Also, terrorist financer is a bit misleading since we gave organizations weapons to fight the USSR.
We helped fund and supply the same people who later attacked us. Reagan did that. You see, Americans had no problem funding terrorists, so long as the terrorists were attacking someone else far, far away.
But I am not talking about the Soviet thing anyway. Reagan sold weapons to terrorists, so he could clandestinely fund terrorists in S. America to overthrow governments.
FDR did not save capitalism in America. Capitalism had been dead long before FDR became President.
That's a huge exaggeration. We still are largely capitalist today according to any credible economic organization. We have a mixed economy. We never had a 'pure' system. Our system is one of, but not the most, "capitalitst" in the world.
FDR was important because the New Deal prevented something much, much worse and radical from taking over.
Is Social Security a success? I think that can be debated. And I don't think the New Deal was a success at all. It did nothing to help the economy. But don't take my word for it, listen to Henry Morganthau...
SS was definitly a huge success. One of the most successful anti poverty mechanisms in American History, and its function can be saved with intelligent resource use, redirection, plannng, etc.
The New Deal actually was improving the economy, so it's incorrect to say it did nothing. It was just doing it slowly. What actually set back the New Deal was FDR's reluctance to carry things through to the extent that they needed to, hence the slow progress an te 1937 setback. Conservatives actually convinced him to abandon projects early and then try to balance the budget, which cauesd the Depression's 37 recession. You can thank the Republicans for making things worse again. FDR did not spend enough, long enough. A legit criticism is that too much was going on, and FDR didn't actually trust any of it, so right when progress was made, a programme was cut, declared unconstitutional, or funding was cut (already when it wasn't nearly enough).
The New Deal had a tremendous success, despite not ending the Depression. In its historical form, it failed to do that, partly because of obstructionists and FDR's conservative feelings about applying Kenysianism, but it did plenty else.
"We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong ... somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises ... I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started ... And an enormous debt to boot!"
-Henry Morganthau, May 1939
That is deceptive for many reasons. One problem with the New Deal is that progress was slow an hampered by FDR's, and his oppositions, behaviour. There was an improvement from beginninig until 1937, when opposition became almost impossible to overcome, leading to a cut in efforts, funding, and a balancing of the budget too early, which undid a lot of progress.
The New Deal also did not spend enough, fast enough. FDR had a big problem: hew as inherently conservative and did not try things long enough. That was a legitimate problem of the New Deal. It was often too little, not long enough.
We can see what happened in WW2. The spending dwarfed the New Deal, then America got a competition free market after spending primed the pump, solving the problem.
But the best legacy of the New Deal is the prevention of more radical systems from taking over as well as regulatory mechanisms and the social safety net. I really couldn't care less if it "solved" the Depression. The amount of suffering it alleviated and the institutions it put into place are worth it.