Franklin D. Roosevelt: Difference between revisions

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He died of a stroke before the end of the [[Second World War]], resulting in [[Harry Truman]] becoming President.

The Republican-controlled Congress changed the Constitution after he left, so no one else can serve for more than eight years (or up to ten if they take over for less than two years of another president's term). This turned out, ironically, to primarily affect Republicans: only one Democratic president ([[Bill Clinton]]) and three Republicans ([[Dwight D. Eisenhower]], [[Ronald Reagan]], and [[George W. Bush]]) so far have actually served long enough to be affected by the term limit. (Sitting President [[Harry S Truman]] was grandfathered in by the amendment; [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] served less than two years of [[John F. Kennedy]]'s term and could have run for one more term. Both of them chose not to run again for political and personal reasons.)

The Republican-controlled Congress changed the Constitution after he left, so no one else can serve for more than eight years (or up to ten if they take over for less than two years of another president's term). This turned out, ironically, to primarily affect Republicans: only one Democratic president ([[Bill Clinton]]) and three Republicans ([[Dwight D. Eisenhower]], [[Ronald Reagan]], and [[George W. Bush]]) so far have actually served long enough to be affected by the term limit. (Sitting President [[Harry S. Truman]] was grandfathered in by the amendment; [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] served less than two years of [[John F. Kennedy]]'s term and could have run for one more term. Both of them chose not to run again for political and personal reasons.)

He's consistently ranked by scholars and the public as one of the greatest Presidents in American history, next to [[George Washington]] and [[Abraham Lincoln]] while among libertarians and some conservatives he's actually considered the ''worst'' for his dramatic expansion of government and human rights abuse.

* [[Batman Gambit]]: How he got [[Harry S Truman]] to be his running mate. In 1944, the Democratic Party leadership decided that Henry Wallace was too liberal to be Vice President for Roosevelt's fourth term; the leadership knew that FDR's health was not what it once was, and that his Vice President would be very likely to become President. They eventually settled on Truman as an acceptable next President, but there was just one problem: Truman didn't want to be VP. As a result, the leaders brought Truman to a hotel room, where Roosevelt was waiting to speak to him over the phone from Washington. Roosevelt excoriated Truman for threatening Democratic party unity during wartime, and (seemingly) hung up in a huff. Little did Truman know that this whole thing had been carefully rehearsed in ''exactly'' the way required to get at one of Truman's weak points: he was nothing if not a Democratic loyalist, and accusing him of breaking party unity was tantamount to calling him a traitor. Truman accepted, and the rest is history.

* [[Batman Gambit]]: How he got [[Harry S. Truman]] to be his running mate. In 1944, the Democratic Party leadership decided that Henry Wallace was too liberal to be Vice President for Roosevelt's fourth term; the leadership knew that FDR's health was not what it once was, and that his Vice President would be very likely to become President. They eventually settled on Truman as an acceptable next President, but there was just one problem: Truman didn't want to be VP. As a result, the leaders brought Truman to a hotel room, where Roosevelt was waiting to speak to him over the phone from Washington. Roosevelt excoriated Truman for threatening Democratic party unity during wartime, and (seemingly) hung up in a huff. Little did Truman know that this whole thing had been carefully rehearsed in ''exactly'' the way required to get at one of Truman's weak points: he was nothing if not a Democratic loyalist, and accusing him of breaking party unity was tantamount to calling him a traitor. Truman accepted, and the rest is history.

* [[Big Good]]: Okay, [[Black and Grey Morality]] aside, he was the beacon of leadership for the Americans during [[World War II]], alongside [[Winston Churchill]], and is still considered by many to be among the greatest American presidents in history.

* [[Bring It]]: In a speech given in his re-election campaign, he made an open statement about the wealthy backers of his challenger (he cracked down on wall street to try to correct the actions that caused the stock market crash of 1929), he said this to the big businesses who opposed him: