WORST. HITLER. EVER:

As for being the first “authoritarian” in history to reduce the size of government, Calvin Coolidge would like a word here: In his 1944 State of the Union address, FDR smeared the laissez–faire Coolidge era of the 1920s as “the spirit of fascism.”

FDR ended that speech with one of the most disgusting exhortations against his political foes — and liberty itself — ever offered by an American president in a major address. He said, in part:

One of the great American industrialists of our day—a man who has rendered yeoman service to his country in this crisis-recently emphasized the grave dangers of “rightist reaction” in this Nation. All clear-thinking businessmen share his concern. Indeed, if such reaction should develop—if history were to repeat itself and we were to return to the so-called “normalcy” of the 1920′s—then it is certain that even though we shall have conquered our enemies on the battlefields abroad, we shall have yielded to the spirit of Fascism here at home.

Ah yes, if we go back to the 1920s, an era of rampant prosperity and expanding liberty we will have surrendered to Fascism. That is grotesque.

But it’s a grotesquerie that refuses to die. Which seems odd; as Charles Cooke asked the left during the 2016 election, “Has Donald Trump’s remarkable rise done anything to change your mind as to the ideal strength of the State?”