Opinion of Woodrow Wilson

[I’m not Stu]

Opinion of Dixiecrat president Woodrow Wilson.

[NYDem]

HP on balance, but I feel like people in recent years have overcorrected his previous overrated position. He wasn’t one of our best presidents, but he wasn’t the worst either.

[TML]

As someone put it recently, on economic issues he was to the left of Bernie Sanders, but on social issues he was to the right of Marjorie Taylor Greene. It is mainly increased emphasis on the latter which has caused his ranking to drop in recent years (in the mid-20th century he was ranked #4, but by the 2020s his ranking had fallen to #13).

[KaiserDave]

As someone put it recently, on economic issues he was to the left of Bernie Sanders, but on social issues he was to the right of Marjorie Taylor Greene. It is mainly increased emphasis on the latter which has caused his ranking to drop in recent years (in the mid-20th century he was ranked #4, but by the 2020s his ranking had fallen to #13).

no

[KaiserDave]

Hate having this discourse

HP, overhated by some but nonetheless very bad!

[Santander]

Second-greatest President of all-time after only Jackson.

[President Johnson]

HP on balance.

Passed some good reforms and his League of Nation proposal was good, though his severe racism and the restriction of civil liberties during the war are extremely problematic.

It seems that a few years ago was seen as moderately good president while his image deteriorated over the last few years.

[John Dule]

Arguably the worst president we've ever had. There is no valid intellectual defense of this monster.

[President Johnson]

Arguably the worst president we've ever had. There is no valid intellectual defense of this monster.

Worse than Buchanan and (Andrew) Johnson?

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Arguably the worst president we've ever had. There is no valid intellectual defense of this monster.

Worse than Buchanan and (Andrew) Johnson?

Much of the complete destruction of Black familial wealth occurred during his tenure, including the segregation, demotion, and firing of virtually all Black civil servants.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

As someone put it recently, on economic issues he was to the left of Bernie Sanders, but on social issues he was to the right of Marjorie Taylor Greene. It is mainly increased emphasis on the latter which has caused his ranking to drop in recent years (in the mid-20th century he was ranked #4, but by the 2020s his ranking had fallen to #13).

I suspect the #4 ranking is influenced by the zeitgeist of the time, with the UN and international institutions seen as reflecting the spirit of Wilsonian foreign policy.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

He put up Confederate flags now there are only Confederate monuments, Ernest Fritz Hollings put up a Confederate flag in SC now they are in museums and appointed a Conserv D to SCOTUS McReynolds whom was against FDR new Deal but also appointed Brandeis D's were always pro Labor they were called Farm Labor during Slavery and Post Slavery Manufacturing that's why before FDR they were Dixiecrats Farm  not manufacturer Labor before the Newspaper Cleveland invented Labor Day but was for segregationist

Now, only MN has the Farm Labor movement

[ηєω ƒяσηтιєя]

KKK worshiper + Espionage Act = HP

[Antonio the Sixth]

Clear FF on balance. His mixed domestic legacy is dwarfed by his towering achievement in liberating Europe from imperial tyranny and allowing literally a dozen of peoples to be able to freely govern themselves for the first time in centuries. The fact that Americans in this forum never even consider this side of his legacy really goes to show how myopic and self-obsessed you people can be.

[John Dule]

Clear FF on balance. His mixed domestic legacy is dwarfed by his towering achievement in liberating Europe from imperial tyranny and allowing literally a dozen of peoples to be able to freely govern themselves for the first time in centuries. The fact that Americans in this forum never even consider this side of his legacy really goes to show how myopic and self-obsessed you people can be.

Interesting that you'd call us "myopic" given that Wilson's tenuous peace didn't last, which was largely due to his complete inability to put the fourteen points into practice and his ignorance of European politics.

[Хahar 🤔]

Clear FF on balance. His mixed domestic legacy is dwarfed by his towering achievement in liberating Europe from imperial tyranny and allowing literally a dozen of peoples to be able to freely govern themselves for the first time in centuries. The fact that Americans in this forum never even consider this side of his legacy really goes to show how myopic and self-obsessed you people can be.

I don't think that it's myopic to value, say, the impact of his policies on black Americans more than the limited contribution he had to Polish and Czechoslovak independence, both of which were rolled back two decades later. Claiming that the latter dwarfs the former strikes me as much more myopic, especially when considering that the Wilsonian legacy meant nothing at all for the far more numerous peoples of the world who were subjected to imperial tyranny in the form of European colonial rule.

At any rate, Woodrow Wilson is an interesting case because in spite of being fairly successful and quite popular in his day (the 1916 election was a feat unmatched by any Democrat in the period between the crash of 1893 and the crash of 1929, the nadir of the party's credibility), no group in contemporary America has any interest in claiming his legacy. I can't think of any other figure of his stature in American political history about whom that can be said.

