Great detail, but I was an FDR skeptic long before. I disagree with a quite a few of your assertions - I think one major drawback was FDR’s own mercurial spirit, which rather famously frustrated Churchill before our entry into WW2, and added to the uncertainty weighing down the economy during the Depression. Smoot Hawley had already worsened conditions dramatically - one anecdote I recall from the book was that FDR used to set dollar exchange rates (particularly for gold) over breakfast, often just based on political winds.

Roosevelt was a man who would be king who did in fact try to simply pack the court when his unconstitutional proposals were declared unconstitutional. Imo his overarching policies kept the country addicted to govt largess, which was part of Shlaes’ point when talking about how high unemployment was without Roosevelt’s work programs. Again, in keeping with his mercurial nature, he pulled the rug out suddenly late in the decade, sinking the country again, basically until WW2 finally came to the economic rescue.

I think most things in life are grey, not black and white, so I don’t entirely disagree with your other points about FDR. He helped instill a degree of calm and confidence with his own confidence, and things like his fireside chats, to throw emotional lifelines to a jittery nation. But exactly how the country would have emerged from the Depression, politically and economically, is not completely clear to me if there hadn’t been a Pearl. In his own way, FDR was a bit of an authoritarian himself, at least in my view.

Anyway, to me, FDR is dramatically overrated. He extended rather than ended the Depression, and Pearl Harbor united the country for the war, much more than anything FDR did.

Those are my views, but I believe I am more of a free market guy than you, Dan, or Seattle, which is why I always was a consistent repub voter pre-2003. TBH, I’d really like the repubs to become a viable alternative again, as there is plenty I don’t like about the current dem party.