What is FDR's legacy without WW2?

Would FDR be as popular as in OTL?

  • Yay!

    Votes: 11 26.2%
  • Nay!

    Votes: 31 73.8%

  • Total voters
    42
Exactly what the title says
In a lot of cases war helps a president cement their legacy and helps overshadow their domestic flaws
FDR was a great president no doubt and he had his flaws definitely but his leadership in WW2 coupled with the New Deal however made him untouchable to criticism by future generations practically due too it.
So my question is if WW2 for what ever reason didn't happen would FDR's legacy been lessened or even be more controversial without the political points of being a great war time leader.
 
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I imagine hed be remembered about as well as LBJ or Reagan. Liberals will love his policies as much as OTL, but without WW2 his less than stellar record on race issues will stand out a bit more, though he'll get a bit of slack seeing as he had to work with the Dixiecrats. However, no WW2 means no Japanese Internment, which does help him.

Conservatives generally look on him less favorably, being more inclined to focus on his not particularly constitutional actions like court packing. Thus, I imagine he'll be seen somewhat in between an LBJ or Wilson, and a Reagan--I.E. with a controversial record that Liberals mostly embrace but Conservatives are more sceptical about.

The one wild card is what exactly is happening foreign policy wise. Is WW2 not happening, in which case foreign policy probably doesnt matter much for his record? Or is the US simply not getting involved, in which case FDR is likely to get blamed for allowing an alt-Cold War rival (probably the Soviets, possibly the Nazis) to take power over most of Europe?

Also, who gets the bomb first ITTL? My bet is Britain, which allows them to hold on as a great power for a little bit longer, altering the U.S.'s role ans further influencing FDRs legacy.
 
Hard to imagine a 20th Century without WWII. But FDR was popular enough to get elected to an unprecedented third term even before the US was in the war.
 
Hard to imagine a 20th Century without WWII. But FDR was popular enough to get elected to an unprecedented third term even before the US was in the war.
Yeah but even though the U.S. wasn't at war yet their was still the general fear of war which did help him get the office again.
So if we go with a early enough POD say Hindenburg decides to not make Hitler chancellor and Hitler gets assassinated or dies of disease soon after,
without that pressure Roosevelt might not win a third term.
 
The question of whether the US would get involved in another European war was the central issue of the 1940 election. Roosevelt took great pains to convince voters that he would keep the US out of active combat. With no war to worry about, who knows what might have happened? Of course with no war to spur economic recover, the US might have still been mired in the depression and then, yes, FDR might not have gotten a third term. Hard to say.
 
The question of whether the US would get involved in another European war was the central issue of the 1940 election. Roosevelt took great pains to convince voters that he would keep the US out of active combat. With no war to worry about, who knows what might have happened? Of course with no war to spur economic recover, the US might have still been mired in the depression and then, yes, FDR might not have gotten a third term. Hard to say.

FDR had originally wanted to retire in 1941, but the situation in Europe convinced him that a third term was necessary. So if WWII is delayed or butterflied away then FDR doesn't run again in 1940.
 
Hard to imagine a 20th Century without WWII. But FDR was popular enough to get elected to an unprecedented third term even before the US was in the war.

But the war was very definitely the reason he was able to overcome the popular resistance to the idea of a third term.
 
No WW2 means Germany flexes its technological and industrial prowess differently. Maybe Hitler dies in 1933. The transistor, still in need of refinement gets marketed sooner. More significant, BASF, with its newly patented tape recording system in the thirties, markets to the recording and broadcast industry worldwide. Television, in OTL, was already beginning in the US around 1939 but progress stopped for the war. In ATL, it keeps progressing to create a full ten-year leap. After all, the world gets the benefit of German technology through FDR's second term. Because the economy is doing so well, he runs for a third term.

Effectively, the build-up that ends the Depression will be more on the consumer/entertainment side than military. FDR, in weakening health, will end his third term with a fireside chat on TV and not run for a fourth. I say FDR will be remembered well as the economy strengthens in the mid-forties.
 
FDR is still ranked as a great President, certainly as one of the top 10, but without WWII he might not be named alongside Lincoln and Washington. And if a Republican is elected in 1940, which is certainly possible, then Roosevelt's second term stumbles would be given more attention by historians. On the plus side, Roosevelt probably lives into the late 1940's and possibly the 50's - giving him time to move on to other projects in his post-presidency.
 
How will the world buck off the Great Depression

Well, technically market correction would be a matter of time, or if the economy stabilizes at a certain level long enough it will just be labeled the new "normal" and the 20's classified as an ur-depression/"mania" that never was sustainable in the first place.
 
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