> retroactively defining Biden’s presidency as an impotent interregnum with an erasable policy footprint.
Between the various wars that broke out on his watch, inflation rising by over 20% in official numbers and a lot more than that in reality, and the catastrophic and ongoing damages caused by 4 years of de facto open borders, it seems unlikely that the monstrous "footprints" left by Biden's policies will be erased anytime soon. He's spent the last four years tromping around America like Godzilla in Tokyo. Those are steps that don't just leave footprints; they leave scars.
I disagree with ranking FDR in the top tier. FDR is certainly one of the most consequential presidents in American history - I think on the question of impact he is in the top-5 with Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln & Reagan. But like Lincoln, FDR had both exceptional peaks and valleys that yielded both great progress and terrible regression. For these reasons, I would group FDR and Lincoln in their own group - call it tier 1A.
About FDR, his manipulation of the levers of government, especially the judiciary, established a precedent that politicized the courts and Constitution. This is an awful legacy made worse by a number of New Deal court rulings that trampled the rights of Americans and the principle of Free Enterprise.
And yet, FDR as part of the New Deal, funded TVA and the Rural Electrification Act. Providing electricity to rural America was a wildly successful domestic policy - certainly one of the most successful of all Federal programs.
And yes, FDR was impressive in guiding the USA to victory in WWII. Since FDR passed in 1945, we cannot hold him responsible for the agreements that resulted in tens of millions of Eastern Europeans being made subjects of the Communist Soviet Union. Yet the situation inherited by FDR's Vice President, Truman, lead directly to this. FDR turned a blind eye to Hitler and he was reluctant to acknowledge Stalin's terror. These errors are blemishes that cannot be ignored.
Understand your argument and even agree with most of what you say. But I'm content with my rankings and simply note that univariate metrics over multivariate subjects are always imperfect and frustrating. More a means of prompting conversation than a serious measure. If I created your 1A category, I'd have to put Teddy Roosevelt, Polk, and Truman in it, too.
Appreciate the relatively high rankings for both Grant and Harding. Grant gets too little credit for fighting the KKK during Reconstruction, and Teapot Dome notwithstanding, I’ve never understood the justification for Harding’s low rankings. If nothing else, Harding deserves credit for delivering us from the execrable Woodrow Wilson.
Yup on both counts. Harding's reputation was an early manifestation of fake news from biased press. He was highly popular when he died, and he was thought of as a successful president. The negatives came a few years later when news of his illegitimate daughter came to the fore. The press ran to their fainting couches, and his reputation has been in the dumps ever since.
I was taught in school that Harding was the least successful president in history, as if no one had ever heard of Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson… As an aside, Andrew Johnson lived in my hometown, and local historians tied themselves in knots trying to make sense of his failures.
Your school lied. :) Or, more likely, they were persuaded by the same sort of doofuses who produced the 2024 rankings. Basically schoolyard popularity/unpopularity dynamics.
FDR deserves no more credit for winning WW II. About all you can really give him credit for is not micromanaging it like LBJ and Nixon. He wanted to invade France (from the Atlantic / Bay of Biscay, I think) in 1943 but did let the military change his mind. But otherwise he did nothing that any other politician could have done, and did many stupid things.
The worst was sucking up to Stalin. There was no way to prevent Stalin from taking over Eastern and Central Europe, he can't be blamed for that, but there was no need to suck up to Stalin the way he did.
He picked the right generals and admirals right at the start, unlike Lincoln, who took two years to find Grant. And, as you say, he didn't micromanage them. For a man with a giant ego, that's impressive. I absolutely agree on Stalin. If I were to drop him to Tier 2, that would be the reason.
Did he pick the right Generals or did he allow John Marshal to act as manager of the war and didn't interfere? He did suspend the New Deal for the war effort and enlisted industry instead of continuing to deride it. But he had a soft spot for Stalin and it was necessary to help keep Soviets armed but the relationship was very one sided. We gave and the Soviets took. Even to the point of imprisoning American Airmen who landed on Russian soil after avoiding Japanese. FDR diverted arms and supplies from American troops in the Pacific for delivery to the Soviets. I think that FDR gets a boost from a positive outcome that he oversaw but wasn't the indispensable man as he is believed to be.
All good questions. And yes, he did suspend much of the New Deal--which is likely why the economy recovered. As Woody Allen famously said, “Ninety percent of success in life is just showing up.” FDR showed up when WWII rolled our way.
a) It was New Deal meddling in the economy that prevented recovery from 1933-41
b) Suspension of the the New Deal after 1941 led to recovery. At the same time, govt meddling in the economy e.g price controls, the draft, the enforced stopping of producing consumer goods (cars), huge increases in military spending---all that meddling somehow didn't stop the undoubted recovery of 1942-45. Nor did the huge spending binge of 1942-45 lead to a postwar Depression as many feared,, and you would believe if you follow FA Hayek's notions on booms, busts, and their causes.
Roosevelt didn't have as much time to screw around with business once the war began. They could once again make some plans. I don't think you and I are disagreeing on anything. My "showing up" comment meant that FDR defied the two-term tradition and happened to be in place when the opportunity to redeem his reputation came along. And, fortunately, he took advantage of it.
