Who was the most right-wing president in US history?
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Anonymous
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I'll say it's Calvin Coolidge. His economic philosophy was laissez-faire ("the business of America is business") and he was also nativist on immigration (1924 immigration laws), going much further than Trump actually did.
In the post-WWII era, not sure if Reagan or Trump was more right-wing, depends how much you emphasize culture and how much you emphasize economics. |
Anonymous
| James Buchanan |
Anonymous
| Woodrow Wilson |
Anonymous
| Lol at trump being RW |
Anonymous
| Reagan and Trump. I guess in terms of modern impact, Bush is up there, too. |
Anonymous
| The most right-wing President in US history was Dick Cheney. |
Anonymous
Trump was giving out pandemic checks He’s not right wing at all |
Anonymous
| Clinton with his workfare policies and push to incarcerate offenders. |
Anonymous
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Cal And his SOS opposed the 1924 act but wasn’t willing to veto it in an election year given that it had brought support among the population (including many immigrants who were worried about labor competition).
I also think of Hoover as more the laissez faire guy. The court then was so opposed to the regulatory state that the executive was pretty limited in what it could do. |
Anonymous
| I feel like there’s a wide swath of 19th century presidents who weee pretty awful and are mostly forgotten. |
Anonymous
Trump is a populist through and through. |
Anonymous
We know the rule. Republican populist is bad, Democratic populist is good. Coolidge was probably the most conservative of 20th century presidents. In a traditional, conservative, pragmatic and frugal style. But the US was also a very different place in the 20s, Roosevelt, for example, could not have happened in the 20s. It took the shock of the depression to get Americans to reevaluate the role of government in society. Remember that Reagan was originally a New Deal supported, his premise was that the Democrats had gone too far in entitlements by the 1970s. |
Anonymous
| Woodrow Wilson. Surprised someone else thought so too. |
Anonymous
Reagan became a Republican in 1962. Most of the Democrats who became Republicans during that period did so because of civil rights legislation. |
Anonymous
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Trump wasn’t right-wing. He wasn’t left wing. The only politics he cares about are those that are to his personal advantage. He supported Democrats for years until he saw an opportunity for personal gain by running as a Republican.
For that matter the Republican party is no longer right-wing, it’s Trump-wing. Look at the party platform (or lack thereof) from the 2020 election. |