Biggest historical misconceptions?

[WolfBear]

What are some of the biggest historical misconceptions that you can think of?

Personally, for me, one of them would be that Abraham Lincoln went to war to end slavery. No, he didn't:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/five-myths-about-why-the-south-seceded/2011/01/03/ABHr6jD_story.html

Since the Civil War did end slavery, many Americans think abolition was the Union’s goal. But the North initially went to war to hold the nation together. Abolition came later.

On Aug. 22, 1862, President Lincoln wrote a letter to the New York Tribune that included the following passage: “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.”

However, Lincoln’s own anti-slavery sentiment was widely known at the time. In the same letter, he went on: “I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free.” A month later, Lincoln combined official duty and private wish in his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.

White Northerners’ fear of freed slaves moving north then caused Republicans to lose the Midwest in the congressional elections of November 1862.

Gradually, as Union soldiers found help from black civilians in the South and black recruits impressed white units with their bravery, many soldiers — and those they wrote home to — became abolitionists. By 1864, when Maryland voted to end slavery, soldiers’ and sailors’ votes made the difference.

Another misconception is that James Garfield's doctors killed him and that Charles Guiteau simply shot him. In reality, this relatively recent (2013) article by two doctors makes a rather convincing case that Garfield was suffering from cholecystitis (an inflammation of the gallbladder, with it subsequently rupturing) as a result of being shot and that he died as a result of the rupture of the pseudoaneurysm that developed in his splenic artery as a result of him getting shot:

http://lib.ajaums.ac.ir/booklist/1-s2.0-S0002961013002973-main.pdf

This article also makes an excellent case that if his splenic artery pseudoaneurysm would not have ruptured, Garfield's cholecystitis would have very likely killed him since the first successful gallbladder removal was only performed a year after Garfield's death, and this would be assuming that Garfield's doctors would actually figure out that Garfield was suffering from cholecystitis, which is probably unlikely.

 

[Circle of Willis]

Biggest one I can think of is the misconception that the Middle Ages were an absolute black hole of scientific progress, human rights and all that jazz where feudal lords whipped their serfs with the latter's own spines over the course of a 20-hour workday every day, even noble ladies & queens were baby factories who their husbands would backhand for uttering a word in their presence, slavery & witch-burning were rampant, the Catholic Church sent inquisitors to roast anyone who wrote a book or made even the most minute technological advance, armies of many tens of thousands devastated the land and fought for years or decades straight with no breaks, Viking raiders made the coasts unlivable, etc.

Basically the view of the medieval world exemplified by the legendary Chart™ that r/atheism was fond of back in the day and is still mocked on r/badhistory, and popularized by George RR Martin's ASOIAF books/Game of Thrones TV series. Obviously the real Middle Ages weren't nearly so dystopian - scientific advances still happened and in Latin Europe were certainly driven by the Church (Cistercian architecture is beautiful af and the monks also made huge amounts of land livable by draining swamps and helping to build settlements), serfs weren't treated like chattel slaves on a Barbadian plantation and got quite a few holidays off, medieval armies didn't tend to number 50-100,000 strong unless you're talking about China, female thinkers & writers like Christine de Pizan were a thing, Vikings were traders & farmers & town-builders as much as (or even more than) they were raiders and also weren't a thing for more than a third of what we consider the Middle Ages, etc.

Honestly I could go on for half an eternity, but I'll just leave it at this - in the end Tolkien's Middle-earth is still a more realistic depiction of medieval life & society, even in spite of having orcs and trolls and dragons, than GRRM's Westeros.

 

[WolfBear]

Biggest one I can think of is the misconception that the Middle Ages were an absolute black hole of scientific progress, human rights and all that jazz where feudal lords whipped their serfs with the latter's own spines over the course of a 20-hour workday every day, even noble ladies & queens were baby factories who their husbands would backhand for uttering a word in their presence, slavery & witch-burning were rampant, the Catholic Church sent inquisitors to roast anyone who wrote a book or made even the most minute technological advance, armies of many tens of thousands devastated the land and fought for years or decades straight with no breaks, Viking raiders made the coasts unlivable, etc.

