Today in History: Woodrow Wilson was elected President of the United States on this day in 1912. Wilson is by any metric, the worst president on US history. He dragged America into World War I despite promising not to. He gave us the much-hated income tax. He gave us the Federal Reserve and alcohol prohibition happened under his watch.
"Woodrow Wilson has been elevated as one of the better presidents but I think if you go back and look at it, the war was avoidable...and of course Woodrow Wilson helped bring Hitler to power by insisting on the abdication of the Kaiser after World War I - which was totally unnecessary." Ivan Eland
"Wilson criticized the diffuseness of government power in the US in most famous book Congressional Government. In this work he confessed, 'I cannot imagine power as a thing negative and not positive.' His love and worship of power was a prime characteristic of fascism. 'If any trait bubbles up in all one reads about Wilson it is this: he loved, craved, and in a sense glorified power,' writes historian Walter McDougall. It should not surprise us that his idols were Abraham Lincoln and Otto von Bismarck.
'No doubt a lot of nonsense has been talked about the inalienable rights of the individual, and a great deal that was mere sentiment and pleasing speculation has been put forward as fundamental principle,' wrote Wilson, attacking the very individual rights that have made America great.
He rejected the principles of 'separation of powers' and 'checks and balances' that are the foundation of American government: 'Government does now whatever experience permits or the times demand….' wrote Wilson in The State.
No fan of democracy or constitutional government, he wrote the following in Constitutional Government in the United States: 'The President is at liberty, both in law and conscience, to be as big a man as he can. His capacity will set the limit….' Sounds like a devotee of the imperial presidency.
Indeed, in a disturbing 1890 essay entitled Leaders of Men, Wilson said that a 'true leader' uses the masses of people like 'tools.' He writes, “The competent leader of men cares little for the internal niceties of other people’s characters: he cares much–everything–for the external uses to which they may be put…. He supplies the power; others supply only the materials upon which that power operates…. It is the power which dictates, dominates; the materials yield. Men are as clay in the hands of the consummate leader.” So much for the dignity of each person!
'Woe be to the man or group of men that seeks to stand in our way,' said Wilson in June 1917 to counter protests to the fascist regime that he created upon entering WW I.
Wilson took over the US economy, infringed on American civil liberties especially by suppressing dissent, oppressed the “unpatriotic,” and purposefully sought to drag the US into war. This Marxist, totalitarian, jingoistic, and militaristic Democrat president was a fascist. He worshiped the power of the state, and such statolatry is exactly what fascism is." Source
