Yeah, he understood fascism all right: he was the man who inflicted it on America.

As for the New Deal, there were certainly efforts within it that could be seen as ‘conservative’, that is to say, trying to keep the existing economic and business order viable, particularly with regards to Agribusiness. the reason why so many sharecroppers got shafted in the new deal was because the laws put in place by FDR favoured Big farmers, not little ones.

There was a demonstrable increase in the extent of governement control of the economy and society, but this was very much based on the powers outlined in the constitution:

‘Article I, Section 8, Clause 3: The Congress shall have power . . . To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes’
All Congress had to asert was that legislation that would affect individual behaviour had an aggregated effect on American society at large, crossing state boundaries. It was that kind of expanse of federal power that other laws such as the 1960s civil rights laws were based on.

As for the New Deal, there were certainly efforts within it that could be seen as ‘conservative’, that is to say, trying to keep the existing economic and business order viable, particularly with regards to Agribusiness. the reason why so many sharecroppers got screwed in the new deal was because the laws put in place by FDR favoured Big farmers, not little ones.

There was a demonstrable increase in the extent of governement control of the economy and society, but this was very much based on the powers outlined in the constitution:

‘Article I, Section 8, Clause 3: The Congress shall have power . . . To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes’
All Congress had to assert was that legislation that would affect individual behaviour had an aggregated effect on American society at large, crossing state boundaries. It was that kind of expanse of federal power that other laws such as the 1960s civil rights laws were based on.

I’ve also read where FDR had a tendency to do what he wanted and asked congress for permission later. Could a Republican do that?

Roosevelt’s economic ideas were so terrible that I fear talking too much about when Roosevelt was right tempts people to think his economic ideas weren’t bad after all.

The irony is that, while Roosevelt did a great job of fighting fascism abroad, most of his New Deal was modeled on fascist ideas, i.e., taken from American Left admirers of Mussolini and Hitler.

I don’t regard Roosevelt as unequivocally good or bad. I credit him with being a staunch pro-American leader . I discredit him with being a fool or worse, on everything to do with economic freedom. Incidentally, that is also my view of George W. Bush. If I were ranking the Presidents, Bush and Roosevelt would appear somewhere near each other, perhaps in the middle quintile.