I’m trying to annoy a friend who loves Calvin Coolidge
Give me a reason, silly or serious, that Calvin Coolidge was a bad president
DiscussionThe military occupations of Haiti and Nicaragua.
His pet raccoon dropped big stinky raccoon poops everywhere
Excellent. The top two comments are serious, then silly. Perfectly balanced.
As all things should be.
During a flood on the Mississippi River, he refused to allocate funds to help the people, instead sending Herbert Hoovet to help them by raising money, but they needed more money, and he refused. This all happened when congress was out of session, but when they came back, they sent aid.
I think Randy Newman wrote a song about that, it's called "Louisiana 1927"
Actually, I think the song was “You got a friend in me (unless you live along the Mississippi River)”
Wonder what he thinks the preamble to the constitution means? One of the specific reasons stated for the purpose of the government is “to promote the general Welfare.”
They thought it so important that the even capitalized welfare in the middle of a sentence.
These “hands off government” people certainly are not true Americans.
If that were intended to enable anything that sounds like a good idea, what would be the purpose of the other provisions?
If you're relying on capitalization from that era, well...it was deeply inconsistent. In that same sentence, General was also capitalized. Is there a deep meaning in that as well?
So someone who disagrees with you isn’t an American? The constitution says a lot that people like you interpret too widely to suit your own political views.
If only you knew what you were talking about.
James Madision (i.e. the father of the Constitution) strongly disagrees with you.
"With respect to the words "general welfare," I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators." — James Madison
"If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, . . . . it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America." — James Madison
That makes me admire him.
“In what manner he would have performed himself if the holy angels had shoved the Depression forward a couple of years - this we can only guess, and one man's hazard is as good as another's. My own is that he would have responded to bad times precisely as he responded to good ones - that is, by pulling down the blinds, stretching his legs upon his desk, and snoozing away the lazy afternoons.... He slept more than any other President, whether by day or by night. Nero fiddled, but Coolidge only snored.... Counting out Harding as a cipher only, Dr. Coolidge was preceded by one World Saver and followed by two more. What enlightened American, having to choose between any of them and another Coolidge, would hesitate for an instant? There were no thrills while he reigned, but neither were there any headaches. He had no ideas, and he was not a nuisance.”
—H.L. Mencken, April 1933. Three months after Calvin Coolidge’s death.
This needs to be top comment.
FDR wasn’t a “world saver” and I’ll take a President like Coolidge over one like Harding, Hoover or FDR any day.
Found OP's friend
FDR literally helped save the world from Nazi Germany but okay
Oh did FDR fight on the front lines and push through to Berlin? No, the U.S. military literally helped save the world from Nazi Germany not FDR. There isn’t a president in history who wouldn’t have gotten involved in the war after Pearl Harbor like he did and many wouldn’t have even waited that long.
This is like saying Lincoln deserves no credit for his civil war leadership because he didn't personally fight with the Union army and because other presidents would have begun a war against the Confederacy after the assault on Fort Sumter.
Lincoln was much more intimately involved in the war effort and planning than FDR was. In fact many criticize Lincoln for switching Generals so much.
FDR was also very involved in the war effort. Even before the attack on Pearl Harbor, he was readjusting the Neutrality Acts and using policies like Lend-Lease to send material aid to the Allies. Britain and the Soviet Union were mostly reliant on FDR's assistance as their treasuries dried up.
lol. Giving allies money and supplies =/= planning and executing an overseas invasion.
Actively determining strategy and providing enormous material aid to allies are different, but they're separate forms of the same thing: Rigorous involvement in the war effort. Besides, that was one example. FDR also instituted a peacetime draft right before Pearl Harbor, helped plan the D-Day invasion, and set up ways to fund the American war effort.
Coolidge believed strongly that the government had no place or even right to interfere in American economic or social life, to the point that when severe floods caused widespread destruction in the Mississippi Delta, he didn't want to send aid.
Despite this belief, he brutally enforced Prohibition while in office, he even okayed the deliberate poisoning of industrial alcohol to prevent people from making bathtub gin with the stuff. This policy led to the painful and completely unnecessary deaths of tens of thousands of American citizens.
The only place where he actually made good on his supposed dedication to government non-intervention was the one where it was most needed, and he sat by and watched as unrestrained capitalism hurtled the world economy straight for a cliff.
Coolidge caused hitler?
His party certainly helped by not going into the league of nations
How would the league have prevented Hitler's rise to power?
That seems to be mostly a matter of WW1, and resulting German pressures.
And up until the Great Depression that was the prevailing and largely popular belief in American politics in terms of direct government involvement domestically. It didn't mean that Coolidge wanted to make people suffer, it's just that he mostly believed in hands-off government whenever possible.
As for the Great Depression I'm not really sure that Coolidge could've done much to prevent it. Even though he went to his grave blaming himself over it occurring the reality of it was that the Great Depression was caused by a number of factors that came together, several of them outside of Coolidge's control, and became the Perfect Storm. Rampant speculation on Wall Street, various shifts and changes in consumption within the American economy, the lack of a coherent international monetary policy, the actions of the Federal Reserve, and much more brought everything to the financial meltdown in 1929.
You lose.
My favorite “Silent Cal” story:
Coolidge was presented with a cane.
At the ceremony, the presenter said “The mahogany from which this cane is fashioned is as beautiful as the sun-kissed shores of California, and as solid as the rock-bound coast of Maine.”
Coolidge accepted the cane, looked at it for a moment, raised his head and said “Birch”, and sat down.
The dude just couldn’t shut the fuck up.
Yammering Cal, they used to call him
He did not cause the Great Depression, but his policies did, at the very least, help accelerate its arrival. He failed to aid rural banks, he did nothing to stop the spiraling debt crisis, and he cut taxes for the wealthy at maybe the worst time in US history to do so.
His lassie faire economic policy helped start the great depression
You're missing a 'z'
The great depressionz
No, he meant the greatz depression
lol it’s even better it’s Lassie Faire economic policy. “Lassie! Quick! Little Timmy fell down the old well at work!” Lassie does nothing so as not to interfere with the market
I mean, what's a dog going to do about a kid down a well? Tell someone with hands!
No, it really didn’t.
And I’ve made a post explaining it if you want to see my reasoning for why it didn’t.
Well, pack it up guys. Burrito Fucker says it wasn’t him.
You see, your wrong because I made this comic where I’m the Chad and you’re soying
I find it hilarious how every single one of you just dismisses my points and keeps responding with empty shit
So funny, right?
Yes
YOOO THIS DUDE IS RIGHT BECAUSE HIS REDDIT POST SAYS SO!
I’m not, I linked my post where I explained my point for further info on my take.
I missed the part where I invited you to be an asshole
Now since he's burrito fucker put some mayonnaise.
Have you considered that it did and you’re very wrong
Have you considered actually trying to rebut my point rather than write some empty reply?
Because the smart people go to college but only the most awesome go to Coolidge.
I'll see myself out...
Trusted big business too much, didn’t recognize the financial warnings that would culminate soon after his departure
Too much of a passive president that wasn’t really well suited for the presidency he accidentally was fallen into
How do you accidentally become president? Not trying to be rash just doesn’t make sense to my pea brain
Could’ve used a better word but he inherited the presidency from Harding dying, he didn’t get voted in
I get your point that Coolidge almost certainly wouldn't have attained the presidency on his own (I agree) but 1924 would still like a word. He ultimately got his own term.
Ahh okay for the most part I only remember the history taught when it comes to presidents, also schooled mostly in Hawaii so possibly why I might not know “basic facts” but, idk I think you’re wording works I that context
He’s got a weak chin.
Also runs like a Welshman.
Coolidge was the goat. Goats stink and get in fights. Therefore, Coolidge sucks
Had the same initials as Chester Cheeto who would make a bad president.
He knew how to keep his mouth shut unlike some others
He didn’t have a friend named Hobbes.
He signed the Immigration Act of 1924, which set specific limits on how many immigrants from each country could inhabit the US at any given time and fully banned immigration from Japan (a process Theodore Roosevelt started with the Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907). He also ignored the Farm Crisis, enabling the Great Depression in the process, and failed to place any enforcement mechanism in the Kellogg-Briand Pact.
In fact, Adolf Hitler praised our anti-immigration laws in his book Mein Kampf.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_Nationality_Act_of_1965
Not great in bed. Grace had to look elsewhere.
Broke a union strike.
It was the boston police, but a union strike
That's how he became nationally prominent politically.
He wouldn't stop shutting up
Poisonings… he helped double the amount of poison in industrial alcohol.
How could he be Silent Cal when we have records of his speeches he gave?
In private he was widely known to talk very little.
He liked to have his head rubbed with Vaseline while he ate breakfast in bed
This sounds like a Hedonism bot meme
It always felt slightly sexual and I’m not sure why. Perhaps it’s the Vaseline
Eagle shortage because of number of feathers needed to produce his headdress.
Back in my youth, I wrote to Coolidge that he should fund a space program, something he never did despite my constant requests
I don't trust anyone whose first and last names start with the same letter.
Too chatty
Fun fact: he apparently still made his sons go back home and work the tobacco fields in MA / CT during summer break.
Calvin Coolidge would kidnap quaker children and hold cage matches on the white house lawn. Nixon said that fighting in those matches is the root cause of his paranoia.
When a reporter told Coolidge that he had bet someone that he could get the notably unresponsive President to say at least 3 words, Coolidge's response was "You lose". Supposedly he was in a row boat while the reporter was on shore (or a dock) and after this mic drop response, Coolidge just rowed off.
That's a serious response if I've ever heard one.
His friend Warren banged my mom.
Is this real? When I google this I get an article about her taking a long walk one day under the protection of an unmarried secret service agent. Harrumphing ensued, but no real indication of scandal.
This is a rumor that the media sensationalized. Grace did not cheat on her husband with her secret service man, Jim Haley.
Haley and Grace became close because Haley was present with her when Calvin Jr. died and because he was her "walking companion." One day, while in South Dakota in the Black Hills, the two came home late from a walk because they got lost in the woods. Calvin was very worried about Grace's whereabouts while waiting for her. When she finally arrived, she apologized to her husband for their tardiness. Calvin then had a private talk with her. Calvin was mad that Haley had gotten himself and Grace lost, and in the Black Hills of all places, because it was known for being "dangerous and full of snakes, which Coolidge abhorred." Because of this, he removed Haley from the presidential detail. Grace didn't agree with this dismissal because she thought it would hurt Haley's career, so she "wrote at least one letter to help Haley control the damage to his reputation." Of course, the media quickly started making rumors of a potential affair Grace had because there wasn't much else interesting to cover at the time.
I encourage you to read "Grace Coolidge and Her Era," by Ishbel Ross. It really opens your eyes to the loving relationship Calvin and Grace had with each other.
He didn't run again and we got Hoover.
We were getting the Great Depression regardless. Cal helped make sure there was no off-ramp.
But we'd have a picture of Cal with Hitler instead of it having been Hoover at that meeting. Thus, changing nothing.
Knowing Cal it's fairly unlikely that he would've much wanted to meet Hitler.
"He didn't do nothin'."
He talked too much and participated in a great deal of government overreach. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and never faced any adversity or misfortune growing up. He didn’t earn the VP nomination. He only got it because of the favor he had among the party bosses after caving to the police union as Governor.
Uh, unbridled capitalism leads to the longest interruption of economic stability, ever. At least Obama knew how to handle it when guys like Coolidge forced history to repeat itself.
Hindsight is 20/20, but his economics were way too laissez-faire. It isn't like it wasn't known that laissez-faire economies are vulnerable to crises. If his administration had taken some careful, targeted actions to protect consumers a little, the great depression wouldn't have been so bad
He had a very punchable face.
. No universal healthcare . Bad on LGBT rights . Little to combat climate change . Probably had cringe takes on African Americans . Libertarian (possible pedophile) .
He set the standard for a great president so everyone that followed him looked bad.
Did he end segregation?
Did Congress send him a bill to end segregation?
He's like a platypus, he didn't do much.
He hit my dog with a car and didn’t even slow down
He’s one of Ben Shapiro’s favorite presidents
He had a raccoon as a pet.
Just a nice guy who happened to be President at the right time. The economy was booming before, during, and after his presidency through nothing he did, his policies would never have worked in any other period, even by his own admission he contributed to the Great Depression (Hoover even tried to warn him).
Don’t get me wrong, he had good beliefs and tried to do what’s right, he’s just not impressive in terms of Presidents.
I mean his name is Calvin
He didn't give it to Mrs. Coolidge often enough.
He didn’t keep running.
He gave up too easily and refuses to assist the ordinary citizens
Lame nickname "The Great Refrainer"?
Calvin is gross name for a president
He was without Hobbs and he wasn't even cool.
I read once (and have never again found the source) that on campaign stops, they served drinks called a "Coolidge" that was orange juice with an egg in it
Don't know how true it is, as I read it when I was a kid, but it has haunted me to this day
He used to ring the bell for his servants to come in the Oval Office and then hide.
He was so fucking boring and quiet.
Because.
He’s not saying
He cut the pay of Federal Workers
Dude, being President requires talking.
" "
Spent too much time playing with his stuffed tiger.
Difficulty communicating policy positions to top staff (due to his inability to say more than two words)
Because in the winter of his first year he just couldn’t compete with his opponent and counterpart from across the aisle, Calvin Heatage
His name sounds like a cartoon character. If he were president today, Russia and China would both nuke us with the certainty that the only thing that would happen is the president’s eyes would bulge out of his head and he’d run for the fallout bunker so fast he’d leave a smoke cloud of himself, and then step on a rake.
His last name is Coolidge. Cool name bro, was 'Hotage' taken?
Lame!
He advanced the career of Herbert Hoover.
Lina Lamont makes more than him... PUT TOGETHER!
No drip.
His whole “Silent Cal” Schtick was as lame as his loudmouth stoner buddy Jay’s “snoochie boochies” catch phrase.
Wait, maybe I’m confusing him with someone else.
Make sure to join the r/Presidents Discord server!
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.