Assuming we accept the proposition that Coolidge and small government caused the market crash (which we do not), it would have hurt people for maybe two-five years. FDR’s (spit) meddling prolonged the immediate problem for a decade, and saddled Americans with socialism for a century, maybe forever. Still hate Coolidge?
I watched an author recently talk about a book on Calvin Coolidge she's just written, essentially saying he was a better president that people think. Why? He believed in small government and he reduced the budget.
Calvin Coolidge. Lordy. If there is a top ten list of worst presidents in the history of the nation, might he win the top spot? He is definitely in the top ten.
Assuming we accept the proposition that Coolidge and small government caused the market crash (which we do not), it would have hurt people for maybe two-five years. FDR’s (spit) meddling prolonged the immediate problem for a decade, and saddled Americans with socialism for a century, maybe forever. Still hate Coolidge?. . . What people went through during the Depression is tragic, and Coolidge is the guy, after all, who was president when it happened because when government does nothing, people suffer terribly, because greed is not good. Heartlessness has real-world effects on real people who suffer in real ways. And they really did.
Ronald Reagan whipped inflation, got the country going again, transcended Comunism, and ameliorated the energy crisis. IOW, Ronald Reagan handled the things that were on his plate when he got elected. And Calvin Coolidge was Ronald Reagan's favorite president.What were the things on FDR's plate when he took office? Two big things, in the light of history - the depression and Adolf Hitler's aggressiveness. It's not that nobody knew what Hitler was; throughout the 1930s Winston Churchill struggled to get Britain to stop Hitler before he became the destructive force which we all know he became. I will grant that FDR tried to oppose Hitler but had serious political opposition at home, but the fact is that Hitler was militarily weak when FDR took office, and his drive to power was allowed to come to fruition on FDR's watch.
And part of the reason for that was the depression - and FDR's policy was simply the Herbert Hoover policy rebranded. Hoover did more than any prior president, in a counterproductive effort to stop the depression directly. FDR did the same things that didn't work for Hoover, and blamed Hoover for fact that it didn't work any better when FDR did it. So while FDR preened himself on how much he was doing, the economy stagnated at a low level and Hitler blossomed in Europe.
And this Groklaw guy nominates Calvin Coolidge as the worst POTUS in history?? This guy wouldn't know a bad president if he took over the writer's company and threw him out of work personally. And the guy he obviously voted for in '08 just might do that very thing, given half a chance.