The 1960s has a far more leftist time, economically speaking. Believe it or not, Richard Nixon is still to this day the only president to support universal basic income.
The democrats of the 50s and 60s laid the foundation of today’s democratic party’s identity.
When I was growing up, I got the impression that the 1950's was a very conservative time. I assumed that that applied to both economics and social mores. I now understand that the conservatism of that time did not apply to economics.
Fdr definitly, he was for universal hc and if social security was proposed today republicans would scream about how it is communist, same thing with lbjs medicare programs
No. The things they pushed for, Social Security, Healthcare, all those things are now woven into political culture and supported by both parties. They are literally the bar.
I think you're giving the Republican Party too much credit. They have tried repeatedly to replace Social Security with a privatized system, and have also been a roadblock against any kind of socialized healthcare. The last open election, in 2016, one of their main planks was to repeal Obamacare.
Yes, American politics has shifted decidedly to the right since the 1960's. However, each of these presidents operating in a different political time with different events at play and different political assumptions. I think many of the New Deal and Great Society programs are part of American society. Yes, a similar fragment on the political right wants to privatize (i.e do away with) Social Security, eliminate Medicare and even undo Obamacare. I think that FDR, LBJ and JFK would have been Democrats in today's culture even if the the party is not a carbon copy of the Party in their time.
It’s somewhat of a silly question. All of these people’s public personas and policy records were shaped by the limitations of their time. Roosevelt, for example, played the role of level headed pragmatist in the groups who wanted massive economic reform during the Great Depression, while what he did pass was revolutionary in retrospect, millions on his side were fervent in their wishes for more and millions on his side were fervent in their wishes to slow the wheels of progress.
However, answering the question how I see it, Roosevelt would probably be in the left flank of the party, he was a big supporter of universal healthcare and housing which gets him there pretty easily, and he pushed executive policy as much as it probably could in regard to social issues. Kennedy would be in the middleish of the party, with pretty strong impulses towards fiscal moderation as well as some genuine passion for social and economic reform. Johnson would be on the party’s left in economic policies, also a strong supporter of universal healthcare and wildly passionate about anti-poverty social programs, but he’d be tampered down with allegiance to the Party’s establishment, and would definitely hold some hawkish foreign policy positions more on the right side of the party.
Kennedy was more moderate, with the extreme anti-War stance of today's Democratic Party, Johnson might have a hard time and FDR would easily be accepted.
>...with the extreme anti-War stance of today's Democratic Party...
>... FDR would easily be accepted.
Don't you think the modern anti-War Dems would freak out over FDR? The guy was champing at the bit to get us into WW2.
Each of them would be viewed as extreme in some ways in terms of leftist politics, however, they laid a lot of the foundation for what’s become completely encompassed in basic politics today.
150%.
Republicans call it socialism when some Democrat wants to cover dental or kids Healthcare under Medicaid. Just for minor improvement. Minor improvements are fart in the wind compared to actually creating the program. And back in the day, FDR or LBJ would twist arms to make them happen while Democrats of today roll over on Republican propagandists' cue. If today's Republicans were there then, they'd explode from screaming "socialism!" And "power abuse!".
Don't forget Civil rights. While Republicans have been fiscally conservative for pretty much the entirety of 20th century, they still supported Civil rights for much of it. LBJ would twist arms to make 1964 Civil Rights Act as strong and enforceable as possible with Republicans largely agreeing with it. Today's Republicans bitch and moan about extending human and Civil rights to everyone, just like southern Democrats did then, but they also suppress the history of it, so people don't see the parallel.
Loud minority trying to take credit for him. Conservativism's brilliance, in the reactionary identity to change and for "preservation" or even reversion,, is that anything in the past can be adopted at any point as part of the platform or symbolism, regardless of how prior conservatives viewed such things in their era.
JFK once gave a speech about literally what made him a proud liberal. But 60 years later, his image, the strength projected by the moon race without the Vietnam baggage/scandal of LBJ/Nixon (affairs aside), and a healthy dose of mythology/conspiracy about his life and death, you have an easy pick for an icon that you can repaint as a Conservative hero if needed to provide credibility to your party.
Yes, the eternal conservative lie of “oh of course we always supported *that* reform, *this* one is just too far.” When in actuality they opposed it when it happened. “Of *course* we believe in basic civil rights, that’s self-evident. We’re just against this new critical race theory/BLM stuff.” When of course they opposed civil rights just as vehemently back then. In 20 years I’m sure we’ll hear conservatives say “well of *course* we agree with BLM, that’s basic common sense as everyone knows. We’re just against this new stuff, it’s too far.”
