A few days ago, I posted on the similarities between the 1920s and today. The glaring difference, however, is that the 1920s didn’t produce a political figure like Trump; the GOP presidents of the day were remarkably boring CLs. Why?
Because America is a far different place than it was then. High speed travel was by rail, not by plane. The only really national media consisted of magazines and the movies. The military was tiny, international troubles were an ocean away, and there was no welfare state. As you would expect, then, meaningful political power was exercised at the state and local level, not in Washington.
The presidency simply didn’t matter that much in the days of Harding and Coolidge. As a result, if someone like Trump had been in power, hardly anyone would have noticed, or cared.