How many Americans died on the eastern front, the front that kept Hitler from continental conquest in 1942-43? I think most Russians then and now would say the free American weapons, food, oil, and supplies, were a bargain compared to the millions of Russians who died in 1941-44. Unlike us today, Roosevelt did not know if Stalin would make a separate peace in 1942-43. Had that happened, the European blood price would have landed on the US and Britain.
How many Poles and others died on the eastern front, before and after 22 June 1941, at Stalin's hands?
Stalin was Hitler's co-conspirator in starting WW II in Europe. He doesn't get excused for later defeating his co-conspirator any more than a bank robber does for shooting his partner and grabbing all the loot.
Just so. But that doesn't answer the horrifying question: what if Stalin made a separate peace in 1942-43, leaving the Americans and the Brits to pay the entire appalling blood price of liberating Europe?
Most Americans do not realize how much freedom the nation lost during FDR's high-handed administration. One of his innovations was to make the income tax the primary source of revenue for the federal government and to impose income tax withholding. FDR also created the payroll tax, which today is the largest federal tax most American workers pay. Roosevelt confiscated Americans' gold to prevent them from protecting themselves from his inflation and the Congress kept this policy in place for forty years.
I think quite a few Americans understand the loss of freedoms under FDR. (Not enough, but quite a few.) But I think far fewer understand that giving up those freedoms did not, in fact, get America out of the Depression.
Specify the inflation that took place on Roosevelt's watch, 1933-45. Then add in the deflation that happened, also on Roosevelt's watch.
I'd also be more impressed if you had mentioned the mass internment in concentration camps of Americans of Japanese ancestry, but that seems to have escaped your notice.
Roosevelt's first term of office began with an annual rate of deflation of 10% in March, 1933 (in those days, Presidents were inaugurated in March). Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics. A year later, inflation was up to 5.6% although from a deflationary base. Inflation remained relatively mild until the arms buildup drove up inflation to 10% in November, 1941. Inflation really got going the following year, reaching an annual rate of 13.2% in May, 1942. After that, FDR and his rubber-stamp Congress imposed wage-price controls which artificially suppressed inflation until the controls came off in the fall of 1946. Inflation, which had been 2.2% in January, 1946, shot up to 18.1% in December and reached 19.7% in March, 1947. Mentioning the internment of Japanese-Americans might have impressed you, but impressing you is no object of mine.
"Most Americans do not realize how much freedom the nation lost during FDR's high-handed administration."
Such was the gurgling you used to start this thread. Just about everyone else would have included the forced concentration camps of 1942-45. Not only do you not include this blot, which certainly would bolster your argument, you sneer that if you didn't think of something it can't be important i.e. the internment wasn't a big deal.
I agree! Although FDR is troublesome. His record for his first two terms would arguably rank him with Wilson. His war record saves him, although his hubris, manipulative personality and narcissistic faith in the powers of his personal charms ultimately led to disaster in dealings with Stalin... a man who could not be charmed, and whose skills at deception exceeded Roosevelt’s - the consequences of which remain with us today. Let me commend a recent, and superb, book: The Washington War: FDR's Inner Circle and the Politics of Power That Won World War II by James Lacey focused on the inner workings of the Washington bureaucracies – hence the title - the intra-agency squabbles and feuds, the personalities, the bickering and the jockeying for power and influence, and the inevitable, unavoidable petty conflicts and tensions that often subsumed greater, crucial concerns of national interest and war time necessities, and FDR orchestrations and manipulations. Great read! (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36086489-the-washington-war)
And Biden? I would rank him at the top of the list of worst Presidents. I always had Wilson there, and for lasting detriment to the country and our system of governance, he is tough to beat. But Biden... non more unfit, more corrupt, or more incompetent. Otherwise, mere quibbles here and there.
This is the first thing that you’ve said that I have major problems with.
We saw the first Trump term. Whatever else one’s fears are, claiming this is a “legitimate concern” about Trump is baseless.
Which is not to say he might not make mistakes in this area. Most presidents do. He might even do “America First- type” things you and I and certainly the “establishment” would not. But that is wholly separate from the baseless claim that it will be because the enemy fooled or got the best of him, or the media bullshit narrative that he is in league with or has a soft spot for authoritarians (a charge that deserves to stick to Obama for his relations with China, bowing to the Saudi king and especially with Iran).
And surely the difference in what happened under Biden vs. under Trump (and for that matter, under Obama re: the Iranian mullahs) means there is far *less* legitimacy to claims that Trump will be buffaloed by Putin.
The concern is not that Trump will be buffaloed by Putin but that Trump likes decisive action-packed figures and will write off Putin's interests as natural and proper. It's not like Stalin stomping on the Warsaw Jews or the Eastern European democrats. It's Putin vs Zelensky, who has canceled elections and shut down media, and hasn't done much to curtail corruption. Not as evenly matched as Stalin vs Hitler, but where is the high ground? Most people forget that Poland chewed up part of Czechoslovakia instead of standing up to Hitler when it might have done some good. Good guys and bad guys are not black and white.
Ok… but recall Trump’s first impeachment was based on a phone call to Zelensky!