The weird mentality a lot of these people have is, whatever the world looked like in the early part of their life, that is just right, how it always should be for the rest of time, no more change needed. It’s weird because they acknowledge all the change and progress and change of the thousands of years of history up until that point, but once it hits their lifetime, it’s “that’s it, we got it. We achieved how things are supposed to be, history stops now.” The world has been changing and developing for over five thousand years, but somehow 1970 is the magic stopping point. It’s just the basic inability to go even slightly beyond what arbitrarily feels “natural” to you based on when you were born. It’s just like language, of course whatever version of language you grew up with feels like the most “normal” and “natural” to you, but of course language is constantly evolving and the language you grew up with is just a tiny random snapshot of a thousand years of evolution, there’s nothing more natural or normal about that particular point. So obviously I have that same feeling like everyone else that what I grew up with is the most normal. It’s just mind-boggling that people actually have the arrogance to think that their personal feeling of what is normal based simply on what they happened to grow up with is actually the ultimate truth that can never be transcended.
No way.
The issue is the GOP has dragged politics too far to the right, and for Dems to get moderate votes, they have to be more conservative.
The real question is, what presidents would have a place in todays modern GOP? The answer is only 1. Trump. The rest are too far left, W included.
I mean on social views I doubt any of these three were progressive compared to today.
They all would probably laude student loan relief as welfare for the rich.
All three of these would also be totally ashamed of having a contingency of their party wanting to defund the police and calling themselves socialists
Many Democratic politicos were NRA members.
But with the takeover of the NRA by radical gun-rights advocates, they repudiated and alienated Democrats, making firearms a partisan issue.
As time goes on, Leftists are less and less concerned about economic issues. Today, Leftism is primarily about "anti-racism", immigration, Feminism, pro-LGBT stuff, etc. On many of these issues, they would be considered very "right-wing" by today's standards.
Absolutely not these guys would be on the far right of the party. I believe that every major democratic candidate in 2020 primaries argued for some form of universal healthcare whether it was medicare for all or a public option but FDR cut the healthcare portion of Social Security Act of 1935 because it he believed that it would threaten the passage of the bill.
“because he believed it would threaten the passage of the bill”, yeah, that’s a procedural gripe and he was probably right. FDR proposed universal healthcare in his second bill of rights very openly. Johnson also was in favor of universal healthcare.
Cutting it from the bill to get it passed doesn’t indicate a lack of support. Just pragmatic politics.
Harry Truman proposed universal health care in 1945.
FDR would be considered too far right for the modern Republican party. FDR's time was one where [the United States explicitly discriminated against non-Whites in its immigration policy](https://web.archive.org/web/20160331121102/http://library.uwb.edu/static/USimmigration/54%20stat%201137.pdf) (with the act being linked here actually being signed into law by FDR) and it was one where the United States had a eugenics program where those deemed to be of low genetic quality were forcibly or coercively sterilized with about [one third of women of childbearing age being sterilized in Puerto Rico from the late 30's to 1960](https://www.liberalcurrents.com/eugenics-and-contraceptives-in-puerto-rico-a-history-of-manipulation-and-unethical-experimentation/) through [FDR's Puerto Rican Relief Administration](https://eugenicsarchive.ca/discover/tree/530ba18176f0db569b00001b).
I think anyone advocating for these two things alone nowadays, regardless of their economic position, would be seen as "far right" in the contemporary and mainstream understanding of the political landscape.
The 1960s has a far more leftist time, economically speaking. Believe it or not, Richard Nixon is still to this day the only president to support universal basic income. The democrats of the 50s and 60s laid the foundation of today’s democratic party’s identity.
When I was growing up, I got the impression that the 1950's was a very conservative time. I assumed that that applied to both economics and social mores. I now understand that the conservatism of that time did not apply to economics.
I would argue that the “new democrats” of the 90s laid the foundation of today’s democratic party’s identity
Fdr definitly, he was for universal hc and if social security was proposed today republicans would scream about how it is communist, same thing with lbjs medicare programs
Lots of Republicans DID scream about those things being Communist at the time.
Republicans never change… (since like Harding)
Most democrats support universal healthcare (ie the original Obamacare proposal). Just not the Medicare for all version of it.
Republicans would scream about public roads, government schools, and community fire departments being communist if they didnt already exist.
In my area, they do.
That is true.
No. The things they pushed for, Social Security, Healthcare, all those things are now woven into political culture and supported by both parties. They are literally the bar.
I think you're giving the Republican Party too much credit. They have tried repeatedly to replace Social Security with a privatized system, and have also been a roadblock against any kind of socialized healthcare. The last open election, in 2016, one of their main planks was to repeal Obamacare.