Basically the view of the medieval world exemplified by the legendary Chart™ that r/atheism was fond of back in the day and is still mocked on r/badhistory, and popularized by George RR Martin's ASOIAF books/Game of Thrones TV series. Obviously the real Middle Ages weren't nearly so dystopian - scientific advances still happened and in Latin Europe were certainly driven by the Church (Cistercian architecture is beautiful af and the monks also made huge amounts of land livable by draining swamps and helping to build settlements), serfs weren't treated like chattel slaves on a Barbadian plantation and got quite a few holidays off, medieval armies didn't tend to number 50-100,000 strong unless you're talking about China, female thinkers & writers like Christine de Pizan were a thing, Vikings were traders & farmers & town-builders as much as (or even more than) they were raiders and also weren't a thing for more than a third of what we consider the Middle Ages, etc.

Honestly I could go on for half an eternity, but I'll just leave it at this - in the end Tolkien's Middle-earth is still a more realistic depiction of medieval life & society, even in spite of having orcs and trolls and dragons, than GRRM's Westeros.

Just how easy was it to be an atheist in the Middle Ages?

Also, what do you think of my US history misconceptions above?

More recently from US history, this 2010 academic article contains five myths about the 2000 Bush v. Gore US Supreme Court ruling near the bottom of this article:

StackPath

 

[Circle of Willis]

Just how easy was it to be an atheist in the Middle Ages?

Also, what do you think of my US history misconceptions above?

More recently from US history, this 2010 academic article contains five myths about the 2000 Bush v. Gore US Supreme Court ruling near the bottom of this article:

StackPath

Probably as difficult as it is being a fundamentalist Christian in modern Berkeley or Portland, maybe not even that bad if you happened to be a rich dude from an aristocratic background. We know, for example, that Thomas Aquinas bothered to think through & write down arguments for the existence of God, which he wouldn't have if debating or simply questioning the existence of God were strictly prohibited. For a non-European example, from Feudal Japan (not exactly what we would consider part of the medieval period, but the Japanese would differ IIRC - their early modernity began with Sekigahara and the complete unification of the country under the Tokugawa) Oda Nobunaga was basically an atheist and that in no way stopped him from almost uniting Japan.

I don't have much to say, but that's because I knew about both already. Especially Lincoln not fighting the Civil War with the intent of abolishing slavery from day 1 or generally not sharing 21st century views on race, to put it mildly.

 

[WolfBear]

Probably as difficult as it is being a fundamentalist Christian in modern Berkeley or Portland, maybe not even that bad if you happened to be a rich dude from an aristocratic background. We know, for example, that Thomas Aquinas bothered to think through & write down arguments for the existence of God, which he wouldn't have if debating or simply questioning the existence of God were strictly prohibited. For a non-European example, from Feudal Japan (not exactly what we would consider part of the medieval period, but the Japanese would differ IIRC - their early modernity began with Sekigahara and the complete unification of the country under the Tokugawa) Oda Nobunaga was basically an atheist and that in no way stopped him from almost uniting Japan.

I don't have much to say, but that's because I knew about both already. Especially Lincoln not fighting the Civil War with the intent of abolishing slavery from day 1 or generally not sharing 21st century views on race, to put it mildly.

Thanks. I was just wondering whether Asians might have had a different view on atheism than Europeans did. Asians don't come from the Judeo-Christian religious tradition, after all. (Well, not historically.) But fair point about Thomas Aquinas actually trying to think through this issue as opposed to simply assuming its validity by accepting Jesus's resurrection story as undisputed fact or whatever.

Did you know about Garfield and cholecystitis?

 

[Zyobot]

I don't have much to say, but that's because I knew about both already. Especially Lincoln not fighting the Civil War with the intent of abolishing slavery from day 1 or generally not sharing 21st century views on race, to put it mildly.

Sorry if this is a derail, but I thought Lincoln being a man of his time was common sense that every functioning, well-adjusted person knew already?

I don’t deny that he was exceptionally intelligent and thoughtful, or that he deserves all the credit that comes with abolishing slavery and restoring the Union. But at the same time, it’s just a bit much to assume Lincoln was a century and a half ahead of the curve on civil rights — especially when he never came out as such even in private, much less in public.

