I wouldn't say he was a great President, but I will say that he was one of the better ones. He did oversee most of the Roaring 20s ...
Prove me wrong, he is only bad because he didn't do more is that it? If your measure of being a president is only measured by the number of policies, he implements is it really a wonder we live in a society where the government is ever expanding?
Another Philippines related controversial take:
- The Philippines is doomed to be a colony of whichever nation wants it. China, Japan, Brunei (the Bolkiahs did rule parts of Luzon, including the city of Manila), Spain, Portugal, Britain, US, Netherlands.
Main reason being is that the Philippines straddles on a vital sea lane that is crucial to commercial trade on the seas. Heck, in any modern military operation, the Philippines would be high priority target. If held by the US, they can easily launch a naval blockade of China, with Japan and Taiwan's help. If held by China, they can easily attack Taiwan and Japan, making American resupply efforts more difficult. It explains why they're so gung ho on stealing all of the Spratly Islands.
How is this controversial? It's a known fact that within three days of the Battle of Manila Bay ending both a German and British Cruiser squadron showed up expecting American defeat hoping to establish protectorates, they along with Japanese had been funding rebel groups for years in the hopes that they could use a revolution as an excuse to get the islands.
Oh, I know that leftard scumbag appologists (or denayers) of communist genocides denigrate Franco as he saved Spain from becoming a gulagostan like the Soviet Union or Cuba, but you are saying that this is mainstream?!?
Maybe I need to go out more ...
It is mainstream.
Have no doubt Franco was horrible for overthrowing a democratically elected government even if socialist, but the majority of those who bemoan Republican Spain tend to be on the left and they frequently have a bad habit of ignoring the fact that Republican Spain was a house of cards with no clear established ideology,
Most likely had the left won, they would have fell into division the moment the SCW ended in a victory for them as very well happen in OTL in Barcelona when the Spanish Communist Party and their much vaunted and bemoaned international brigades started attacking pretty much every other Left Wing faction that up until then had been allied with the Popular Front including the Trotskyites, Anarcho-Syndicalist, which was so bad, it delusional a man named George Orwell from actually taking cause with any particular group again, even though he did remain somewhat left in his thinking.
The communist and international brigades labeled opposing leftist groups as 'fascist' instituted censorship and every other thing you would expect, so I don't generally understand those who cry out about them losing as once the SPC ended these people would turn on the rest and with Soviet backing attempt to enforce a Marxist state..
Anyway, another unpopular take:
The US would have been better off arbitrating a settlement to World War I rather than directly entering the war. That way, at least democracy in Russia would have had much higher odds of surviving. Edward "Colonel" House was already aware of this back in 1917:
A searing and highly original analysis of the First World War and its anguished aftermath—from the prizewinning economist and author of Shutdown, Crashed and The Wages of Destruction Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize - History Finalist for the Kirkus Prize - Nonfiction In the depths...
books.google.com
The U.S. offered to arbitrate the conflict multiple times; it didn't work. WW1 was a war where both sides decided they were playing for blood and keeps so no arbitration was ever taking place. I admit the U.S. would have been better kept out of the war though honestly.
Or, alternatively, the US should have militarily removed the Bolsheviks from power in Russia after it helped defeat Germany on the Western Front in late 1918.
We tried, we lost.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Expeditionary_Force,_Siberia#:~:text=The American Expeditionary Force, Siberia (AEF in Siberia),part of the larger Allied North Russia intervention.
I know what you are going to argue and technically 'yes' we could have like every other power involved taken out the Bolsheviks, the problem is that we were already tired from the Western Front and defeating the reds offered no rewards for the amount gained much like that conflict, the public had no real want of further battle for nothing.
Kerensky should have sued for peace with the Central Powers instead of pushing on with the war. That might make him unpopular, but at least it would deny the Bolsheviks a chance to launch their attempted coup.
Agreed.
Weird thing: when the US got the Phillipines the US didn't actually want to be colonial masters. Once things in the Phillipines settled down the US was more than happy to let go of the Phillipines. The US also wasn't going to fuck it up like so many other colonial powers did and wanted a smooth transition.
The entire Philippines occupation was just a debacle from the start, unlike in Cuba or Puerto Rico the U.S. had no real contacts with the locals nor a keen sense of the political situation, to say nothing of the fact that multiple bunglers committed atrocities, immediately souring any positive relations and inciting future uprisings.