not like there's been a socialist agenda in place since Roosevelt held office; I understand that this is your opinion, but I don't understand how you can say "the Entitlements are going to ruin us" when, clearly, there's been lots of other fellows of opposing political theories in office since to undo those Entitlements, if they were so bad. So why are they not undone?
Clearly, Roosevelt deserves mention at the top. Like him or not, he managed the US during the lean years of the Depression (well or not, he did stay in office, so the people liked him enough) and took the country through the trying years of WW2 - the world's first truly global conflict, waged in a manner far different even from the first World War - the first modern war, for sure. Roosevelt did so with virtually no Army and an emasculated Navy that was saved by a few individuals' foresight in investing in submarines and naval aviation. He supported allied nations even before the US got involved militarily, and kept the country moving forward toward economic recovery. He was the first US President, in essence, to project the US beyond the borders of just that nation itself, and it shows in the popular perception of US troops that exists to this day, even after the damage done to the US image by post-9-11 moves into Iraq and Afghanistan.
Does all of this make him "great"? Perhaps, perhaps not. Does it make him influential? Oh, hell yeah. Roosevelt was the first US president to involve the nation on the global stage, at the point in time when it was most needed. I'm not saying that Commonwealth and Soviet forces couldn't have beaten Hitler and Tojo; the price would have been far, far higher for everyone had Roosevelt continued to sit the US out. And the global political situation has been vastly different ever since. For good or ill remains to be decided.