It's hard for me not to see him as Trump's VP if he were alive today. He'd obviously have to be less of an agricultural supremacist to get anywhere today, so I'm assuming he could stomach a populist city candidate. And keep in mind that his views on race relative to his era were akin to Trump's views relative to the modern era.
Really? Wasn't one of WJB's big reasons for opposing evolution that it could lead to racial bigotry (along with a socially Darwinian economic philosophy)?
Racial bigotry, not necessarily, but definitely anti-Social Darwinism.
Maybe, but I still thought he was more on the liberal side of the race debate for his day.
I find it QUITE strange to refer to being racially tolerant as a strictly liberal view anyway but especially at a time when many progressives were championing eugenics.
You might say that it's a view someone might take if they believe in Progress.
That is way too simplistic. Imagine a future where everyone looks back on abortion as evil. This same revisionism would label the Religious Right as being "very progressive for their time!"
But that is basically how it works. Many successes of protestant moralism are ret conned as "Progressive successes", while dispensing Prohibition as being the work or religious extremists.
That is because Progressive was never a distinct ideology or set of views but was generally what anyone regards "progressing towards a more model society" as. And everyone had a different interpretation of what that was. So successes from both sides are morphed together as progressivism, while the failures or undesirable aspects are cast aside as nativism, racism etc.