Contrast, for perspective, his contemporary William Jennings Bryan. Even with his involvement in the Scopes trial, Bryan comes across to people today as a broadly sympathetic figure, despite the fact that his political platform was unsuccessful at the time and would today seem incoherent where it was not actively offensive.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

You can put Dixiecrats on the Right or left they weren't Manufacturer Labor as SECULAR are they were farm labor until 1994 when Confederate statues were taken down and put in Museums Biden, Gore and Clinton were from border states as well and all three weren't Confederates but supported the Welfare Reform, Capital Gains tax cuts and the Filibuster, Biden supported the Filibuster which blocked Civil Rights until recently

Just remember that MN still has Farm Labor in the state and the Farm Labor Party of Jefferson were Dixiecrats and Manufacturer Labor under JFK and FDR newspaper were Secularist

Grover Cleveland established Labor Day because of the Farm Labor movement there were newspapers but not until Wilson, FDR and JFK did D's filly side with Secular not Traditional side of Spectrum Brandeis a Secularist Jew was Appointed by Wilson and McReynolds whom was an anti semite was on the Conserv side and vote against FDR new Deal

He was a WC not Secularist D but WC since Truman doesn't mean Dixiecrats it means centrists like Lincoln was a Radical Republican but a Susan Collins maverick now

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Opinion of Dixiecrat president Woodrow Wilson.

NC Yankee has said, "Dixiecrat" as a term shouldn't be used prior to the 40s. I'm not entirely sure I would go that far, but the term should be used carefully because it is loaded with notions and connotations that misinform more than anything else.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Opinion of Dixiecrat president Woodrow Wilson.

NC Yankee has said, "Dixiecrat" as a term shouldn't be used prior to the 40s. I'm not entirely sure I would go that far, but the term should be used carefully because it is loaded with notions and connotations that misinform more than anything else.

Vinson on the Tape in Black Politics 303 said he wasn't sure about Brown v Board because Jefferson principles established States sovereignty over Fed Rights and he was a Working class D not a Secularist he and Stanley F Reed, Minton and Thomas C Clark and R Burton would have decided 5(4 for segregationist but Vinson died and Warren took over

WC means Dixiecrat because Boss Hogg on Dukes of Hazzard could be a Torie or Working class D depending on your interpretation State rights over Fed Rights by capture of Dukes

[All Along The Watchtower]

Here's an interesting excerpt from renowned historian Eric Foner's expert report submitted in the race-based affirmative action Supreme Court cases from 2003, Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger. It's relevant to where Wilson's foreign policy intersected with his racial attitudes, as Xahar alluded to.

Most black leaders saw American participation in World War I as an opportunity to make real the promise of equality. The black press rallied to the war, insisting that the service of black soldiers would result in the dismantling of racial inequality. But the result produced an alienation that drove many blacks even further from the American mainstream.

The war unleashed social changes that altered the contours of American race relations. The combination of increased wartime production and the cutoff of immigration from Europe opened thousands of industrial jobs to black laborers, inspiring a massive migration from South to North. By 1920, nearly half a million blacks had left the South. Yet a series of violent confrontations that shattered cities throughout the country also exposed the vast disappointments that migrants encountered -- severely restricted employment opportunities, exclusion from unions, rigid housing segregation, and machine control of urban politics that limited the impact of the right to vote. Meanwhile, the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 sacrificed the principle of self-determination -- ostensibly the Allies' major war aim -- on the altar of imperialism, so far as the world's nonwhite peoples were concerned. Nation-states were created for Eastern Europe, but not for what Wilson's advisor Colonel Edward House called the "backward countries" of Asia and Africa.

The result was a feeling of deep betrayal that affected everyone from W. E. B. Du Bois, who had traveled to Paris to plead the cause of colonial independence, to ordinary black Americans. Du Bois was forced to conclude that Wilson had "never at any single moment meant to include in his Democracy" black Americans or the nonwhite peoples of the world.

Speaking of which, Wilson is also personally relevant to the debate about race-based affirmative action in higher education, considering how horrific his tenure as president of Princeton University was for black Americans. And for what it's worth, he was publicly dishonest on the issue. That applies to his racial attitudes and associated actions at Princeton (he effectively wrote many black alumni out of history for decades) as well as those while he was POTUS (for example, his response to Birth of A Nation).

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Here's an interesting excerpt from renowned historian Eric Foner's expert report submitted in the race-based affirmative action Supreme Court cases from 2003, Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger. It's relevant to where Wilson's foreign policy intersected with his racial attitudes, as Xahar alluded to.

Most black leaders saw American participation in World War I as an opportunity to make real the promise of equality. The black press rallied to the war, insisting that the service of black soldiers would result in the dismantling of racial inequality. But the result produced an alienation that drove many blacks even further from the American mainstream.

