Because FDR was a flim-flam man. He promised the world to every constituency. To farmers, to factory workers and even to capitalists. He enacted price controls for farmers that raised food prices which hurt factory workers, then to compensate would enact policies that helped workers but increased the cost of farm implements.
He became the master of the shell game, while enlarging and elongating the Great Depression. Its hard to believe that people loved him for it, but for whatever reason they really thought he was helping. Maybe because the American people had never been exposed to such insane levels of government involvement directly into their lives. Perhaps his interventions were psychologically welcoming to a nation used to being self sufficient; that whatever outside efforts were made on their behalf was desired by people too weary to think straight.
Maybe it was a little Stockholm Syndrome, where the more he fucked everything up the more personal, genuine and earnest he seemed to become; the more he was seen as “being on our side”. No matter, though, he should be rated as one of the very worst Presidents instead of one of the best. Most of the problems of governmental largesse, especially the welfare state, can be laid directly at his feet.
