“He could’ve played the statesman, withdrawn his candidacy, urged the party to stay united behind Taft in the 1912 general and to not split the party with the 3rd party Progressives for Congress and other downballot offices.”
I don’t base success of a politician based upon the party he/she prefers. My comfort is with the needs he/she provides to the majority of the people he/she serves. You seem so intent upon the party needs that do not always go in the direction of the people. I prefer a leadership that will challenge the registered party to do something in the best interest rather than this is how we always have done it. And that’s what made T Roosevelt and D Trump, and many times R Reagan, different. That’s what made them successful and follow the path of prosperity that the people actually wanted while the party was comfortable with getting by.
They were presidents that stand out because they were leaders in a direction of the people, not of the party. And that point I made clear. T Roosevelt was so willing to back the people he left the party he was in to do for them. So he was elected as a walk on. And that takes people, not party. Reagan was willing to go after Russia until he broke them into almost just being a land mass full of hungry people to protect our people. And Trump staged the greatest come back of a failing country in history economically, and protection wise, even though that old party got in his way at ever turn (and I’m talking about both). And he’s still paying the price for thinking of us rather than his party paycheck.
I can’t make it any clearer. These men, and a few more I didn’t mention, were leaders, not followers. And they are the leaders of change and success, the difference in today’s world between prosperity and survival. Right now we are in survival and losing. And the numbers show that with polls for 2024 candidates. In this world, if you don’t prosper, you die. They want prosperity back. And Biden is not the answer. Trump is the only choice to step forward and not back. And that course was set by T Roosevelt because he got the attention of the people and not the paymaster. Trump has made a show of giving away his paycheck, donating his salary to the National Park Service, the Department of Education, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Small Business Administration, the Surgeon General’s office and the Department of Agriculture. He understood that there’s no end to rich unless the rich set the limit. Our current politicians have no end to giving away your money. Way too much of it. And too much of that stops at their pockets on the way forward.
wy69
The answer to this is not to stop third or more party participation. The answer is to require a majority to win an election. Greater than 50%. So that somebody who gets 30 or 40% of the vote against the will of 60% of the people. You keep running the election over and over till somebody gets greater than 50%. Some states already do this.
Again, the problem here is that TR wasn't serving the people. He was serving his own unbridled ego. The enemy in 1912 was Socialism. Did he work to stop it ? No. He sabotaged a sitting Conservative President, created a third party around his ego designed explicitly to sabotage the Republican party, and allow the Democrats to win by a plurality - for which only a minority of Americans supported.
The Democrats had already been taken over by the Socialists in 1896 with its purge of the centrist Bourbons led by President Grover Cleveland. Cleveland remains to this day the last non-leftist Democrat elected President. Every Democrat since has been a Socialist, Communist or worse. I can't celebrate TR as a positive leader, especially when he willfully inflicted damage to this nation and sent us down the wrong path. Add to that his warmongering agenda, which has also been the cause of incalculable damage to humanity throughout the 20th century to today. It was only when one of his beloved sons was killed in WW1 when he finally began to realize that perhaps war was not all it was cracked up to be, especially when your dearest blood doesn't return home.
This remains a stark contrast here: TR took something in 1912 that WASN'T broken, and broke it. Reagan and Trump, conversely, were/are addressing problems with this nation that WERE broken (which again, could be traced back partly to TR) and also within the party itself, which had become corrupted. Putting the three of them together as a great triumvirate of leaders is an offense. Two wanted to save America, another was mad he had limited himself to two terms and wanted to get back in again, and was doing whatever was necessary to suit his ego. Huge difference.