 

[Circle of Willis]

Thanks. I was just wondering whether Asians might have had a different view on atheism than Europeans did. Asians don't come from the Judeo-Christian religious tradition, after all. (Well, not historically.) But fair point about Thomas Aquinas actually trying to think through this issue as opposed to simply assuming its validity by accepting Jesus's resurrection story as undisputed fact or whatever.

Did you know about Garfield and cholecystitis?

Yeah, one of my profs mentioned it as an alternative explanation for what happened to Garfield like...last year, I think.

Sorry if this is a derail, but I thought Lincoln being a man of his time was common sense that every functioning, well-adjusted person knew already?

I don’t deny that he was exceptionally intelligent and thoughtful, or that he deserves all the credit that comes with abolishing slavery and restoring the Union. But at the same time, it’s just a bit much to assume Lincoln was a century and a half ahead of the curve on civil rights — especially when he never came out as such even in private, much less in public.

You'd be surprised then, loads of normies seem to believe that the Civil War was a glorious anti-slavery crusade from start to finish (it may have ended that way but, as has been discussed, it certainly wasn't the Union's intention from the get-go and abolitionists were a minority compared to the plain Union-minded American nationalists and Free Soilers, with whom they were not synonymous) and that Lincoln by extension was basically the kind of dude who'd be happy to sign an early Civil Rights Act.

This usually bleeds over into an overly optimistic assumption made of the abolitionists in general (again often conflated with Free Soilers) that they would've been all for black civil rights, and sometimes also that they also shared 21st century views on all sorts of other things like feminism or immigration. (Which they certainly didn't, as even a cursory look at the Wiki pages for guys like James Birney or Henry W. Davis would immediately reveal) I chalk it up to a combination of good old plain ignorance and presentism - 'well all the good guys of today are feminists, civil rights supporters, etc. so the good guys back then must've been too!' basically.

In my experience, when disabused of this notion most normies are graceful enough to accept that things were different back then and that's OK. Of course it's a different story for the far-left Internet slacktivist mob you can find dominating discourse on places like Reddit and AH.com, who typically decide that actually means America was always an evil empire built on the bones of poor minorities of every stripe & color, that it therefore needs to be torn down by any means necessary, and that Lincoln was scarcely any better than Jeff Davis - certainly that he'd deserve to have his statues defaced and removed just the same way. But then they tend to be looking for excuses to harden a preexisting belief that that's the case anyway.

 

[Zyobot]

All sounds fair to me, but with regard to this bit:

In my experience, when disabused of this notion most normies are graceful enough to accept that things were different back then and that's OK. Of course it's a different story for the far-left Internet slacktivist mob you can find dominating discourse on places like Reddit and AH.com, who typically decide that actually means America was always an evil empire built on the bones of poor minorities of every stripe & color, that it therefore needs to be torn down by any means necessary, and that Lincoln was scarcely any better than Jeff Davis - certainly that he'd deserve to have his statues defaced and removed just the same way. But then they tend to be looking for excuses to harden a preexisting belief that that's the case anyway.

Well, I'm not a Reddit member and don't visit regularly, so other than being vaguely aware that it's a leftist cesspool, I can't comment much on that.

But on AH.com, I haven't encountered the kind of "national self-flagellation" you describe, though the fact I rarely participated in Chat might explain why. However, I've also seen ASB time-travel scenarios in which authors portray the progressives, liberals, and other "good guys" of yesteryear in precisely the way you describe — even though for the most part, that's just them projecting.

For instance, there's this one ASB timeline — Culture Shock for All, or something like that — where all deceased presidents were resurrected and once again ran for office. Abe Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, as you can imagine, were basically reduced to mouthpieces for ragging on the modern GOP — even though the former (while probably smart enough to keep his mouth shut about it) would still be a "reactionary bigot" by modern standards, and the latter (and early twentieth-century Progressives in general, really) was big on imperialism and the "unhyphenated American". Obviously, neither would fly with the Modern Left, but by and large, these more "inconvenient facts" were ignored, so anything on Lincoln privately condemning modern women as "shameless harlots" or Roosevelt wondering what's so bad about encouraging immigrants to assimilate into the broader culture? Yeah, nothing of the sort there, at least not to my recollection.

