On a cold January day in 1925, after winning the election the previous November on the campaign slogan, “Keep Cool With Coolidge,” President Calvin Coolidge spoke to the Society of Newspaper Editors in Washington, D.C.
What the pro-business Republican said has been misinterpreted and misquoted over the ages, but the Coolidge sound-bite that is used by conservatives today to assert the nation’s place explains to some degree why GOP national leaders were unable to react to Donald Trump when he sought their nomination in 2016 and how they are unable to react to him today as president.
“The business of America is business” is the quote often used by Republicans to make their case for a smaller, less regulatory government that is to serve business.
Trump is no Calvin Coolidge, and Coolidge was never the vanguard of a business class that sees the only purpose of government as to help it make greater profits regardless of the cost to society or the individual.
What Coolidge told newspaper editors that day in 1925 was that newspapers sought a balance between reporting on social ills and reporting on businesses. Coolidge’s actual quote and in context was this:
“After all, the chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with producing, buying, selling, investing and prospering in the world. I am strongly of the opinion that the great majority of people will always find these the moving impulses of our life.”
Coolidge then added some introspection, which put these remarks in perspective:
“Of course, the accumulation of wealth cannot be justified as the chief end of existence. But we are compelled to recognize it as a means to well-nigh every desirable achievement. So long as wealth is made the means and not the end, we need not greatly fear it … But it calls for additional effort to avoid even the appearance of the evil of selfishness. In every worthy profession, of course, there will always be a minority who will appeal to the baser instinct. There always have been, probably always will be, some who will feel that their own temporary interest may be furthered by betraying the interest of others.”
Coolidge’s last sentence was true then and true today.
Everyone, no matter what their political ilk, believe in and, when they have the opportunity, take pride in owning a business. Many understand government and regulation can help businesses and consumers; indeed, government is often a customer, not just a manager to ensure fair play.
Conservatives, though, seem to respond to business as a pillar of a religious faith blessed by an Almighty that wants the act of buying and selling to go unfettered lest the evil hand of government choke the profit-making life out of enterprise. In this climate, capitalism takes no prisoners.
Trump, if you listen carefully, stands astride both these viewpoints, which makes his political philosophy difficult to nail down. Yet, there is a tone to his ramblings, a dog whistle that the GOP can hear. It’s the sound of salesman.
Trump’s success as businessman is less about making money or developing useful – or frivolous – products or proposing grand ideas to better commerce and society. His greatest talent is that of salesman. The Donald may go down in history as America’s greatest salesman.
After all, if “the business of America is business,” then who revs the engines to make the wheels of commerce turn, to convince buyers to buy? The salesman and saleswoman – a good one could sell you the Brooklyn Bridge.
A few did in fact, including con artist George C. Parker, who sold the bridge many times to buyers who tried to erect toll booths only to have the police break the news to them that they had been had.
Parker was eventually caught and sent up the river: “Brooklyn Bridge ‘Seller’ Sent To Sing Sing For Life,” read The Nov. 23, 1928 New York Times headline.
In Trump’s company, Parker is wannabe when it comes to sales. For Trump, bridges are chicken feed compared to the biggest pitch of his life: selling the world on the idea that he is master at making money, a wheeler-dealer who can lose money as well as make it and still be successful.
Politics, like business, has always been about winners and losers, and the winners are lauded no matter how they won election or made their wealth. A winner is a winner and a loser is a loser. No wonder Trump easily dispatched his 16 sales competitors in the GOP primary market. They didn’t know the art of salesmanship. Trump, however course he sounds, clearly does.
By the time the Republican nomination race kicked off, Trump had, after many years of work, perfected the art of selling himself as the most successful, smartest businessman there is while his competitors, in his words, were “losers.”
It also helped that Trump’s timing was good – signaling to a voter base disenchanted with political parties for failing them that he, the non-political guy, was going to fix everything, and sealing the deal with his pitch, “make America great again.”
Trump convinced enough voters to buy what he was selling, but now one month in as president it remains unclear exactly what he sold or what the American people bought.