And the rest of your comment seems to more support my point than undermine it.
And that Trump has said repeatedly that Putin wouldn’t have done it under his (Trump’s) watch - with which I fully agree - again suggests he wouldn’t consider it natural and proper.
Trump making a “business decision” - even one I might not agree with - based on current facts on the ground and calculations of dollars needing to be spent is very different from “legitimate concerns” that he’s in league with or buffaloed by authoritarians.
If your “legitimate concerns” merely are that he’s not a neocon (or a Biden-Harris neo-neocon)… well, then say that.
Because while there are a lot of other things I don’t like about Trump, it’s important to note that despite his braggadocio, when it comes to foreign policy he embodies Teddy Roosevelt’s bromide of “speak softly and carry a big stick” far better than any modern president since Reagan, and arguably better than Reagan himself.
For the uninitiated who might be quick to ridicule the “speak softly” portion of this comparison of Trump to TR, “speak softly” in fact has nothing to do with the tone or tenor of words, but everything to do with a foreign policy stance that is not designed to take umbrage at every single thing a potential adversary might do. It is in fact the opposite of neocon nation-building.
I wasn’t trying to write anny concern off as completely baseless.
I was going by the common meaning “legitimate concerns” has in this political context as:
a) reasonably high percentage chance, AND
b) materially higher chance than for predecessor/current office holder.
c) code that the person I don’t like is problematic (vs. the reality that foreign policy is complex and many things could happen and can reasonably be worried about regardless of the officeholder)
…and it is on the basis of those first two that my claim is that “legitimate concerns” ain’t really “legitimate concerns”.
In other words, my main pushback is the deliberate implication that the concerns here should be materially higher for Trump than under any other president, or presidential candidate, of the last 10 years (Obama, Biden, Harris).
I don’t disagree with most of this and have a piece in the hopper on the subject of Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick—my favorite example of which was, as you say, not soft in the mushy sense. Just curt, flatliner, resolute. (“This government wants Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead.”) Early hints from Rubio in this area are promising.
I said it was a “legitimate concern”—not a certainty or prediction. I quite agree with you that with Biden/Obama with Mullahs, etc. it was certainty, with awful consequences.
I think your writing style deserves the accolade I gave to really excellent student writing (and that level of praise was rare, indeed.) of "felicitous". I always look forward to reading your work, whether I agree with you on the topic or not, because instead of a chore it is a welcome guest to my day.
Glad I am not the only one who says no one knows what this term of Trump will be like or what his legacy will be.
I would like to hope he cares far less of what others think as he knows this his last shot at achieving a legacy that will be viewed highly. He has a strong opportunity to do good things and all hope he will not squander the opportunity and engage in pettiness once the attack dogs look to come after him upon being sworn in to office.But it is Trump and all bets off.
All in all, Bob, nice work. Very helpful that each change is justified and credit attributed. As a Vietnam Veteran, I push LBJ downward, notwithstanding the Civil Rights and Great Society legislation, because he vacillated so miserably. Even on Civil Rights, he tried to please everyone, saw that their was a new bipartisan national consensus, and moved to coalesce it. That was his talent, but the two major bills only followed what Republicans had advocated for decades, and what Kennedy had already begun to move toward. The one passion he exhibited grew out of teaching poor kids in West Texas, and as Senate leader and president, he followed through on it. Sadly, however, despite his passion about ending poverty, educating every child, and creating a great society, virtually every Great Society program has proven to have been a dismal failure measured against his hopes and the legislation's goals. The fact that more people are poor, homeless, hungry, less-healthy, and less well educated than before LBJ ought to push him to the bottom tier on all counts, IMHO. He could well be the poster boy for the aphorism "the road to hell is paved with good intentions."
There are several books titled "The Cost of Good Intentions". Most of them recount the failure of government anti-poverty programs. The author of one of them, Charles R. Morris, ran a Great Society program in New Jersey. His "A Time Of Passion" (p. 107) grimly points out the failure of programs like his: "Perhaps most disappointing to the original advocates of the anti-poverty program was the sharp nationwide increase in welfare dependency. The basic welfare caseload --Aid to Families With Dependent Children--quintupled between 1960 and 1975, with most of the growth concentrated between 1965 and 1970, that is, roughly coincident with the launching of the Great Society programs."
On a different day, I could be tempted to push LBJ down. He was president when I was between the ages of 9 and 15--but I was politically precocious. I gave a pro-LBJ speech to my 5th grade class. And by 1968, I was actively involved in the Humphrey campaign (meeting the VP on one occasion). Through the early years, I supported the Vietnam War, as I thought the fight against Communism to be worthwhile. Somewhere around Tet, I turned against it because, I concluded, LBJ had turned it into mere theater, with self-imposed restrictions that guaranteed that we could not win. (All those infernal maps of where we would and would not bomb, send troops, etc.) I then became anti-war--not in a generic sense, but rather against this specific doomed war. I ended up as a McGovern delegate at the 1972 national convention, though I was never as far left as McGovern. (I had backed Muskie till his campaign collapsed.)
