FDR would still be a liberal today, and pushing for such things as universal medical care. The primary job of Liberalism is to keep moving the nation forward and the conservative job is to keep trying to stop the forward motion.
So racist, slave owner Dems back then, are racist Dems today.
Thank you
And racist professional football and baseball owners were racists in the days of FDR, and are they still racists today? People change and many times it takes some enlightened leadership to spur the change.
The scumbag fdr sure as hell wasn't "enlightened leadership."
FDR integrated the war industry, established Social Security, and the GI Bill, and created bank despositors insurance.
Pretty enlightened for the day. Those actions literally transformed the United States.
The flaming racist piece of shit hated any non-wasps. He threw over 100,000 innocent Americans into concentration camps. He sent Jews back to Europe to die. Not too ******* enlightened.
Pretty enlightened for the day. Those actions literally transformed the United States
'FDR And The Jews' Puts A President's Compromises In Context
The subject of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's relationship with the Jewish community is complicated, multidimensional and contentious. On the one hand, the former New York governor won Jewish votes by landslide margins and led the Allies to victory in World War II, defeating Nazi Germany. Some of his closest advisers and strongest supporters were Jews, including Felix Frankfurter, whom he named to the Supreme Court, speechwriter Samuel Rosenman and Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau.
FDR and the Jews
by
Allan J. Lichtman and
Richard Breitman
Hardcover, 433 pages
purchase
On the other hand, FDR said little and did less on behalf of Jews trying to get out of Germany in the 1930s. He has been faulted for not diverting military resources to destroy the Nazi infrastructure of genocide and for not pushing Britain to admit more Jewish refugees to Palestine. Some have even accused him of abandoning the Jews.
FDR and the Jews is a richly detailed account of the president's relationship with that community in which historians Richard Breitman and Allan Lichtman deliver an upward revision of Roosevelt's performance.
Fear Vs. The Reality Of Anti-Semitism
In summing up FDR's record, Breitman and Lichtman write that "his compromises might seem flawed in the light of what later generations have learned about the depth and significance of the Holocaust." But, they add, "Roosevelt reacted more decisively to Nazi crimes against Jews than did any other world leader of his time."
"In some ways, that's a statement about Roosevelt's world and the inadequacies of other world leaders at the time," Breitman tells NPR's Robert Siegel. "But that comparison tells us something: that the world of the 1930s and the 1940s was a very different place, and that Roosevelt had both political constraints and international constraints that we don't often think about today."
In this way, Breitman says, FDR's track record was markedly different from that of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
"I think Churchill has the reputation of being philo-Semitic [or appreciative of Jews and Jewish culture] but didn't often back it up with actions. And Roosevelt has the reputation for being unsympathetic but in fact did a number of things behind the scenes which show at least some concern," Breitman observes.
FDR's father raised him to not be anti-Semitic at a time when anti-Semitism was common to their class. During his presidency, however, Roosevelt feared that expressions of his concern for the Jews of Europe would inflame anti-Semitism in the U.S. According to Lichtman, that fear affected how FDR and other leaders of the era dealt with the Jewish question.
"The 1930s and '40s were a time in America when there was a considerable amount of anti-Jewish, anti-black and even anti-Catholic sentiment and people were worried about upsetting the social order in America," Lichtman says. "But, let me say, this is the poison of anti-Semitism; that the fear of anti-Semitism is often greater than the reality of anti-Semitism. And it was more fear that tended to paralyze key players in the '30s and '40s than necessarily the reality of anti-Semitism."
[T]his is the poison of anti-Semitism; that the fear of anti-Semitism is often greater than the reality of anti-Semitism. And it was more fear that tended to paralyze key players in the '30s and '40s than necessarily the reality of anti-Semitism."
Allan Lichtman
But it wasn't just FDR who was afraid. American Jews were also nervous about rocking the boat and bringing a wave of anti-Semitism upon themselves. According to Breitman, "The American Jewish community was divided both over how much they could accomplish politically and how they should go about it."