The war unleashed social changes that altered the contours of American race relations. The combination of increased wartime production and the cutoff of immigration from Europe opened thousands of industrial jobs to black laborers, inspiring a massive migration from South to North. By 1920, nearly half a million blacks had left the South. Yet a series of violent confrontations that shattered cities throughout the country also exposed the vast disappointments that migrants encountered -- severely restricted employment opportunities, exclusion from unions, rigid housing segregation, and machine control of urban politics that limited the impact of the right to vote. Meanwhile, the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 sacrificed the principle of self-determination -- ostensibly the Allies' major war aim -- on the altar of imperialism, so far as the world's nonwhite peoples were concerned. Nation-states were created for Eastern Europe, but not for what Wilson's advisor Colonel Edward House called the "backward countries" of Asia and Africa.

The result was a feeling of deep betrayal that affected everyone from W. E. B. Du Bois, who had traveled to Paris to plead the cause of colonial independence, to ordinary black Americans. Du Bois was forced to conclude that Wilson had "never at any single moment meant to include in his Democracy" black Americans or the nonwhite peoples of the world.

Speaking of which, Wilson is also personally relevant to the debate about race-based affirmative action in higher education, considering how horrific his tenure as president of Princeton University was for black Americans. And for what it's worth, he was publicly dishonest on the issue. That applies to his racial attitudes and associated actions at Princeton (he effectively wrote many black alumni out of history for decades) as well as those while he was POTUS (for example, his response to Birth of A Nation).

Japan tried to get a clause of racial equality inserted in the League of Nations but the western nations including Wilson blocked it. It's quite ironic, but this may have contributed to them joining the Axis powers in WW2,

[KaiserDave]

Dule and Xahar said what I would have said.

[Devout Centrist]

As someone put it recently, on economic issues he was to the left of Bernie Sanders, but on social issues he was to the right of Marjorie Taylor Greene.

My brain is fried.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Just to make one point that has not been touched directly yet, Woodrow Wilson did not just abet European colonial rule but also promoted American colonial rule (he invaded both halves of Hispaniola essentially so that American businesses could have an easier time exploiting their labour in what was probably the peak of the Banana Wars). Anyway, much like Jefferson with liberalism, one could say that he was a terrible practitioner of the nonetheless good philosophical principles he helped develop and remains closely associated with, for those who want to claim his legacy.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Clear FF on balance. His mixed domestic legacy is dwarfed by his towering achievement in liberating Europe from imperial tyranny and allowing literally a dozen of peoples to be able to freely govern themselves for the first time in centuries. The fact that Americans in this forum never even consider this side of his legacy really goes to show how myopic and self-obsessed you people can be.

Interesting that you'd call us "myopic" given that Wilson's tenuous peace didn't last, which was largely due to his complete inability to put the fourteen points into practice and his ignorance of European politics.

Of course he couldn't single-handedly force all of Europe to embrace his worldview. The US wasn't yet the superpower it became after WW2, and centuries of imperial oppression can't be undone in a few years. Nevertheless, he sowed the seeds of an alternative geopolitical order, and that order is the one that prevailed in the long run. Not even that long a run really, it just took quashing one last attempt by Germany to restore its imperial position for the Wilsonian view to become dominant. Even Stalin's USSR had to at least formally recognize independent states in most of Eastern Europe. The age of empires was over in Europe within just 30 years, and it was Wilson who dealt the first blow.

Clear FF on balance. His mixed domestic legacy is dwarfed by his towering achievement in liberating Europe from imperial tyranny and allowing literally a dozen of peoples to be able to freely govern themselves for the first time in centuries. The fact that Americans in this forum never even consider this side of his legacy really goes to show how myopic and self-obsessed you people can be.

I don't think that it's myopic to value, say, the impact of his policies on black Americans more than the limited contribution he had to Polish and Czechoslovak independence, both of which were rolled back two decades later. Claiming that the latter dwarfs the former strikes me as much more myopic, especially when considering that the Wilsonian legacy meant nothing at all for the far more numerous peoples of the world who were subjected to imperial tyranny in the form of European colonial rule.

I mean, it's not like other US Presidents before him did anything to roll back European colonization either. It's only after WW2 that US foreign policy became really critical of European colonialism, and even then with plenty of ambiguities. Wilson's own colonial endeavors in Haiti and and elsewhere, as Battista points out, are probably his biggest black mark, so if you want to focus on them that's fair. Either way though, these are areas where Wilson was a continuation of his predecessors as far back as McKinley.

His role in European politics, by contrast, was novel and transformative. It's really easy to snicker about the post-WW1 order not sticking and leading back to WW2 within two decades, but this completely misses the point. Without the post-WW1 order, there is no post-WW2 order either. The punitive character of the Versailles Treaty (which is mostly France's fault, and which Wilson opposed) ensured that a new war was likely to break out, but its insistence of national self-determination for Eastern Europe (which was Wilson's main contribution) is what stuck and what ended up forming the basis of the liberal international order after WW2. And yes, ultimately the contradictions of having the champions of this order being colonial powers had to come to a head as well. To focus on the immediate success or failure of the Fourteen Points and ignore their fundamental legacy as a turning point in European and eventually world history is, yes, myopic.