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CrabCake
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« Reply #1 on: May 22, 2015, 12:35:49 PM » |
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« Edited: May 22, 2015, 12:59:08 PM by CrabCake »
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Most presidential historians rank by consequentiality, rightly or wrongly. That's why top ten lists are dominated by some shady and perhaps controversial characters who still have effects reverberating today - Jackso, Polk, Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt etc. Coolidge was never a man interested in building a 'legacy' and indeed a few decades after his presidency, all remnants were eroded away. That small government, austere and Prohibitionist, vaguely isolationist, highly protectionist model he craved was washed away by FDR and his successors; the modern GOP (even those who speak highly of the man) has no desire to return to that party.
He firmly didn't understand or even care about how the very role of President had shifted beneath his feet. Consider the contrast between Reagan and his hero Coolidge when disasters struck. After the Mississippi floods, Coolidge didn't really get that he was expected to be something more than a distant figurehead. Was it an admirable stance, as he maintained, to avoid politicking by staying away? Possibly - but as future President Reagan would show upon the Challenger disaster, such aloofness was rapidly becoming fatal for the role of POTUS. In foreign policy and immigration, again, Coolidge laid no lasting impact. His Immigration Act lasted the longest time, but that would be dismantled in the Johnson administration - now recognising the Act as an anachronistic racist failure.
Again there is much to admire about the character about of Calvin Coolidge - his steps against racism (aforementioned Immigration Acts aside)and lynching were extremely laudable. I get why he is loved by a certain type of person. I even get his 'wit' - although it reminds me of social awkwardness more than anything else. But was Calvin Coolidge a man of consequence, a president who will be go down in the ages? No, of course not. And, quite frankly, that is just how he would prefer to be remembered.
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