I was living (and growing up) in one of the early areas that got the "benefits" of the Great Socety. Our vew was that we were sent a bunch of know-nothng do-gooders who 'splaned how we should be lvng our lves whle passng out money on thngs that we didn't beleve would work. There appeared to be little common sense in most of the programs.
I am very happy that you downgraded Biden to where he belongs, and separated him from Obama, Clinton and Trump.
I loved loved loved your Trump—no-FDR paragraph. Brilliant!
I think the question marks for Trump now are wholly appropriate, and loved the whole FDR explication - I learned more about FDR in this short piece than I have in a long time.
I am impressed that you chose to move Jackson down not just one but 2 levels. I have no dog in that fight, but rare is the person willing to change and acknowledge he was wrong the first time by *that* much. That you did so is impressive - whether or not the new ranking is correct.
I disagree, but respectfully, with the elevation of HW.
You having now gotten Biden correct, I will emphasize my continued disagreement with your placement of Clinton and first-term Trump in Tier 4. Your own long explication of FDR’s personal failings here and yet still having him in Tier 1 argues strongly against your rationale to move Clinton and Trump 1 down *so* far primarily based on their personal characteristics despite their substantial accomplishments (where limiting them to no higher than Tier 3 for those reasons is perfectly valid).
Small point: I think your explication of Biden’s failings and ranking would be complete even without the large number of words you devoted to him re: Israel. And I say this as a Jewish American who finds today’s left deeply problematic on Israel, and who wasn’t happy with either Obama’s or Biden’s policies related to Iran and Israel. But I can’t say that anything he did there is either noteworthy or consequential enough to merit its inclusion on this list. IMO future Graboyes historians will downgrade you for this unnecessarily provincial and personal inclusion in an otherwise devastatingly accurate analysis.
Thanks again for doing this. It ain’t really “new”, but imo it is indeed improved.
Appreciate all the comments. Clinton and Trump in Tier 3 is an arguable position. I am putting heavy weight on the personality and civil discourse stuff. Glad you paired those two, however. A few years ago, I was conversing with an old-school Republican friend, high-ranking Pennsylvania Avenue denizen who despises Trump. I asked him to make a list of everything he hates about Trump. He gave me the list and I noted that he had forgotten a couple of legitimate gripes. Then, I gave him a list of my own. For every single one of the bullets on his list (and the bullets I added), I gave an equivalent action by Bill and/or Hillary. The shady financial dealings, dodgy court behavior, sexual indiscretions, and on and on. He fully agreed that the sleazier elements of contemporary politics originated with the Clintons and that Trump had just refined their deeds. And, he had no trouble agreeing with you or with me that both Clinton and Trump had major policy achievements.
Amity Schlaes wrote two books which might be relevant here. "The Forgotten Man" covers the New Deal while "Great Society" reviews the titular political program. I have not read her book "Coolidge" but it sounds like that, too, would shed light on a discussion of successes and failures of Presidents.
Yes, I did miss that. In "The Forgotten Man", Schlaes argued that the reason the Great Depression did not end sooner was regime uncertainty. The federal government might encourage you to do something today for which they would punish you tomorrow, like price-fixing. Yet, if regime uncertainty was bad for Americans in the 1930's, consider what it was like for Frenchmen from 1871 to 1940. From 1871 to 1914, the average tenure of a parliamentary majority, or "government", was one year. From 1918 to 1940, half a year. (source: Collapse of the Third Republic, William Shirer) The only source of government stability was the unelected bureaucracy, which exerts immense power in France even today.
Andrew Jackson correctly feared that a central bank would concentrate economic power in the hands of a financial elite, so he adamantly opposed central banking. Yet, the lack of a well-managed central bank condemned the U.S. economic to periodic "panics", or depressions, roughly every twenty years. After the Panic of 1907 we got a central bank after all, whose policies gave us the Great Depression of the 1930's and the Great Inflation of the 1970's.
When I got tired of fuming about government, one of my rabbit holes was the Fed, and my short version of its history is that it was brought on by the Panic of 1907. When I looked into that, I found many of its causes were the results of previous government fixes to previous Panics going all the way back to 1819, which owed thanks to government interventions, both state and federal. I am no economist, nor a lawyer, nor any kind of historian. But everything I have read convinces me that the Panics were government-caused, and I believe the Central Bank was as much a part of that as every other government intervention. Giving the Central Bank any credit is like those who credit God for saving them when everyone else in their car died.
You are always a delightful read, even on points with which I disagree. You are an exemplary essayist who materially supports SubStack’s reputation as the place to read!
> retroactively defining Biden’s presidency as an impotent interregnum with an erasable policy footprint.
Between the various wars that broke out on his watch, inflation rising by over 20% in official numbers and a lot more than that in reality, and the catastrophic and ongoing damages caused by 4 years of de facto open borders, it seems unlikely that the monstrous "footprints" left by Biden's policies will be erased anytime soon. He's spent the last four years tromping around America like Godzilla in Tokyo. Those are steps that don't just leave footprints; they leave scars.
Good points. But many of the policies--and the remnants of Obama's policies--will be swept away (if the administration is competent).
We can only hope!
