michael: I was born in October, 1929, in South Alabama, very near Black Monday. By 1932, even though I was only three years old, I knew what Depression was. My dad was out of work. He had six kids to feed. My mom sold canned good that she put up from the garden after the family was fed.
Franklin Roosevelt came along. Soon, for various and sundry reasons, people were going back to work. The economy was coming back. Maybe preparations for WW2 had a lot to do with that. I don't know.
All I know was that FDR "saved" the country. Nobody in the deep South where I grew up knew anything about politics. All they knew was FDR. To be a Republican was to be a child of the devils. There were no Republicans in the South where I grew up.
So, as you can see, I come to your question with eyes very much influenced by my childhood. But, as the scripture puts it, when I became a man, I put away childish things.
During my intellectual growth and development, I have been able to grow beyond the Democracy of my youth. I have also seen the country change a great deal from the Depression days of that youth, days from which we were rescued by the policies of FDR.
At the same time, I can affirm my belief that RR, in his politics and policies, had much to do with "saving" America in a very different way than did FDR. RR'S America was not FDR'S America. Far from it. But RR, in his way, saved America ideologically and politically and militarily and culturally in much the same way that FDR had to save America economically.
Where would I put FDR in the rankings? Where would I put RR in the rankings. I would use the term: First among equals and take your pick.
PS: the term First among equals comes from academia. Faculty members usually look with disdain on whatever administration happens to be running the college or university. The Faculty looks upon their President, whoever he may be, as nothing more than First among equals.
I think most good democrats (with a small d) tend to look upon class and status in the same manner.
Hope this gives you some idea of my views. Hope it also answers your question. |
