Hey nicollo,
It’s incredible that the more that gets discovered of Theodore Roosevelt’s actual policies,(Policy proposals) you know, things of more substance than just that he shot a lion. The more anti-constitutionalist he obviously was. Obama could have said this, what you quoted from that speech.
But I wanted to ask you something different. I noticed something, let me know if you have noticed the same thing.(now that I’m mentioning it)
Have you ever noticed the aversion amongst conservatives to look at the progressive era from 1900 to 1920? There seem to be three primary camps:
1) Those who absolutely refuse to look at anything older than 1960. “Those damn hippies, it’s all their fault!” - or, The Weather Underground, or however you’ve seen it worded. All of the evils of progressivism begin in the 1960s and they’re proud to say it.
2) Those who cast it all to FDR. Both of these eras are problematic, but neither are “the source”.
3) Those who try to make arguments about progressivism before progressivism even existed. This group is highly disorganized. They’ll blame the Enlightenment, they’ll blame Abraham Lincoln, they’ll blame several other weird and kooky things. I get surprised sometimes when a new one appears.
But all three have the same problem. They all do everything they possibly can to avert their gaze from the actual literal progressive era. The era was so progressive it’s actually named the progressive era and yet they refuse to look at it. They’ll bend forward, they’ll bend backward, they’ll twist into knots and all sorts of other pretzel shaped formations. They cannot be moved. They will not look. The progressive era is 100% off limits. The progressive era is a protected species.
You may have noticed this, maybe not. But now that I mention it, have you seen this formula?
Why do you think there is such an aversion to discussing the era where progressivism was born?
I honestly think that if Conservatives could get off the TR train they’d better see what was going on.
Of course, the man himself cultivated the image of the Colonel, the Hunter, the man’s man, blah, blah, but, in my mind, it was cover — triangulation, as Clinton called it.
(One of Archie Butt’s private letters describes him as rather effeminate in his tennis play, btw — which brings to mind that TR’s overly-masculine image was more than just manliness, perhaps compensation... but I’ve never documented that, just a sense.)
So there’s much of that aspect of TR in Reagan and Trump, which people like, so they see only that. Isolate that comparative and Reagan and Trump have very little in common with Roosevelt.
Those same conservatives who see only FDR or LBJ/ Carter would more clearly see TR if they could remove that blind. The dude was a political genius, but so were Clinton & Obama — not necessarily a good thing (and neither of those two will fare historically as well as TR).
Despite his supposed several progressive excursions (which I don’t see as much different from the prior late-19th century Republicanism), Taft stayed the course and upheld the Constitution and the Rule of Law — both of which TR trashed. Taft would fare far better if TR were properly understood.
There have been reconsiderations of TR by conservative writers, but nothing with traction. I think that is because TR successfully appeals to all sides — a contradiction he planned out most carefully.
I have argued for many years that Woodrow Wilson was the worst US President ever.
He brought us into an insane overseas war (really a bloodbath) that was a battle between incestuous European Royals claiming he was going to “make the world safe for democracy”.
He created the Income Tax promising it would just be a tax on the very wealthy.
The Federal Reserve was created on his watch—supposedly to prevent market panics and economic collapses.
Human life, liberty and property have been in grave danger ever since.
He owns all of it.