Whats With All The Wilson Hate?

6. There was enough of a groundswell of opinion at the time of the sinking of the Lusitania that he could have made a case for involvement in the war; rather he chose to make his "...too proud to fight..." pronouncement that diminished America in the eyes of the world


Why should he have wanted to make a case for involvement in the war? He still appeared to have every chance of keeping out of it.

And what would have been the result of an earlier intervention? Probably a doubling or trebling of American casualties (since the trench warfare stalemate would have been still continuing) followed by a peace "settlement" as bad as or worse than OTL's (because Russia wouldn't have left the war, so the Franco-Russian alliance would have dictated terms, with the Anglo-Saxon powers marginalised).

There was nothing wrong with "Too proud to fight". His mistake was to allow German provocation (admittedly gross) to dislodge him from it. After that, it was a one way trip from bad to worse.
 
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DTanza

Banned
You're all forgetting the worst thing Wilson ever did. After having a massive stroke, he didn't even have the common decency to die and let Marshall become President. :rolleyes:
 
History is written in cycles, as I'm sure you all know. Whoever is beloved by one generation tends to be reviled by the next with the possible exception of TR, of course. The previous generation of scholars loved Wilson for being the "first internationalist" among other things. These were folks who were less concerned about the civil liberties side of politics than historians are today, and so they focused more on his international policy instead of his domestic one.

Today, though, most historians are either of a progressive or libertarian stripe. (Funny how there are no moderates who write the histories, isn't it?) This new generation, because of their generally extreme views, find very little to love about Number 28. On the international front he's either directly responsible for the U.S.'s failure to sign on to the League of Nations and for giving it so little teeth to make it ineffective or he's the man who first started throwing our weight around into over-seas conflicts that had little to do with us. On civil liberties he's the proto-Bush who cracked down on dissent to the war by stomping on First Amendment Rights; he jailed Eugene Debs and countless others who were outspoken opponents of the war simply for voicing their hesitation. On race relations, well that's been covered pretty well on this thread already. On cronyism he is generally seen as the worst offender until Harding, and in fact he was probably even worse about doing and just better at covering it up.

Fact is, that while many of the new historians are changing people's opinions about Woody, many of the best and most well-respected biographies of the man were written by those wearing rose-tinted glasses. Thus, the great disparity between what you see here and what you read elsewhere.
 
History is written in cycles, as I'm sure you all know. Whoever is beloved by one generation tends to be reviled by the next with the possible exception of TR, of course. The previous generation of scholars loved Wilson for being the "first internationalist" among other things. These were folks who were less concerned about the civil liberties side of politics than historians are today, and so they focused more on his international policy instead of his domestic one.

Today, though, most historians are either of a progressive or libertarian stripe. (Funny how there are no moderates who write the histories, isn't it?) This new generation, because of their generally extreme views, find very little to love about Number 28. On the international front he's either directly responsible for the U.S.'s failure to sign on to the League of Nations and for giving it so little teeth to make it ineffective or he's the man who first started throwing our weight around into over-seas conflicts that had little to do with us. On civil liberties he's the proto-Bush who cracked down on dissent to the war by stomping on First Amendment Rights; he jailed Eugene Debs and countless others who were outspoken opponents of the war simply for voicing their hesitation. On race relations, well that's been covered pretty well on this thread already. On cronyism he is generally seen as the worst offender until Harding, and in fact he was probably even worse about doing and just better at covering it up.

Fact is, that while many of the new historians are changing people's opinions about Woody, many of the best and most well-respected biographies of the man were written by those wearing rose-tinted glasses. Thus, the great disparity between what you see here and what you read elsewhere.


FTM, when I first encountered US history in my early teens, Andrew Johnson was portrayed quite sympathetically, as the innocent (if flawed) victim of a vindictive Congress set on inflicting a harsh peace on the poor South.

So it goes.
 
He beat TR, who this board, the English-speaking world, and the very laws of nature love.

He also locked up and starved American socialists and trade unionists, used more questionable federal powers than anyone since Lincoln (Sedition Act) and in doing so, violently hammered the final nail into the coffin of mainstream leftism in America. Without Wilson, there's an AH idea that America could have/would have inevitably developed a Labour Party analogue, and the whole messed up ever-rightward discourse of modern American politics could have been avoided.

So in many ways the fact that this is a left leaning site specialising in counterfactuals is your answer!

Fixed the typo there. :rolleyes:

But seriously, you're literally the first person I've heard mention the second-paragraph stuff. Ever. In nine and a half years on the site, I've not heard word one on those topics up to your post. So I doubt that's the case.

What people do go on about is the naive peace settlement and the overt racism.
 
But seriously, you're literally the first person I've heard mention the second-paragraph stuff. Ever. In nine and a half years on the site, I've not heard word one on those topics up to your post. So I doubt that's the case.

Nah, that's my reason for not liking him. Since I think TR was a horrible genocidal imperialist, that isn't my reason. For me it's the racism and the stuff Meadow said in his second paragraph, especially the civil liberties stuff.
 
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8. Early on, he and TR were actually on cordial terms. He could have suggested TR as a former president with no-kidding prestige in Europe to mediate the crisis of 1914, but partisanship obstructed this move (that's the way I read Morris' Colonel Roosevelt on the topic). That was a huge opportunity missed and therefore lost.
......


