Speaking of TR, I read the first two volumes of Edmund Morris' massive (one is tempted to say 'definitive') biography of Theodore Roosevelt. I didn't know all that much about TR before reading those volumes. At least I did not know as much as I thought I knew. The first volume (The rise of Theodore Roosevelt) was almost like reading an adventure story, dealing as it did with TR's struggles with poor health, his loss of his first wife and mother on the same day, his adventures in the Dakotas, the Spanish American War, etc. The second volume (Theodore Rex) dealt with his presidency. I was shocked to see how "progressive" TR eventually became. He basically "pulled a Rubio" in switching from conservative principles to progressive ones to the point he may as well have been William Jennings Bryan. I remember thinking as I read it: "thank God TR did not stand for another term". I need to pick up the third volume (Colonel Roosevelt) and read it soon.
I never read Morris’ first volume. I thought volume 2 was great and volume 3 will allow you to see what a full blown progressive and global interventionist TR had become. Vol 3 highlights his hatred of Wilson and Wilson’s hatred of TR. But the two were peas in the same pod, though Wilson ascribed his fascist ideas to his idealistic visions while TR was less visionary and more pragmatic. Both men were clear precursors of Fascism. And one thing that must be emphasized, and the cover art of Jonah Goldberg’s great work failed to do this, is separate fascism from Nazism. If we can do that, we can clearly point to the fascistic goals of progressives then and now and not be sidetracked by complaints that we are equating Democrats with death camps.