 

[Circle of Willis]

All sounds fair to me, but with regard to this bit:



Well, I'm not a Reddit member and don't visit regularly, so other than being vaguely aware that it's a leftist cesspool, I can't comment much on that.

But on AH.com, I haven't encountered the kind of "national self-flagellation" you describe, though the fact I rarely participated in Chat might explain why. However, I've also seen ASB time-travel scenarios in which authors portray the progressives, liberals, and other "good guys" of yesteryear in precisely the way you describe — even though for the most part, that's just them projecting.

For instance, there's this one ASB timeline — Culture Shock for All, or something like that — where all deceased presidents were resurrected and once again ran for office. Abe Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, as you can imagine, were basically reduced to mouthpieces for ragging on the modern GOP — even though the former (while probably smart enough to keep his mouth shut about it) would still be a "reactionary bigot" by modern standards, and the latter (and early twentieth-century Progressives in general, really) was big on imperialism and the "unhyphenated American". Obviously, neither would fly with the Modern Left, but by and large, these more "inconvenient facts" were ignored, so anything on Lincoln privately condemning modern women as "shameless harlots" or Roosevelt wondering what's so bad about encouraging immigrants to assimilate into the broader culture? Yeah, nothing of the sort there, at least not to my recollection.

Ah, well that would explain it. Chat is where this nonsense festers most obviously and virulently. But I've noticed it's starting to bleed into the timelines more and more in recent years until I stopped going to AH entirely (save for the occasional nostalgic look at an ancient timeline I liked), with an increasing volume of timelines being posted clearly to serve the function of authorial wish fulfillment first & foremost with anything resembling an attempt at realism, actual quality storytelling, etc. increasingly taking a backseat. (And since anyone to the right of Leon Trotsky has been banned over the last decade & a half or so, all the wish fulfillment naturally only goes one way - to the left, ending either in a realized Communist utopia or a socdem paradise leaning really heavily into the 'soc' side, both of which do nothing wrong ever)

Some at least are honest enough to state as much in their OP, like this now-defunct TL (IIRC the author has quit simply due to losing interest in the AH genre rather than getting banned for any infraction by the trigger-happy mods or Ian, which is an impressive feat on the AH.com of today).

A Note from the Author
(Added Jan 29, 2020)

I've had a complicated relationship with the United States and its history over the course of my seventeen years of life on this planet. As a kid, I was of course blindly patriotic. Everyone under the age of eleven is. I didn't know why America was great. It just was. Or at least, that's what I was told. As I grew up, I slowly but surely became obsessed with history, a product of my insatiable hunger to read when I was in elementary and middle school. And I started seeing other sides to (mostly American) history. The bad, dark, gloomy, offensive, throw-up-in-your-mouth disgusting sides. I learned many of my beloved Founding Fathers held slaves, that the United States was horribly racist far longer than it had any right to be, that swathes of native populations were massacred and hundreds of thousands of prospective immigrants were turned away for reasons as simple as the language they spoke or the religion they practiced. I underwent my own little Enlightenment in middle school and early high school, leaving behind the socially conservative politics that had been drilled into my head by my Catholic primary school and jumping ship to a far more tolerant, open stance.

It was then, I think, I fell out of love with America, and instead fell in love with the idea of America. A place where anyone from anywhere could do anything they set their mind to. A place that held the ideals spouted by the sometimes hypocritical Founders and other great, but flawed, people throughout American history. And then something happened. Last year, during my AP US History class, I found myself looking at every wrong turn America had taken on their path to the present and wondering, "What if it happened differently?" My interest in alternate history was but a fling then, but there's only so many times one can stomach hearing about the horrors of slavery, the hypocrisy of the Founders, the failings of the Revolution, the assassination of Reconstruction, and the death of civil rights time and time again. I needed to do something about it.