I did not know about that.

If that had been an actual mentioned-in-discourse opportunity that Wilson had deliberately not done, then, damn.

(And it spells POD with capital letters, but that's tangential-ish.)
 
That would have been a Crowning Moment of Awesome for the both of them if it had happened, and war had been averted.

Has vision of TR speaking softly while bashing the European heads of state with his big stick.

Pity that it never occurred.:(
 
Nah, that's my reason for not liking him. Since I think TR was a horrible genocidal imperialist, that isn't my reason. For me it's the racism and the stuff Meadow said in his second paragraph, especially the civil liberties stuff.

Fair enough. Personally, I grade war above everything.
 
Wilson defeated Teddy Roosevelt AND Eugene Debs, so he's universally hated here.
He then killed off American Socialism as a real force.
He was a racist who brought Jim Crow to the White House.
He started the process that led to the Great Depression.

In my opinion, he is the worst president of the United States.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
It is funny that Wilson-hate is the one thing this board and Glenn Beck can agree on.

I mostly dislike him for getting us into a stupid European war for little to no benefit.

Hitler did not believe in strong drink, was a vegetarian, treated dogs nicely, and liked aryan children. You line of argument is not productive. I also like strong tea like Osama Bin Laden, should I feel ashamed?
 

BlondieBC

Banned
And what would have been the result of an earlier intervention? Probably a doubling or trebling of American casualties (since the trench warfare stalemate would have been still still continuing) followed by a peace "settlement" as bad as or worse than OTL's (because Russia wouldn't have left the war, so the Franco-Russian alliance would have dictated terms, with the Anglo-Saxon powers marginalised).

Probably 10 times as many loses. We only lost 150K or so men, so there is a lot of room to go up. There is likely an USA Somme somewhere in 1916 or 1917.

You're all forgetting the worst thing Wilson ever did. After having a massive stroke, he didn't even have the common decency to die and let Marshall become President. :rolleyes:

There was a flaw with our system for replacing a disable President. While it did not cause any great harm, there have been times that not having a President could cause huge issues. Imagine FDR having a stroke as WW2 was ramping up. Or Kennedy in the Cuban missile crisis. Now to be fair to Wilson, the blame is more on the people he selected to be close to him than Wilson himself who was disabled.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
FTM, when I first encountered US history in my early teens, Andrew Johnson was portrayed quite sympathetically, as the innocent (if flawed) victim of a vindictive Congress set on inflicting a harsh peace on the poor South.

So it goes.

When I went to school, that is how they portrayed AJ. A great man with some minor character issues. Things like the trail of tears was present as something that all leaders of the day would have done.

Fixed the typo there. :rolleyes:

But seriously, you're literally the first person I've heard mention the second-paragraph stuff. Ever. In nine and a half years on the site, I've not heard word one on those topics up to your post. So I doubt that's the case.

What people do go on about is the naive peace settlement and the overt racism.

You have just missed the threads. I have seen several threads talking about how Wilson broke the back of the "Social Party". It tends to be a few pages into the discussion, but it comes up.
 
Wilson defeated Teddy Roosevelt AND Eugene Debs 1), so he's universally hated here.
He then killed off American Socialism as a real force.2)
He was a racist who brought Jim Crow to the White House.3)
He started the process that led to the Great Depression.4)

In my opinion, he is the worst president of the United States.5)

1) Beating someone in an election is no grounds for hate. Not unless it was rigged.
2) Debatable whether Socialism would have got off the ground even without Wilson's actions.
3) Hell yes.
4) Perhaps, but it was Harding and Coolidge who finalized it, with Hoover seemingly doing nothing about it.
5) Buchanan and W would be good competition for that title.
 
1) Beating someone in an election is no grounds for hate. Not unless it was rigged.
2) Debatable whether Socialism would have got off the ground even without Wilson's actions.
3) Hell yes.
4) Perhaps, but it was Harding and Coolidge who finalized it, with Hoover seemingly doing nothing about it.
5) Buchanan and W would be good competition for that title.
1) Yeah, but we still hate him for this.
2) It would. The support for the Socialists were increasing.
3) Agreed.
4) Hoover did a lot, to be honest. The stuff he did wasn't enough anyway.
5) Buchanan had some principles. W looks like a saint compared to the modern GOP.
 
Fixed the typo there. :rolleyes:

But seriously, you're literally the first person I've heard mention the second-paragraph stuff. Ever. In nine and a half years on the site, I've not heard word one on those topics up to your post. So I doubt that's the case.


What people do go on about is the naive peace settlement and the overt racism.

People mention that all the damn time here. If you're serious, you just haven't been paying attention.
 
When I went to school, that is how they portrayed AJ. A great man with some minor character issues. Things like the trail of tears was present as something that all leaders of the day would have done.


Are you getting your Andrews mixed up? The ToT wa under jackson, not Johnson.
 
But seriously, you're literally the first person I've heard mention the second-paragraph stuff. Ever. In nine and a half years on the site, I've not heard word one on those topics up to your post. So I doubt that's the case.


As I mentioned before, see David M Kennedy's Over Here; the First World War and American Society. While awaiting it, see my Amazon review Thomas Woodrow Frankenstein.
 
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