I disagree with ranking FDR in the top tier. FDR is certainly one of the most consequential presidents in American history - I think on the question of impact he is in the top-5 with Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln & Reagan. But like Lincoln, FDR had both exceptional peaks and valleys that yielded both great progress and terrible regression. For these reasons, I would group FDR and Lincoln in their own group - call it tier 1A.
About FDR, his manipulation of the levers of government, especially the judiciary, established a precedent that politicized the courts and Constitution. This is an awful legacy made worse by a number of New Deal court rulings that trampled the rights of Americans and the principle of Free Enterprise.
And yet, FDR as part of the New Deal, funded TVA and the Rural Electrification Act. Providing electricity to rural America was a wildly successful domestic policy - certainly one of the most successful of all Federal programs.
And yes, FDR was impressive in guiding the USA to victory in WWII. Since FDR passed in 1945, we cannot hold him responsible for the agreements that resulted in tens of millions of Eastern Europeans being made subjects of the Communist Soviet Union. Yet the situation inherited by FDR's Vice President, Truman, lead directly to this. FDR turned a blind eye to Hitler and he was reluctant to acknowledge Stalin's terror. These errors are blemishes that cannot be ignored.
Understand your argument and even agree with most of what you say. But I'm content with my rankings and simply note that univariate metrics over multivariate subjects are always imperfect and frustrating. More a means of prompting conversation than a serious measure. If I created your 1A category, I'd have to put Teddy Roosevelt, Polk, and Truman in it, too.
Appreciate the relatively high rankings for both Grant and Harding. Grant gets too little credit for fighting the KKK during Reconstruction, and Teapot Dome notwithstanding, I’ve never understood the justification for Harding’s low rankings. If nothing else, Harding deserves credit for delivering us from the execrable Woodrow Wilson.
Yup on both counts. Harding's reputation was an early manifestation of fake news from biased press. He was highly popular when he died, and he was thought of as a successful president. The negatives came a few years later when news of his illegitimate daughter came to the fore. The press ran to their fainting couches, and his reputation has been in the dumps ever since.
I was taught in school that Harding was the least successful president in history, as if no one had ever heard of Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson… As an aside, Andrew Johnson lived in my hometown, and local historians tied themselves in knots trying to make sense of his failures.
Your school lied. :) Or, more likely, they were persuaded by the same sort of doofuses who produced the 2024 rankings. Basically schoolyard popularity/unpopularity dynamics.
FDR deserves no more credit for winning WW II. About all you can really give him credit for is not micromanaging it like LBJ and Nixon. He wanted to invade France (from the Atlantic / Bay of Biscay, I think) in 1943 but did let the military change his mind. But otherwise he did nothing that any other politician could have done, and did many stupid things.
The worst was sucking up to Stalin. There was no way to prevent Stalin from taking over Eastern and Central Europe, he can't be blamed for that, but there was no need to suck up to Stalin the way he did.
He picked the right generals and admirals right at the start, unlike Lincoln, who took two years to find Grant. And, as you say, he didn't micromanage them. For a man with a giant ego, that's impressive. I absolutely agree on Stalin. If I were to drop him to Tier 2, that would be the reason.
Did he pick the right Generals or did he allow John Marshal to act as manager of the war and didn't interfere? He did suspend the New Deal for the war effort and enlisted industry instead of continuing to deride it. But he had a soft spot for Stalin and it was necessary to help keep Soviets armed but the relationship was very one sided. We gave and the Soviets took. Even to the point of imprisoning American Airmen who landed on Russian soil after avoiding Japanese. FDR diverted arms and supplies from American troops in the Pacific for delivery to the Soviets. I think that FDR gets a boost from a positive outcome that he oversaw but wasn't the indispensable man as he is believed to be.
All good questions. And yes, he did suspend much of the New Deal--which is likely why the economy recovered. As Woody Allen famously said, “Ninety percent of success in life is just showing up.” FDR showed up when WWII rolled our way.
I'm missing something here:
a) It was New Deal meddling in the economy that prevented recovery from 1933-41
b) Suspension of the the New Deal after 1941 led to recovery. At the same time, govt meddling in the economy e.g price controls, the draft, the enforced stopping of producing consumer goods (cars), huge increases in military spending---all that meddling somehow didn't stop the undoubted recovery of 1942-45. Nor did the huge spending binge of 1942-45 lead to a postwar Depression as many feared,, and you would believe if you follow FA Hayek's notions on booms, busts, and their causes.
Roosevelt didn't have as much time to screw around with business once the war began. They could once again make some plans. I don't think you and I are disagreeing on anything. My "showing up" comment meant that FDR defied the two-term tradition and happened to be in place when the opportunity to redeem his reputation came along. And, fortunately, he took advantage of it.
"We gave and the Soviets took. "
How many Americans died on the eastern front, the front that kept Hitler from continental conquest in 1942-43? I think most Russians then and now would say the free American weapons, food, oil, and supplies, were a bargain compared to the millions of Russians who died in 1941-44. Unlike us today, Roosevelt did not know if Stalin would make a separate peace in 1942-43. Had that happened, the European blood price would have landed on the US and Britain.
How many Poles and others died on the eastern front, before and after 22 June 1941, at Stalin's hands?