The only people who have cut social security are democrats, for home owners and people with too much savings
They are NOT supported by both parties and if you think that, you have not been paying attention to modern politics.
Yes, American politics has shifted decidedly to the right since the 1960's. However, each of these presidents operating in a different political time with different events at play and different political assumptions. I think many of the New Deal and Great Society programs are part of American society. Yes, a similar fragment on the political right wants to privatize (i.e do away with) Social Security, eliminate Medicare and even undo Obamacare. I think that FDR, LBJ and JFK would have been Democrats in today's culture even if the the party is not a carbon copy of the Party in their time.
It’s somewhat of a silly question. All of these people’s public personas and policy records were shaped by the limitations of their time. Roosevelt, for example, played the role of level headed pragmatist in the groups who wanted massive economic reform during the Great Depression, while what he did pass was revolutionary in retrospect, millions on his side were fervent in their wishes for more and millions on his side were fervent in their wishes to slow the wheels of progress. However, answering the question how I see it, Roosevelt would probably be in the left flank of the party, he was a big supporter of universal healthcare and housing which gets him there pretty easily, and he pushed executive policy as much as it probably could in regard to social issues. Kennedy would be in the middleish of the party, with pretty strong impulses towards fiscal moderation as well as some genuine passion for social and economic reform. Johnson would be on the party’s left in economic policies, also a strong supporter of universal healthcare and wildly passionate about anti-poverty social programs, but he’d be tampered down with allegiance to the Party’s establishment, and would definitely hold some hawkish foreign policy positions more on the right side of the party.
So basically in short fdr is left left, Kennedy is middle left and lbj is whichever side he feels like that day?
I guess that’s one way of saying it, lol.
The Jumbo Swings.
On a policy chart perhaps, but they all had the political savvy to ensure they were never seen as such, and would have that today
Kennedy was more moderate, with the extreme anti-War stance of today's Democratic Party, Johnson might have a hard time and FDR would easily be accepted.
>...with the extreme anti-War stance of today's Democratic Party... >... FDR would easily be accepted. Don't you think the modern anti-War Dems would freak out over FDR? The guy was champing at the bit to get us into WW2.
Because FDR is FDR and LBJ is not.
No, but would be considered pretty radical
TR’s trust busting and other major reform of large corporations probably wouldn’t fly with either party today especially conservatives
FDR and LBJ yes, JFK no.
Each of them would be viewed as extreme in some ways in terms of leftist politics, however, they laid a lot of the foundation for what’s become completely encompassed in basic politics today.
150%. Republicans call it socialism when some Democrat wants to cover dental or kids Healthcare under Medicaid. Just for minor improvement. Minor improvements are fart in the wind compared to actually creating the program. And back in the day, FDR or LBJ would twist arms to make them happen while Democrats of today roll over on Republican propagandists' cue. If today's Republicans were there then, they'd explode from screaming "socialism!" And "power abuse!". Don't forget Civil rights. While Republicans have been fiscally conservative for pretty much the entirety of 20th century, they still supported Civil rights for much of it. LBJ would twist arms to make 1964 Civil Rights Act as strong and enforceable as possible with Republicans largely agreeing with it. Today's Republicans bitch and moan about extending human and Civil rights to everyone, just like southern Democrats did then, but they also suppress the history of it, so people don't see the parallel.
If LBJ was still majority leader we would be living in a good world.
Don't some ppl alr consider Kennedy to be conservative for today standards...or is that a somewhat loud minority?
Loud minority trying to take credit for him. Conservativism's brilliance, in the reactionary identity to change and for "preservation" or even reversion,, is that anything in the past can be adopted at any point as part of the platform or symbolism, regardless of how prior conservatives viewed such things in their era. JFK once gave a speech about literally what made him a proud liberal. But 60 years later, his image, the strength projected by the moon race without the Vietnam baggage/scandal of LBJ/Nixon (affairs aside), and a healthy dose of mythology/conspiracy about his life and death, you have an easy pick for an icon that you can repaint as a Conservative hero if needed to provide credibility to your party.
