• OrnluWolfjarl@lemmygrad.ml
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    2 months ago

    Every time I learn something new about this guy, the more bewildered I get at why people consider him such a benevolent heroic figure.

    • Large Bullfrog@lemmygrad.ml
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      2 months ago

      On the surface some of things he did like might of looked establishing national parks and the trust busts until you look more into his reasons. The parks were just a way of blocking off land with potential resources off from the civilian population to avoid paying for royalties and relocations, and he was really only against trusts for how they were becoming a hinderance towards the state. The man was full time imperialist through and through.

    • Finiteacorn@lemmygrad.ml
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      2 months ago

      its the same fucking thing with Lincoln people often say he was the one good president, some especially delusional people even say he was a fucking revolutionary. But he was out there saying shit like “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it…”, and he wanted to bring all the salver politicians back into power after the civil war after a tiny percent of the white male population of the confederacy voted to go back to the union, man was as much a monster as every other amerikkkan president.

      • amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml
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        2 months ago

        I need to research him in more detail again someday. I did some research on him when I was high school age, for a paper, but it’d be interesting to see how I’d view it now, knowing what I know about how the US works now and historically. Back then I had a very favorable view of him, but I have since encountered bits of information here and there indicating his views were a lot worse than they are made out to be. I am now naturally a bit more suspicious of what part he played in the on-paper end of full blown slavery (prison labor loophole aside), knowing how “reforms to dissipate revolutionary liberation energy” tend to be used. Like was he in some way, at some stage of it, genuinely trying to liberate, or was it always more akin to “this is the pill we have to swallow in order to keep the US project going”? Like the factional infighting we’re seeing play out in the US right now, where both candidates are full-throated imperialists and are into the order of elite rule who may have some disagreements on how to go about it.