FDR vs. Reagan

[Indy Texas]

They were each right for their times. But just as I gave Thatcher the edge over the Gipper, I give it to FDR because again, he had a harder slog and got more done.

Reagan's election was basically a fait accompli for a political shift that had been going on in America for over a decade. It started in the late '60s as a reaction to civil unrest and urban crime; it accelerated in the '70s as a reaction to capitulation in Vietnam and detente with the Soviets, to high taxes and to perceived moral decline.

FDR, on the other hand, had to very rapidly change the way American voters and politicians viewed government and what role it ought to serve in society. Keynesian economics did not emerge as the mainstream economic consensus until FDR's presidency; supply-side economics had been on the rise prior to Reagan's election. FDR's push to create new government programs was unprecedented; even the Democrats had as recently as 1924 nominated a candidate who was nearly as conservative as Coolidge. Reagan's push to reduce the role of government didn't start with his presidency; Jimmy Carter was arguably more of a privatizer than Reagan was and had Carter been reelected, there's a good chance that tax cuts and other "Reagan" economic proposals would have come to fruition anyway.