Stalin was Hitler's co-conspirator in starting WW II in Europe. He doesn't get excused for later defeating his co-conspirator any more than a bank robber does for shooting his partner and grabbing all the loot.
Just so. But that doesn't answer the horrifying question: what if Stalin made a separate peace in 1942-43, leaving the Americans and the Brits to pay the entire appalling blood price of liberating Europe?
You may have mistaken George Marshall, the general, for John Marshall, the jurist.
Good article
Thanks!
Most Americans do not realize how much freedom the nation lost during FDR's high-handed administration. One of his innovations was to make the income tax the primary source of revenue for the federal government and to impose income tax withholding. FDR also created the payroll tax, which today is the largest federal tax most American workers pay. Roosevelt confiscated Americans' gold to prevent them from protecting themselves from his inflation and the Congress kept this policy in place for forty years.
I think quite a few Americans understand the loss of freedoms under FDR. (Not enough, but quite a few.) But I think far fewer understand that giving up those freedoms did not, in fact, get America out of the Depression.
Specify the inflation that took place on Roosevelt's watch, 1933-45. Then add in the deflation that happened, also on Roosevelt's watch.
I'd also be more impressed if you had mentioned the mass internment in concentration camps of Americans of Japanese ancestry, but that seems to have escaped your notice.
Roosevelt's first term of office began with an annual rate of deflation of 10% in March, 1933 (in those days, Presidents were inaugurated in March). Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics. A year later, inflation was up to 5.6% although from a deflationary base. Inflation remained relatively mild until the arms buildup drove up inflation to 10% in November, 1941. Inflation really got going the following year, reaching an annual rate of 13.2% in May, 1942. After that, FDR and his rubber-stamp Congress imposed wage-price controls which artificially suppressed inflation until the controls came off in the fall of 1946. Inflation, which had been 2.2% in January, 1946, shot up to 18.1% in December and reached 19.7% in March, 1947. Mentioning the internment of Japanese-Americans might have impressed you, but impressing you is no object of mine.
"Most Americans do not realize how much freedom the nation lost during FDR's high-handed administration."
Such was the gurgling you used to start this thread. Just about everyone else would have included the forced concentration camps of 1942-45. Not only do you not include this blot, which certainly would bolster your argument, you sneer that if you didn't think of something it can't be important i.e. the internment wasn't a big deal.
I agree! Although FDR is troublesome. His record for his first two terms would arguably rank him with Wilson. His war record saves him, although his hubris, manipulative personality and narcissistic faith in the powers of his personal charms ultimately led to disaster in dealings with Stalin... a man who could not be charmed, and whose skills at deception exceeded Roosevelt’s - the consequences of which remain with us today. Let me commend a recent, and superb, book: The Washington War: FDR's Inner Circle and the Politics of Power That Won World War II by James Lacey focused on the inner workings of the Washington bureaucracies – hence the title - the intra-agency squabbles and feuds, the personalities, the bickering and the jockeying for power and influence, and the inevitable, unavoidable petty conflicts and tensions that often subsumed greater, crucial concerns of national interest and war time necessities, and FDR orchestrations and manipulations. Great read! (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36086489-the-washington-war)
And Biden? I would rank him at the top of the list of worst Presidents. I always had Wilson there, and for lasting detriment to the country and our system of governance, he is tough to beat. But Biden... non more unfit, more corrupt, or more incompetent. Otherwise, mere quibbles here and there.
Agree on Stalin. A legitimate concern about Trump is that he might be similarly prone with regards to Putin et al. We shall see.
This is the first thing that you’ve said that I have major problems with.
We saw the first Trump term. Whatever else one’s fears are, claiming this is a “legitimate concern” about Trump is baseless.
Which is not to say he might not make mistakes in this area. Most presidents do. He might even do “America First- type” things you and I and certainly the “establishment” would not. But that is wholly separate from the baseless claim that it will be because the enemy fooled or got the best of him, or the media bullshit narrative that he is in league with or has a soft spot for authoritarians (a charge that deserves to stick to Obama for his relations with China, bowing to the Saudi king and especially with Iran).
And surely the difference in what happened under Biden vs. under Trump (and for that matter, under Obama re: the Iranian mullahs) means there is far *less* legitimacy to claims that Trump will be buffaloed by Putin.
The concern is not that Trump will be buffaloed by Putin but that Trump likes decisive action-packed figures and will write off Putin's interests as natural and proper. It's not like Stalin stomping on the Warsaw Jews or the Eastern European democrats. It's Putin vs Zelensky, who has canceled elections and shut down media, and hasn't done much to curtail corruption. Not as evenly matched as Stalin vs Hitler, but where is the high ground? Most people forget that Poland chewed up part of Czechoslovakia instead of standing up to Hitler when it might have done some good. Good guys and bad guys are not black and white.
Ok… but recall Trump’s first impeachment was based on a phone call to Zelensky!
And the rest of your comment seems to more support my point than undermine it.
And that Trump has said repeatedly that Putin wouldn’t have done it under his (Trump’s) watch - with which I fully agree - again suggests he wouldn’t consider it natural and proper.
Trump making a “business decision” - even one I might not agree with - based on current facts on the ground and calculations of dollars needing to be spent is very different from “legitimate concerns” that he’s in league with or buffaloed by authoritarians.
