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FDR's major lasting accomplishments that people praise him for were through legislation. Even things like the threat to pack the court would have happened throu

FDR's major lasting accomplishments that people praise him for were through legislation. Even things like the threat to pack the court would have happened through legislation. There are some highly visible examples of direct executive action that I hope everyone today sees as authoritarian (japanese internment being the really big one). But FDR's expansion of the executive is the opposite of what Trump is doing. Trump is acting in opposition to the legislation that directs the executive to have its finger in more pies.

laborcontract 2y ago
The internment of the Japanese cannot be brushed off. That was a gross violation of power that, if Trump were to do something similar, would tear this country apart. On top of that, one of the side effects of the internment is that it's sowed a deep distrust in the federal government and the Census that continues to harm representation to this day. They used Census data to round people up. It doesn't get much worse than that.
- voakbasda 2y ago
  Well they kept them in the US that time around. We won’t be so lucky this time.
  - laborcontract 2y ago
    I’m hoping to shine some light on bad executive behavior, not to create a contrast that makes Trump look good relative to what FDR did. We agree here.
    - DonHopkins 2y ago
      [flagged]
- UncleMeat 2y ago
  Of course. It is one of the most evil things the US government has ever done and was driven largely by the executive. I personally think that this is a big enough black mark on FDR's legacy that he shouldn't be held in such high regard by liberals. But is also undeniable that when liberals praise FDR they are talking about things like new deal legislation which ultimately originated from congress during his presidency, which makes the "well you guys like FDR so why do you hate Trump" argument just miss completely.
pjc50 2y ago
The long and the short of it is that FDR did (mostly) well-intentioned things with (mostly) good outcomes that were (mostly) widely distributed. That and winning WW2 secured his place in the historical record. But it was definitely a "move fast and break things" approach. The one that conservatives are still very mad about is gold confiscation, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn is a wild over-interpretation of the law to consolidate Federal power. A lot of very important American freedoms were secured against the public opinion by court cases. That makes them brittle.
- UncleMeat 2y ago
  I believe that there is a huge difference between executive authoritarianism and consolidating power within the federal government instead of the states. While this was indeed a huge expansion of federal power through the commerce clause, it expands congress' power, not the president's.
throwawaymaths 2y ago
> Trump is acting in opposition to the legislation that directs the executive to have its finger in more pies. is that so true? i don't doubt that in probably 10-20% of the cases this is so, but i would bet that in the vast majority of cases the legislation as written is flexible enough that picking an amount of action that is zero is within the bounds of the law. i am watching trump carefully for the moment when he turns some dark corners (the abrego garcia case being one) but i am unswayed by the argument that the government reducing its own power is somehow more authoritarian in contrast to an administration that convinced congress to create authority for itself out of whole cloth, which quite clearly goes against the 10th amendment.
- SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
  I'm unswayed by that argument too, but I don't think it's an accurate characterization of what's happening. A government that arbitrarily withholds funds based on political favoritism is increasing its power, even if aggregate spending goes down because too many people weren't willing to do favors.
  - throwawaymaths 2y ago
    Yes, that is why I said more authoritarian. We need to acknowledge other authoritarian or authoritarian-lite practices that have gone under the radar for decades, like funding elite colleges (is that political favoritism?), or political influence through NGOs, or even "doing things for the greater good" through unaccountable NGOs like "broadband equity", where there is no explicit charter for the government to do such things.
    - SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
      Why do we need to? It seems to me that many of these efforts to “acknowledge” other controversies in the past are in fact distraction tactics to sneak in controversial premises about the current ones. Funding research grants is absolutely not political favoritism.

laborcontract 2y ago

The internment of the Japanese cannot be brushed off. That was a gross violation of power that, if Trump were to do something similar, would tear this country apart. On top of that, one of the side effects of the internment is that it's sowed a deep distrust in the federal government and the Census that continues to harm representation to this day. They used Census data to round people up. It doesn't get much worse than that.

voakbasda 2y ago
Well they kept them in the US that time around. We won’t be so lucky this time.
- laborcontract 2y ago
  I’m hoping to shine some light on bad executive behavior, not to create a contrast that makes Trump look good relative to what FDR did. We agree here.
  - DonHopkins 2y ago
    [flagged]
UncleMeat 2y ago
Of course. It is one of the most evil things the US government has ever done and was driven largely by the executive. I personally think that this is a big enough black mark on FDR's legacy that he shouldn't be held in such high regard by liberals. But is also undeniable that when liberals praise FDR they are talking about things like new deal legislation which ultimately originated from congress during his presidency, which makes the "well you guys like FDR so why do you hate Trump" argument just miss completely.

pjc50 2y ago

The long and the short of it is that FDR did (mostly) well-intentioned things with (mostly) good outcomes that were (mostly) widely distributed. That and winning WW2 secured his place in the historical record. But it was definitely a "move fast and break things" approach. The one that conservatives are still very mad about is gold confiscation, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn is a wild over-interpretation of the law to consolidate Federal power. A lot of very important American freedoms were secured against the public opinion by court cases. That makes them brittle.

UncleMeat 2y ago
I believe that there is a huge difference between executive authoritarianism and consolidating power within the federal government instead of the states. While this was indeed a huge expansion of federal power through the commerce clause, it expands congress' power, not the president's.

throwawaymaths 2y ago

> Trump is acting in opposition to the legislation that directs the executive to have its finger in more pies. is that so true? i don't doubt that in probably 10-20% of the cases this is so, but i would bet that in the vast majority of cases the legislation as written is flexible enough that picking an amount of action that is zero is within the bounds of the law. i am watching trump carefully for the moment when he turns some dark corners (the abrego garcia case being one) but i am unswayed by the argument that the government reducing its own power is somehow more authoritarian in contrast to an administration that convinced congress to create authority for itself out of whole cloth, which quite clearly goes against the 10th amendment.

SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
I'm unswayed by that argument too, but I don't think it's an accurate characterization of what's happening. A government that arbitrarily withholds funds based on political favoritism is increasing its power, even if aggregate spending goes down because too many people weren't willing to do favors.
- throwawaymaths 2y ago
  Yes, that is why I said more authoritarian. We need to acknowledge other authoritarian or authoritarian-lite practices that have gone under the radar for decades, like funding elite colleges (is that political favoritism?), or political influence through NGOs, or even "doing things for the greater good" through unaccountable NGOs like "broadband equity", where there is no explicit charter for the government to do such things.
  - SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
    Why do we need to? It seems to me that many of these efforts to “acknowledge” other controversies in the past are in fact distraction tactics to sneak in controversial premises about the current ones. Funding research grants is absolutely not political favoritism.