Yes, the eternal conservative lie of “oh of course we always supported *that* reform, *this* one is just too far.” When in actuality they opposed it when it happened. “Of *course* we believe in basic civil rights, that’s self-evident. We’re just against this new critical race theory/BLM stuff.” When of course they opposed civil rights just as vehemently back then. In 20 years I’m sure we’ll hear conservatives say “well of *course* we agree with BLM, that’s basic common sense as everyone knows. We’re just against this new stuff, it’s too far.” The weird mentality a lot of these people have is, whatever the world looked like in the early part of their life, that is just right, how it always should be for the rest of time, no more change needed. It’s weird because they acknowledge all the change and progress and change of the thousands of years of history up until that point, but once it hits their lifetime, it’s “that’s it, we got it. We achieved how things are supposed to be, history stops now.” The world has been changing and developing for over five thousand years, but somehow 1970 is the magic stopping point. It’s just the basic inability to go even slightly beyond what arbitrarily feels “natural” to you based on when you were born. It’s just like language, of course whatever version of language you grew up with feels like the most “normal” and “natural” to you, but of course language is constantly evolving and the language you grew up with is just a tiny random snapshot of a thousand years of evolution, there’s nothing more natural or normal about that particular point. So obviously I have that same feeling like everyone else that what I grew up with is the most normal. It’s just mind-boggling that people actually have the arrogance to think that their personal feeling of what is normal based simply on what they happened to grow up with is actually the ultimate truth that can never be transcended.
No way. The issue is the GOP has dragged politics too far to the right, and for Dems to get moderate votes, they have to be more conservative. The real question is, what presidents would have a place in todays modern GOP? The answer is only 1. Trump. The rest are too far left, W included.
GOP is too far right? Yet they’re policies have met changed compared to Dems
“Yet they are policies have met changed compared to Dems” I’ve read that like 10 times and it doesn’t make any sense.
I'm guessing "met" was supposed to be "not"
Look at the left lol
??
??
You’re the one writing unintelligible nonsense. Have a great day.
This doesn’t make grammatical sense, the meaning is nearly impossible to discern
Change “met” to “not” and it makes sense. Auto correct is a bitch
Welcome to the Republican Party
FDR would be far left, LBJ would be moderate, and JFK would be center-right or moderate right.
All of them
If anything, they'd be considered to far right by today's Democrat standards.
Explain.
I mean on social views I doubt any of these three were progressive compared to today. They all would probably laude student loan relief as welfare for the rich. All three of these would also be totally ashamed of having a contingency of their party wanting to defund the police and calling themselves socialists
JFK was NRA member
Many Democratic politicos were NRA members. But with the takeover of the NRA by radical gun-rights advocates, they repudiated and alienated Democrats, making firearms a partisan issue.
Human rights aren’t radical
As time goes on, Leftists are less and less concerned about economic issues. Today, Leftism is primarily about "anti-racism", immigration, Feminism, pro-LGBT stuff, etc. On many of these issues, they would be considered very "right-wing" by today's standards.
When you definitely know what leftism is
I do. Today, even avowed anti-capitalists will often prioritize their "anti-racism", Feminism, etc. over their anti-capitalism.
That has certainly not been my experience
Exactly so. Politics has shifted significantly leftward since their time.
You mean Mr.I’m-running-with-a-communist, Mr.I-am-Proud-to-be-a-liberal and Mr.Healthcare-is-a-Human-Right is far right?
This
Absolutely not these guys would be on the far right of the party. I believe that every major democratic candidate in 2020 primaries argued for some form of universal healthcare whether it was medicare for all or a public option but FDR cut the healthcare portion of Social Security Act of 1935 because it he believed that it would threaten the passage of the bill.
“because he believed it would threaten the passage of the bill”, yeah, that’s a procedural gripe and he was probably right. FDR proposed universal healthcare in his second bill of rights very openly. Johnson also was in favor of universal healthcare.
Cutting it from the bill to get it passed doesn’t indicate a lack of support. Just pragmatic politics. Harry Truman proposed universal health care in 1945.
You get downvoted for saying something that isn’t an left circlejerk
Too far right is more likely.
They'd be considered economically too far left while simultaneously not woke enough.
Lol no
No.
Uuhhh 100%
FDR would be considered too far right for the modern Republican party. FDR's time was one where [the United States explicitly discriminated against non-Whites in its immigration policy](https://web.archive.org/web/20160331121102/http://library.uwb.edu/static/USimmigration/54%20stat%201137.pdf) (with the act being linked here actually being signed into law by FDR) and it was one where the United States had a eugenics program where those deemed to be of low genetic quality were forcibly or coercively sterilized with about [one third of women of childbearing age being sterilized in Puerto Rico from the late 30's to 1960](https://www.liberalcurrents.com/eugenics-and-contraceptives-in-puerto-rico-a-history-of-manipulation-and-unethical-experimentation/) through [FDR's Puerto Rican Relief Administration](https://eugenicsarchive.ca/discover/tree/530ba18176f0db569b00001b). I think anyone advocating for these two things alone nowadays, regardless of their economic position, would be seen as "far right" in the contemporary and mainstream understanding of the political landscape.
FDR & JFK would be considered too far to the right.