America always says it's the greatest nation in the history of the world. I decided to make it be the greatest nation in the history of the world. The United States of America would get to be the utopic beacon of liberty and hope it sees itself as in the here and now from its foundation. There's a reason why Ho Chi Minh added the preamble to the American Declaration of Independence unedited into the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence, a reason why protesters around the world hoist the Stars and Stripes high as a sign of rebellion and hope, and it's not because of the American subjugation of the Philippines or the internment of innocent Japanese during WWII. It's because of what those symbols represent in the public consciousness. It's because of the idea they stand for.

And that's A More Perfect Union. Where the Revolution never died and the American Dream is a tangible reality.

And this is really quite mild by the standard of post-2016 AH.com, Chat would've eaten this dude's liver for thinking there was any redeeming feature to the US at all

That said, we should probably carry this conversation on in DMs if you're of a mind to continue, since we're starting to fly away from the topic of historical misconceptions in general to AH.com being AH.com.

 

[Zyobot]

Ah, well that would explain it. Chat is where this nonsense festers most obviously and virulently. But I've noticed it's starting to bleed into the timelines more and more in recent years until I stopped going to AH entirely (save for the occasional nostalgic look at an ancient timeline I liked), with an increasing volume of timelines being posted clearly to serve the function of authorial wish fulfillment first & foremost with anything resembling an attempt at realism, actual quality storytelling, etc. increasingly taking a backseat.

Yeah, that's been my experience, too, more or less.

That said, we should probably carry this conversation on in DMs if you're of a mind to continue, since we're starting to fly away from the topic of historical misconceptions in general to AH.com being AH.com.

Sure thing.

Sorry to derail; just thought my example was pertinent to the latest line of discussion. But yes, I'd be happy to take it elsewhere now.

 

[WolfBear]

Yeah, one of my profs mentioned it as an alternative explanation for what happened to Garfield like...last year, I think.

Interesting. Is your professor famous? Or simply really knowledgeable without being famous?

 

[WolfBear]

Apparently it's entirely possible that Grover Cleveland committed a rape before he ever ran for the US Presidency:

Grover Cleveland's Sex Scandal: The Most Despicable in American Polit…

archived 19 Feb 2018 18:00:27 UTC

archive.ph

 

[stevep]

Probably as difficult as it is being a fundamentalist Christian in modern Berkeley or Portland, maybe not even that bad if you happened to be a rich dude from an aristocratic background. We know, for example, that Thomas Aquinas bothered to think through & write down arguments for the existence of God, which he wouldn't have if debating or simply questioning the existence of God were strictly prohibited. For a non-European example, from Feudal Japan (not exactly what we would consider part of the medieval period, but the Japanese would differ IIRC - their early modernity began with Sekigahara and the complete unification of the country under the Tokugawa) Oda Nobunaga was basically an atheist and that in no way stopped him from almost uniting Japan.

I don't have much to say, but that's because I knew about both already. Especially Lincoln not fighting the Civil War with the intent of abolishing slavery from day 1 or generally not sharing 21st century views on race, to put it mildly.

That's rather doubtful given that as your said in your own TL non-Christian viewpoints saw widespread and frequent persecution, most noticeably being punished by death, which fits in with the historical evidence. You would have to be a very powerful atheist to escape persecution - possibly also keep a low profile.

Things may not have been as brutal and demeaning as you mention in your 1st post but they were still bad, if not very bad for most of the population of Europe most of the time during the dark and medieval ages. [To a degree as well until pretty much the modern era and then we went and produced Lenin, Stalin and Hitler among others].

Basically we simply couldn't be having discussions like this - even assuming the physical possibility was there - in a society such as the dark or medieval period.

In terms of Aquinas's argument it could well be that he drew up those arguments for the reasons you suggest. Possibly alternatively because questions had been asked about his own beliefs so he had to cover his own back? [Remembering that while he was openly Christian being the wrong type of Christian was also extremely dangerous in this period]. Or he had been commisioned by someone to do it?

 

[Circle of Willis]

That's rather doubtful given that as your said in your own TL non-Christian viewpoints saw widespread and frequent persecution, most noticeably being punished by death, which fits in with the historical evidence. You would have to be a very powerful atheist to escape persecution - possibly also keep a low profile.

