Political Memes

I mean, there's also a strong element that Eisenhower ultimately was a man of his era. As General Sherman (himself possessed of some very questionable time-appropriate views) once noted, "Men are creatures of habit, not originality."

This isn't to say Eisenhower gets a complete pass on his bigotry because the past was bigoted; nor does it mean that Eisenhower, even outside of that, was anything close to perfect - him letting the metaphorical leash off of the CIA is something which we are still paying for today, for example.

But it is alright to look at a figure of the past and say "They were above-average for their time, and that's good; they had a fundamental humanity that shone through past their flaws, and that's good; I hope that, one day, people will look back at me and the politics I support in a similarly critically positive light".

People of the past deserve admiration for being stepping stones to a better future, not for being the high-mark of our society. We should never go back to the standards of their era or them themselves, but we should also be able to appreciate where and how they put future generations in position to demand more from our society.

Eisenhower fought the fucking Nazis - and what's more, unlike cretins like Patton, recognized the horror for what it was, insisting on preserving the memory of the death camps so that future fascist-wannabes would find it harder to deny the atrocities that fascism led to. Eisenhower picked the Republican Party to run for in the hopes (sadly now shown to be vain) that America could have two progressive parties which disagreed on policies, not principles. He was committed to the ideals of democracy, equality, law, and individual liberty, whatever his other faults and deep imperfections in execution, and fuck, I personally know people today I could not say as much of.

Like I said, I don't mean for this to be pure hagiography - but at the same time, it's okay to break out a little praise for dead old folks sometimes. Especially when it's meant, in part, to shame the present for not being able to live up even to lower, obsolete standards.

tl;dr; the past IS bad, it's okay to praise the parts where people fought, however imperfectly, for it to get better; the present is ALSO bad, and the present also needs to get better - something which will only happen if we fight for it, even if in an imperfect way