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.
We think alike on this.
I have yet to see any better answer than audiobooks as the best way forward to break this formula, simply because it affords opportunities for popularization where none existed prior.
Actually, it’s the only answer I’ve seen. When I can get thousands or even tens of thousands of people to listen to something, that is by far the single furthest reach.