re: FDR was an awful president and MacArthur was an awful general.

That's a point a lot of critics miss entirely. Whatever the economic merits or lack thereof, there were a great many desperate unemployed men wondering how they were going to feed their families. The new Deal put them on payrolls and gave them a little hope instead of hanging out in the street listening to some rabble-rouser promising them a future in the coming revolution.

The choice wasn't between the New Deal and Capitalism. The choice was between the New Deal and something much more radical. For every critic who thought Roosevelt was going too far, there were even more critics who thought he wasn't going far enough. FDRs biggest threat in the 1936 election wouldn't have been from the GOP, it would have been from Huey Long, who wanted to confiscate all personal fortunes greater than ten million dollars and nationalize most industries.