If your “legitimate concerns” merely are that he’s not a neocon (or a Biden-Harris neo-neocon)… well, then say that.
Because while there are a lot of other things I don’t like about Trump, it’s important to note that despite his braggadocio, when it comes to foreign policy he embodies Teddy Roosevelt’s bromide of “speak softly and carry a big stick” far better than any modern president since Reagan, and arguably better than Reagan himself.
For the uninitiated who might be quick to ridicule the “speak softly” portion of this comparison of Trump to TR, “speak softly” in fact has nothing to do with the tone or tenor of words, but everything to do with a foreign policy stance that is not designed to take umbrage at every single thing a potential adversary might do. It is in fact the opposite of neocon nation-building.
"Legitimate concerns" differ by the individual. You cannot legitimately write off legitimate concerns as baseless. That's all I'm saying.
Fair enough.
I wasn’t trying to write anny concern off as completely baseless.
I was going by the common meaning “legitimate concerns” has in this political context as:
a) reasonably high percentage chance, AND
b) materially higher chance than for predecessor/current office holder.
c) code that the person I don’t like is problematic (vs. the reality that foreign policy is complex and many things could happen and can reasonably be worried about regardless of the officeholder)
…and it is on the basis of those first two that my claim is that “legitimate concerns” ain’t really “legitimate concerns”.
In other words, my main pushback is the deliberate implication that the concerns here should be materially higher for Trump than under any other president, or presidential candidate, of the last 10 years (Obama, Biden, Harris).
I don’t disagree with most of this and have a piece in the hopper on the subject of Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick—my favorite example of which was, as you say, not soft in the mushy sense. Just curt, flatliner, resolute. (“This government wants Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead.”) Early hints from Rubio in this area are promising.
I said it was a “legitimate concern”—not a certainty or prediction. I quite agree with you that with Biden/Obama with Mullahs, etc. it was certainty, with awful consequences.
Someone can disagree with a few opinions in this essay, but no one could deny its wonderful style, structure, etc.
I immediately feel smarter, although admittedly starting at the bottom provides an easy growth path.
These comments mean a LOT to me. Thanks so much.
Your writing is fantastic. Love it.
Deeply appreciate that.
I think your writing style deserves the accolade I gave to really excellent student writing (and that level of praise was rare, indeed.) of "felicitous". I always look forward to reading your work, whether I agree with you on the topic or not, because instead of a chore it is a welcome guest to my day.
And your commenters ain't bad, neither.
Thanks so much! And I agree about the commenters--they've been uniformly terrific.
Glad I am not the only one who says no one knows what this term of Trump will be like or what his legacy will be.
I would like to hope he cares far less of what others think as he knows this his last shot at achieving a legacy that will be viewed highly. He has a strong opportunity to do good things and all hope he will not squander the opportunity and engage in pettiness once the attack dogs look to come after him upon being sworn in to office.But it is Trump and all bets off.
Absolutely agree. It will be a four-year nail-biter.
All in all, Bob, nice work. Very helpful that each change is justified and credit attributed. As a Vietnam Veteran, I push LBJ downward, notwithstanding the Civil Rights and Great Society legislation, because he vacillated so miserably. Even on Civil Rights, he tried to please everyone, saw that their was a new bipartisan national consensus, and moved to coalesce it. That was his talent, but the two major bills only followed what Republicans had advocated for decades, and what Kennedy had already begun to move toward. The one passion he exhibited grew out of teaching poor kids in West Texas, and as Senate leader and president, he followed through on it. Sadly, however, despite his passion about ending poverty, educating every child, and creating a great society, virtually every Great Society program has proven to have been a dismal failure measured against his hopes and the legislation's goals. The fact that more people are poor, homeless, hungry, less-healthy, and less well educated than before LBJ ought to push him to the bottom tier on all counts, IMHO. He could well be the poster boy for the aphorism "the road to hell is paved with good intentions."
There are several books titled "The Cost of Good Intentions". Most of them recount the failure of government anti-poverty programs. The author of one of them, Charles R. Morris, ran a Great Society program in New Jersey. His "A Time Of Passion" (p. 107) grimly points out the failure of programs like his: "Perhaps most disappointing to the original advocates of the anti-poverty program was the sharp nationwide increase in welfare dependency. The basic welfare caseload --Aid to Families With Dependent Children--quintupled between 1960 and 1975, with most of the growth concentrated between 1965 and 1970, that is, roughly coincident with the launching of the Great Society programs."
Daniel Patrick Moynihan knew whereof he spoke.
On a different day, I could be tempted to push LBJ down. He was president when I was between the ages of 9 and 15--but I was politically precocious. I gave a pro-LBJ speech to my 5th grade class. And by 1968, I was actively involved in the Humphrey campaign (meeting the VP on one occasion). Through the early years, I supported the Vietnam War, as I thought the fight against Communism to be worthwhile. Somewhere around Tet, I turned against it because, I concluded, LBJ had turned it into mere theater, with self-imposed restrictions that guaranteed that we could not win. (All those infernal maps of where we would and would not bomb, send troops, etc.) I then became anti-war--not in a generic sense, but rather against this specific doomed war. I ended up as a McGovern delegate at the 1972 national convention, though I was never as far left as McGovern. (I had backed Muskie till his campaign collapsed.)