Things may not have been as brutal and demeaning as you mention in your 1st post but they were still bad, if not very bad for most of the population of Europe most of the time during the dark and medieval ages. [To a degree as well until pretty much the modern era and then we went and produced Lenin, Stalin and Hitler among others].

Basically we simply couldn't be having discussions like this - even assuming the physical possibility was there - in a society such as the dark or medieval period.

In terms of Aquinas's argument it could well be that he drew up those arguments for the reasons you suggest. Possibly alternatively because questions had been asked about his own beliefs so he had to cover his own back? [Remembering that while he was openly Christian being the wrong type of Christian was also extremely dangerous in this period]. Or he had been commisioned by someone to do it?

Oh I don't intend to argue that the medieval period was a lost paradise either, a trend which I've seen in some right-wing traditionalist circles. But that is a much less common viewpoint than the opposite which I've discussed in greater detail, it basically isn't talked about at all offline from what I've seen. I think far too many people fall into the trap of basically assuming the people of the past were an entirely different species from us and that we've either evolved or degenerated from their state (depending on whether their bias is progressive or traditionalist), when the reality is they were human just like us, had their ups in addition to their downs, and generally did what they could to live decently with the level of tech and knowledge that they had. (In short, I'm not a primitivist nor do I think the year 1200 was the pinnacle of human civilization.)

This by no means is something limited to the right BTW, you can see it - and a lot more frequently because it's culturally more acceptable these days - in the lionization of the 'noble savage' on the left. I don't know how Britain does it but here in Canada Native Americans, Africans, Aboriginals in Australia, etc. were depicted by virtually all the media & academia while I was growing up as peaceful, blissfully happy hippies who never warred among themselves (or at worst engaged in small-scale skirmishes over food that never escalated to something worse) and were content to live simple lives with simple comforts until the dastardly white man came along with guns, germs and steel and started pitting them against each other.

I think that's more a matter of questioning the prevailing orthodoxy of the day being difficult, which is true for pretty much all of human history - nothing specific to any particular religion or ideology. It's not like the very modern ideologies of Communism or Fascism allow much questioning either, in fact they seem to have come down on it harder than the medieval or Early Modern Catholics ever did. Even our modern liberal democracies have only so much room for dissent before they start coming down on the dissenters like a sack of bricks: just ask the a Mohawk grandmother with a walker trampled by cops during the suppression of a major protest here in Canada earlier this year. And obviously I don't share Kanye West's apparent affection for Hitler and think his recent spiral is either him going nuts (again) or competing for the title of World's Greatest Troll, 2022. But I do consider it ridiculous that he can be financially ruined and deplatformed overnight for spouting crazy statements about, ironically, a conspiracy being out to get him when someone like Tim Wise can demand the destruction of the innocence of certain children because of their skin color among many other, even worse statements that make him sound like a caricature of what hard-right-wingers think their enemies sound like; and still enjoy no repercussions because his brand of insanity is considered more acceptable than West's in our current orthodoxy.

I doubt it, Aquinas seems to have been the kind of guy who enjoyed intellectual discussion for its own sake. It's worth noting that he wasn't always in 100% agreement with the Church himself and actually got his works condemned by Pope John XXI through the Bishops of Paris, although (besides being obviously annulled since he got canonized about 50 years after his death) the condemnation came long after he started laying out his Five Ways so I don't believe it's likely that he composed those arguments to cover himself from accusations of heresy or insufficient zeal either.

 

[Skallagrim]

Apparently it's entirely possible that Grover Cleveland committed a rape before he ever ran for the US Presidency:

Grover Cleveland's Sex Scandal: The Most Despicable in American Polit…

archived 19 Feb 2018 18:00:27 UTC

archive.ph

Daily Beast.

About as credible as various leftist smears about Trump's supposed rapes etc., then. Indeed, exactly the same kind of charge, fabricated and championed by Cleveland's political enemies.

Now repeated by the left-wing heirs of those same enemies. The gutter-press, same now as they were then. Rats forever, and they hate Cleveland still-- because he was one of the few they could never buy.

