The country had a strong fascist presence at the time, too. The American Nazi Party held open rallies, a proto-Rush Limbaugh was on the radio nationwide, and don't forget about the Business Plot to overthrow FDR. This was also smack in the middle of the Jim Crow era, with the KKK (an armed right-wing paramilitary familiar with conducting violence) near one of its strongest points in history.
Just keeping the country from going down that road is an enormous accomplishment. A world where the U.S. sat out WWII (or more likely joined on the Axis side) would be far worse than the world we have today, as shitty as the world we have today is. In helping Joey Steel beat the fascists, FDR also stamped the message of "Nazi stuff bad, fighting Nazis good" onto the American brain, and the echoes of that have been and continue to be useful in fighting the most fascist parts of American society.
A few other points on FDR:
Criticizing him for not going farther left is legitimate, but he arguably went as far left as he was politically able to. A bunch of his pro-worker legislation got shot down by the Supreme Court until he threatened to pack it, the aforementioned Business Plot was a literal fascist coup planned against him, and all the reactionary forces of today's America were an order of magnitude more potent. He had a lot of power, but he couldn't rule by fiat and the Democratic Party was not 100% under his control.
Programs like rural electrification and various public works programs are what separate many parts of this country from the developing world. It's also a proven blueprint for the type of programs the left can propose to get votes from places modern Democratic politicians can't reach unless they run as conservatives.
Social Security and the other safety net policies he implemented are proof-of-concept for stuff like M4A and were philosophically a good direction for the country to go (i.e., firmly establishing that the federal government should do material things to benefit working people is likely a prerequisite for socialism in the U.S.). The best way to show that a mass social program can work is pointing to one that does work right here at home.
His open and heavily propagandized alliance with the Soviet Union made it possible to avoid the Cold War and the post-war return to anti-communism as state religion. We didn't go down that path, but I'd argue most of that is on Truman, and even getting to the point where avoiding all that was conceivable is impressive. We're an imperial core country that invaded Russia during its Civil War and we'd been fighting militant leftists at home since the turn of the century -- the type of détente we had with the USSR during the war did not have to happen, and the fact that FDR was open to it was good. It also likely shortened the war compared to more limited assistance or just letting the Soviets fend for themselves.
If some chud lists a bunch of bad things Stalin did, do you just agree he was a shitty leader? No, you place his actions within the context of what realistic alternatives he had, and you note that he did a lot of good things that offset at least some criticisms. You should view FDR the same way.
the USA pretty much was gonna sit out WWII until Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and Germany declared war on America.
There's a credible theory that the U.S. knew Japan would likely attack Pearl Harbor soon, but did nothing to prevent it in order to facilitate the country's entry into WWII. That sort of action-by-inaction is easy to imagine one person at the top pulling off, and FDR was not in the isolationist camp.
Didn’t anti-communism become even more of a state religion after WWII than it was before WWII?
Yes, but FDR at least made it possible to take another path. At the end of WWII the Soviets didn't want to immediately get in another expensive war, and they certainly didn't want to get into a conflict with the only nuclear power on the planet. Former colonized people had worked directly with the U.S. throughout the war (e.g., Ho Chi Minh) and mostly just wanted what the U.S. claimed to support -- free elections and self-determination. The Vietnamese Declaration of Independence is closely modeled after the U.S. document for these exact reasons. The U.S. was also functionally in charge of creating the U.N. and the whole post-war legal and economic order, and we could have structured it in any number of ways that would have been cooperative rather than confrontational. Domestically, we had just portrayed the Soviets as good allies for years, and a president committed to peace could have doubled down on that.
We held all the cards and could have potentially avoided the Cold War had we had capable leadership. Dragging the imperial core to the point where that was even a possibility wasn't entirely FDR's doing, but he should get some credit for it.
The country had a strong fascist presence at the time, too. The American Nazi Party held open rallies, a proto-Rush Limbaugh was on the radio nationwide, and don't forget about the Business Plot to overthrow FDR. This was also smack in the middle of the Jim Crow era, with the KKK (an armed right-wing paramilitary familiar with conducting violence) near one of its strongest points in history.
Just keeping the country from going down that road is an enormous accomplishment. A world where the U.S. sat out WWII (or more likely joined on the Axis side) would be far worse than the world we have today, as shitty as the world we have today is. In helping Joey Steel beat the fascists, FDR also stamped the message of "Nazi stuff bad, fighting Nazis good" onto the American brain, and the echoes of that have been and continue to be useful in fighting the most fascist parts of American society.
A few other points on FDR:
If some chud lists a bunch of bad things Stalin did, do you just agree he was a shitty leader? No, you place his actions within the context of what realistic alternatives he had, and you note that he did a lot of good things that offset at least some criticisms. You should view FDR the same way.
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There's a credible theory that the U.S. knew Japan would likely attack Pearl Harbor soon, but did nothing to prevent it in order to facilitate the country's entry into WWII. That sort of action-by-inaction is easy to imagine one person at the top pulling off, and FDR was not in the isolationist camp.
Yes, but FDR at least made it possible to take another path. At the end of WWII the Soviets didn't want to immediately get in another expensive war, and they certainly didn't want to get into a conflict with the only nuclear power on the planet. Former colonized people had worked directly with the U.S. throughout the war (e.g., Ho Chi Minh) and mostly just wanted what the U.S. claimed to support -- free elections and self-determination. The Vietnamese Declaration of Independence is closely modeled after the U.S. document for these exact reasons. The U.S. was also functionally in charge of creating the U.N. and the whole post-war legal and economic order, and we could have structured it in any number of ways that would have been cooperative rather than confrontational. Domestically, we had just portrayed the Soviets as good allies for years, and a president committed to peace could have doubled down on that.
We held all the cards and could have potentially avoided the Cold War had we had capable leadership. Dragging the imperial core to the point where that was even a possibility wasn't entirely FDR's doing, but he should get some credit for it.