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FDR was nothing like Trump. He broke norms, yes, but he was also held office during two of the most dire existential emergencies in the history of the United St

FDR was nothing like Trump. He broke norms, yes, but he was also held office during two of the most dire existential emergencies in the history of the United States: the Great Depression and World War 2. He did unprecedented things because he lived in unprecedented times. And, crucially, he did them to preserve the Constitutional order, not to overthrow it. Unlike most of his class, he was cognizant of the fact that if the government could not organize an effective solution to such a deep crisis, the people would eventually rise up and replace it with one that could. He wanted to stave that off. He took drastic measures to deny oxygen to those would have taken even more drastic ones. (There is one thing on your list that is universally held to be unjustifiable today, of course: the internment of Japanese-Americans. And I would agree that it was unjustifiable, even under the circumstances, which were grave. But there are decent arguments for the other ones.) A good analogue to FDR's unique situation is Abraham Lincoln, who is really the only other President to have faced similar crises. Lincoln did things under the rubric of the Presidency's war powers that go right up to the red line (and, some would argue, beyond). He locked up political opponents who espoused support for the Confederacy, and denied them their habeus corpus rights so they couldn't get out again. He imposed the first involuntary draft in American history. When Maryland threatened to secede and cut Washington, DC off from the rest of the North, he clamped down martial law there, hard. But he did these things to preserve the Constitutional order, not to wreck it. If you want a character from FDR's era who resembles Trump much more closely, go check out a few books on Huey Long, who was exactly the sort of figure FDR acted in order to head off: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huey_Long https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huey_Long

wdewind 8y ago
> Unlike most of his class, he was cognizant of the fact that if the government could not organize an effective solution to such a deep crisis, the people would eventually rise up and replace it with one that could. Would this have been such a bad thing?
- MaysonL 8y ago
  >Would this have been such a bad thing? It could well have been: see the French and Russian Revolutions, Mao, Hitler, Pol Pot. There were both Nazis and Communists busy in the US in the '30s, and either taking power would have been really bad.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
AnthonyMouse 8y ago
> And, crucially, he did them to preserve the Constitutional order, not to overthrow it. Quite the opposite really. Many of the things FDR did were highly populist and there was no existing constitutional framework allowing the federal government to do them. Then when the courts started striking down his legislation, he threatened to pack the court if they didn't start bending to his will. But that meant there was no constitutional framework. There was no reasoned debate over the expansion of government power, nor constitutional amendment setting out its limits, only a threat by the executive to dismantle the court as a check on his power if they didn't get out the rubber stamp. > A good analogue to FDR's unique situation is Abraham Lincoln It is a good analog, but Lincoln is subject to many of the same criticisms. If the Confederacy had won the war, he would have gone down as the President who dissolved the Union. He's a legend because he won and the winner writes the history books, but that's no proof that the extreme measures were actually necessary. A President who resolved the conflict through diplomacy rather than bloodshed would have gone down as a footnote in history. You get a lot more credit for winning a war than preventing one, whether you should or not.

wdewind 8y ago

> Unlike most of his class, he was cognizant of the fact that if the government could not organize an effective solution to such a deep crisis, the people would eventually rise up and replace it with one that could. Would this have been such a bad thing?

MaysonL 8y ago
>Would this have been such a bad thing? It could well have been: see the French and Russian Revolutions, Mao, Hitler, Pol Pot. There were both Nazis and Communists busy in the US in the '30s, and either taking power would have been really bad.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

AnthonyMouse 8y ago

> And, crucially, he did them to preserve the Constitutional order, not to overthrow it. Quite the opposite really. Many of the things FDR did were highly populist and there was no existing constitutional framework allowing the federal government to do them. Then when the courts started striking down his legislation, he threatened to pack the court if they didn't start bending to his will. But that meant there was no constitutional framework. There was no reasoned debate over the expansion of government power, nor constitutional amendment setting out its limits, only a threat by the executive to dismantle the court as a check on his power if they didn't get out the rubber stamp. > A good analogue to FDR's unique situation is Abraham Lincoln It is a good analog, but Lincoln is subject to many of the same criticisms. If the Confederacy had won the war, he would have gone down as the President who dissolved the Union. He's a legend because he won and the winner writes the history books, but that's no proof that the extreme measures were actually necessary. A President who resolved the conflict through diplomacy rather than bloodshed would have gone down as a footnote in history. You get a lot more credit for winning a war than preventing one, whether you should or not.