 

[Circle of Willis]

Daily Beast.

About as credible as various leftist smears about Trump's supposed rapes etc., then. Indeed, exactly the same kind of charge, fabricated and championed by Cleveland's political enemies.

Now repeated by the left-wing heirs of those same enemies. The gutter-press, same now as they were then. Rats forever, and they hate Cleveland still-- because he was one of the few they could never buy.

Yeah, I don't think this Halpin affair is some new revelation about Cleveland. Dude already had to deal with it in his lifetime, the revelations almost tanked his 1884 campaign.

Cleveland fessed up to having had an affair with Halpin, paid child support and was judged for the sum of his actions by the American public at the ballot box (they still liked him better than his opponent James Blaine, albeit narrowly - and it wasn't like Blaine was squeaky clean himself, either in his personal or public life). From what I've been able to find, the historical evidence is apparently 'overwhelming' in favor of their affair being consensual and not a matter of Cleveland raping Halpin, as well.

 

[WolfBear]

Yeah, I don't think this Halpin affair is some new revelation about Cleveland. Dude already had to deal with it in his lifetime, the revelations almost tanked his 1884 campaign.

Cleveland fessed up to having had an affair with Halpin, paid child support and was judged for the sum of his actions by the American public at the ballot box (they still liked him better than his opponent James Blaine, albeit narrowly - and it wasn't like Blaine was squeaky clean himself, either in his personal or public life). From what I've been able to find, the historical evidence is apparently 'overwhelming' in favor of their affair being consensual and not a matter of Cleveland raping Halpin, as well.

Apparently this author claims to have uncovered some new evidence, but I don't know just how accurate and reliable this new evidence actually is. Anyway, even if Halpin claimed to have been raped, could she have been doing this in order to protect her honor and purity?

 

[S'task]

For instance, there's this one ASB timeline — Culture Shock for All, or something like that — where all deceased presidents were resurrected and once again ran for office. Abe Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, as you can imagine, were basically reduced to mouthpieces for ragging on the modern GOP — even though the former (while probably smart enough to keep his mouth shut about it) would still be a "reactionary bigot" by modern standards, and the latter (and early twentieth-century Progressives in general, really) was big on imperialism and the "unhyphenated American". Obviously, neither would fly with the Modern Left, but by and large, these more "inconvenient facts" were ignored, so anything on Lincoln privately condemning modern women as "shameless harlots" or Roosevelt wondering what's so bad about encouraging immigrants to assimilate into the broader culture? Yeah, nothing of the sort there, at least not to my recollection.

ROFLMAO...

Teddy would certainly berate the modern GOP. For not being pro-life enough or social conservative enough. He literally called abortion "pre-natal infanticide" and thought birth control and family planning was a terrible thing, writing: "To advocate artificially keeping families small, with its inevitable attendants of pre-natal infanticide, of abortion, with its pandering to self-indulgence, its shirking of duties, and its enervation of character, is quite as immoral as to advocate theft or prostitution, and is even more hurtful in its folly."

 

[Zyobot]

ROFLMAO...

Teddy would certainly berate the modern GOP. For not being pro-life enough or social conservative enough. He literally called abortion "pre-natal infanticide" and thought birth control and family planning was a terrible thing, writing: "To advocate artificially keeping families small, with its inevitable attendants of pre-natal infanticide, of abortion, with its pandering to self-indulgence, its shirking of duties, and its enervation of character, is quite as immoral as to advocate theft or prostitution, and is even more hurtful in its folly."

That, too, though I’d have to disagree with equating contraceptive usage to aborting a fetus that’s already there and growing.

But yeah, it both amuses and irritates me how Roosevelt and other idols of today’s Left suddenly become “Schrödinger’s Progressives” whenever it helps them “win” the argument. One moment, they’re good guys way ahead of their time who’d blast the modern GOP for being too reactionary and deathly allergic to “compassionate government”. The next, they’re irredeemable bigots who don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt at all and should be cancelled retroactively.