I was living (and growing up) in one of the early areas that got the "benefits" of the Great Socety. Our vew was that we were sent a bunch of know-nothng do-gooders who 'splaned how we should be lvng our lves whle passng out money on thngs that we didn't beleve would work. There appeared to be little common sense in most of the programs.
I am very happy that you downgraded Biden to where he belongs, and separated him from Obama, Clinton and Trump.
I loved loved loved your Trump—no-FDR paragraph. Brilliant!
I think the question marks for Trump now are wholly appropriate, and loved the whole FDR explication - I learned more about FDR in this short piece than I have in a long time.
I am impressed that you chose to move Jackson down not just one but 2 levels. I have no dog in that fight, but rare is the person willing to change and acknowledge he was wrong the first time by *that* much. That you did so is impressive - whether or not the new ranking is correct.
I disagree, but respectfully, with the elevation of HW.
You having now gotten Biden correct, I will emphasize my continued disagreement with your placement of Clinton and first-term Trump in Tier 4. Your own long explication of FDR’s personal failings here and yet still having him in Tier 1 argues strongly against your rationale to move Clinton and Trump 1 down *so* far primarily based on their personal characteristics despite their substantial accomplishments (where limiting them to no higher than Tier 3 for those reasons is perfectly valid).
Small point: I think your explication of Biden’s failings and ranking would be complete even without the large number of words you devoted to him re: Israel. And I say this as a Jewish American who finds today’s left deeply problematic on Israel, and who wasn’t happy with either Obama’s or Biden’s policies related to Iran and Israel. But I can’t say that anything he did there is either noteworthy or consequential enough to merit its inclusion on this list. IMO future Graboyes historians will downgrade you for this unnecessarily provincial and personal inclusion in an otherwise devastatingly accurate analysis.
Thanks again for doing this. It ain’t really “new”, but imo it is indeed improved.
Appreciate all the comments. Clinton and Trump in Tier 3 is an arguable position. I am putting heavy weight on the personality and civil discourse stuff. Glad you paired those two, however. A few years ago, I was conversing with an old-school Republican friend, high-ranking Pennsylvania Avenue denizen who despises Trump. I asked him to make a list of everything he hates about Trump. He gave me the list and I noted that he had forgotten a couple of legitimate gripes. Then, I gave him a list of my own. For every single one of the bullets on his list (and the bullets I added), I gave an equivalent action by Bill and/or Hillary. The shady financial dealings, dodgy court behavior, sexual indiscretions, and on and on. He fully agreed that the sleazier elements of contemporary politics originated with the Clintons and that Trump had just refined their deeds. And, he had no trouble agreeing with you or with me that both Clinton and Trump had major policy achievements.
How can you talk about Point/Counterpoint, and a parody of it, without mentioning the SNL parody: Jane, you ignorant... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c91XUyg9iWM
:) :) :) :) Didn't occur to me to add it, but I'm glad you did. They were great.
Amity Schlaes wrote two books which might be relevant here. "The Forgotten Man" covers the New Deal while "Great Society" reviews the titular political program. I have not read her book "Coolidge" but it sounds like that, too, would shed light on a discussion of successes and failures of Presidents.
You may have missed that this article mentions "The Forgotten Man"--one of the best political/historical/economic/biographical books I've ever read.
Yes, I did miss that. In "The Forgotten Man", Schlaes argued that the reason the Great Depression did not end sooner was regime uncertainty. The federal government might encourage you to do something today for which they would punish you tomorrow, like price-fixing. Yet, if regime uncertainty was bad for Americans in the 1930's, consider what it was like for Frenchmen from 1871 to 1940. From 1871 to 1914, the average tenure of a parliamentary majority, or "government", was one year. From 1918 to 1940, half a year. (source: Collapse of the Third Republic, William Shirer) The only source of government stability was the unelected bureaucracy, which exerts immense power in France even today.
Andrew Jackson correctly feared that a central bank would concentrate economic power in the hands of a financial elite, so he adamantly opposed central banking. Yet, the lack of a well-managed central bank condemned the U.S. economic to periodic "panics", or depressions, roughly every twenty years. After the Panic of 1907 we got a central bank after all, whose policies gave us the Great Depression of the 1930's and the Great Inflation of the 1970's.
Yup. I worked for that central bank for 12 years. It has its virtues, but I was never one of the Fed True Believers.
When I got tired of fuming about government, one of my rabbit holes was the Fed, and my short version of its history is that it was brought on by the Panic of 1907. When I looked into that, I found many of its causes were the results of previous government fixes to previous Panics going all the way back to 1819, which owed thanks to government interventions, both state and federal. I am no economist, nor a lawyer, nor any kind of historian. But everything I have read convinces me that the Panics were government-caused, and I believe the Central Bank was as much a part of that as every other government intervention. Giving the Central Bank any credit is like those who credit God for saving them when everyone else in their car died.
You are always a delightful read, even on points with which I disagree. You are an exemplary essayist who materially supports SubStack’s reputation as the place to read!