What is Justice Roberts trying to say here?

Bullfrog

Chief Justice John Roberts closed the Supreme Court’s 2025 year-end report with a quote from former President Calvin Coolidge, recalling his 1926 address marking the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

"As we approach the semiquincentennial of our Nation’s birth, it is worth recalling the words of President Calvin Coolidge spoken a century ago on the occasion of America’s sesquicentennial: 'Amid all the clash of conflicting interests, amid all the welter of partisan politics, every American can turn for solace and consolation to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States with the assurance and confidence that those two great charters of freedom and justice remain firm and unshaken.'”

Here's a link to the full article from Newsweek.

So, I just read this, and I'm earnestly wondering how a man who is a Supreme Court Justice can read this quote at a time like this with a straight face.

Is he desperately clinging to this lie against all evidence to the contrary, hearkening back to another president who infamously failed to keep the country together as it slid into the Great Depression?

Is he trying to promote this way of thinking as a bellwether in terrible times?

Is he crying for help? Does he notice the parallels between Coolidge's period and ours?

Roberts has long been marketed as some kind of sensible conservative, but I'm just not seeing it these days, and I wonder if he's losing it just as we're all losing the legal protections guaranteed by the US Constitution.

stetson

You've got the wrong president for the Great Depression. Herbert Hoover was in the White House when the stock-market crashed in 1929, and succeeded by FDR in 1932.

Bullfrog

stetson wrote: »

You've got the wrong president for the Great Depression. Herbert Hoover was in the White House when the stock-market crashed in 1929, and succeeded by FDR in 1932.

This is true, but Coolidge was part of a string of laissez faire Republicans whose passivity and tolerance for corruption allowed it to happen.

Problems on that scale don't erupt overnight, methinks.

Nick Tamen

Yes, and Hoover had only been in office for 7+ months on Black Thursday.

TurquoiseTastic

I think Roberts is wilfully blind and trying to kid himself that the Republic is as healthy as ever.

NicoleMR

I think TurquoiseTastic has it right. Plus, it's just one of those feel good patriotic statements that one is supposed to say at a time like the anniversary.

Bullfrog

Does the man really think that Calvin Coolidge was admirable? HL Mencken comes to mind:

H. L. Mencken, American Mercury, April 1933.

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.

And in fact, this whole piece is rather enlightening.

Nick Tamen

Bullfrog wrote: »

Does the man really think that Calvin Coolidge was admirable??

Well, nothing in the article linked to says anything about what Roberts thinks of Coolidge. He simply quotes Coolidge.

Quoting him might indicate admiration, but it doesn’t necessarily indicate that. It could fall in something like the “even a broken clock is right twice a day” category.

Bullfrog

Nick Tamen wrote: »

Bullfrog wrote: »

Does the man really think that Calvin Coolidge was admirable??

Well, nothing in the article linked to says anything about what Roberts thinks of Coolidge. He simply quotes Coolidge.

Quoting him might indicate admiration, but it doesn’t necessarily indicate that. It could fall in something like the “even a broken clock is right twice a day” category.

That's fair, though they're both laissez faire Republicans. IIRC, Roberts is a Bush appointee (making me feel old there.) Just because I think Coolidge was a weak president doesn't mean that they don't think he was on the right track.

There are a lot of people who quietly think FDR was terrible.

stetson

Bullfrog wrote: »

Does the man really think that Calvin Coolidge was admirable? HL Mencken comes to mind:

H. L. Mencken, American Mercury, April 1933.

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.

And in fact, this whole piece is rather enlightening.

Thanks for that! Mencken's my favorite writer, though his literary influence now remains sadly confined to coining "Bible Belt", and even that is rarely credited to him.

But I'd be careful quoting Mencken about how a president should have "performed" during the Depression, since while he did support FDR in 1932, he quickly came to regard the New Deal as outrageously left-wing, which alienated his existing audience of smart-set liberals, a tendency only exacerbated by his muted isolationism during World War II.

(Mencken on the 1928 election between the puritan Hoover and the Catholic Smith, set against the backdrop of Prohobition, is a hoot. He seemed most in his element when taking iconoclastically liberal positions in the postwar/jazz age period, a posture that didn't transfer well to harder times.)

Bullfrog

stetson wrote: »

Bullfrog wrote: »

Does the man really think that Calvin Coolidge was admirable? HL Mencken comes to mind:

H. L. Mencken, American Mercury, April 1933.

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.

And in fact, this whole piece is rather enlightening.

Thanks for that! Mencken's my favorite writer, though his literary influence now remains sadly confined to coining "Bible Belt", and even that is rarely credited to him.

But I'd be careful quoting Mencken about how a president should have "performed" during the Depression, since while he did support FDR in 1932, he quickly came to regard the New Deal as outrageously left-wing, which alienated his existing audience of smart-set liberals, a tendency only exacerbated by his muted isolationism during World War II.

(Mencken on the 1928 election between the puritan Hoover and the Catholic Smith, set against the backdrop of Prohobition, is a hoot. He seemed most in his element when taking iconoclastically liberal positions in the postwar/jazz age period, a posture that didn't transfer well to harder times.)

Ha! I am happy to pick up an old crank with one hand and toss him out with the other. I've Mencken pretty extensively, also a fan of his style and aware that he was a cranky kind of centrist who'd shift with the winds of his whims.

I'm often reminded that the political alignments of the early 20th century don't make a lick of sense to the 21st, and trying to make sense of them tickles me, like how a lot of high minded social progressives were - as kids these days would put it - racist as fuck. Eugenics was also very popular in some of those circles.

But yeah, I think Mencken was apt to call out the conservatives for their corruption and political laziness. I can imagine how he'd have thought FDR would've gone overboard. Maybe he did? I dunno. That's my grandpa's generation, and he didn't talk too much about it when I was a little one.