Frankly, I don’t think the folks on AH.com know nearly as much about the people they lionize as they’d like to believe. Because if Culture Shock for All actually happened in real life, odds are they’d be very displeased to hear what Roosevelt, Sanger, and other twentieth-century Progressive heroes really think and stood for.

Granted, I’m sure you’d have just as many conservative standard-bearers who have their own gripes with the Modern Right, with Calvin Coolidge and Robert Taft privately condemning Reagan (and both Bushes) as too militaristic and intervention-happy, for example. Probably be taken aback by Trump and his crude boorishness, too, even if there are elements of the actual MAGA platform — such as deregulation at home and tariffs on cheap overseas goods — they’re more receptive to, provided that you file off the serial numbers first.

 

[S'task]

That, too, though I’d have to disagree with equating contraceptive usage to aborting a fetus that’s already there and growing.

But yeah, it both amuses and irritates me how Roosevelt and other idols of today’s Left suddenly become “Schrödinger’s Progressives” whenever it helps them “win” the argument. One moment, they’re good guys way ahead of their time who’d blast the modern GOP for being too reactionary and deathly allergic to “compassionate government”. The next, they’re irredeemable bigots who don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt at all and should be cancelled retroactively.

Frankly, I don’t think the folks on AH.com know nearly as much about the people they lionize as they’d like to believe. Because if Culture Shock for All actually happened in real life, odds are they’d be very displeased to hear what Roosevelt, Sanger, and other twentieth-century Progressive heroes really think and stood for.

Granted, I’m sure you’d have just as many conservative standard-bearers who have their own gripes with the Modern Right, with Calvin Coolidge and Robert Taft privately condemning Reagan (and both Bushes) as too militaristic and intervention-happy, for example. Probably be taken aback by Trump and his crude boorishness, too, even if there are elements of the actual MAGA platform — such as deregulation at home and tariffs on cheap overseas goods — they’re more receptive to, provided that you file off the serial numbers first.

When you actually dig into party platforms as adopted by the parties one thing interestingly stands out: the Republican party platform has changed less over the 20th century than the Democratic Party platform. Even Progressive Republicans of the early 20th century actually fit well into what we would term the "populist right" of the modern period much better than the Progressive Democrats of the same period would fit into the modern Democratic party.

Progressive Republicans were "progressive" in that they were against monopolistic business practices and for shift power from the plutocrats towards the people, mainly the Middle Class. The Republican party, even going back to its' founding, has been the party of the Middle Class. Consider slavery for instance. Wealthy plutocrats in the north cared little about the slavery question... insofar as it kept cotton prices down they were all for it. Likewise, in the South the entire Plantation class was all about Slavery to the point they had become morally inverted and were making claims that would have had slave-owning Founders and Framers spinning in their graves (a consistent thing the slave-owning Founders and Framers recognized was the perversity of slavery and how it was a bad thing, but a bad thing that could not be immediately gotten rid of without causing widespread problems. Jefferson, Washington, Mason, and Henry all wrote about this).

Meanwhile who was directly potentially harmed by the expansion of slavery? Middle class farmers whom owned and operated their own farms. As well as the general middle class found the idea of slavery repulsive. When you go look at the other founding planks of the Republican party you once again find a list of things that generally benefitted or were of interest to the middle class of the 1860s. However in the middle of the 20th century a new division entered the middle class: blue collar middle class and white collar middle class. Because of unionization, much of the blue collar middle class ended up supporting the Democrats, falsely believing the claims that FDR saved their livelihoods from the Great Depression and led the country through WW2. Unions, explicitly due to their capture by communists and far left sympathizes, used that power to drag the country leftwards (although, hilariously, a lot of the pre-90s labor organizers were vehemently anti-immigration both legal and illegal).

On Social Issues the Republicans generally held middle class values. Interestingly once again you can see some parallels to Slavery with Abortion in that the main demographic who was interested in banning it was the Middle Class. The Upper class never truly cared (they had the money to cover things up or afford the extra kids), and abortion was explicitly set up and meant to be population control of the lower classes, whom bought into the propaganda of it "freeing" them. Meanwhile it was the Middle Class that created and organized the anti-abortion movement. (Teddy would have been proud.)