“He was a progressive big Government guy who started a lot of the overreach we are suffering today.”
The worst thing he did was run 3rd party in 1912 which handed the presidency to Wilson. The 20th century began its great unraveling thanks to Wilson, from the income tax, creation of the federal reserve to the intervention in WWI.
Absolutely. Wilson was a catastrophe who did massive damage to our country.
It’s hard to categorize the “worst” things Theodore Roosevelt did as president, as well as afterwards as a third party/third presidential term candidate.
There’s the 17th Amendment, direct election of senators.
16th amendment
He was the first in U.S. history to implement price controls during peace time. (Hepburn act)
He was a globalist, TR
He gave us the unconstitutional FBI
He gave us the concept of a pen-and-phone presidency, which used executive orders as a run-around-congress - making him King Teddy I
He gave us the modern conception of a bureaucratic state, spawning dozens of bureaucracies staffed with dozens of lifers, none of which was constitutional
Not to mention, the beginnings of the nationalization of land under the auspices of “protecting” - which now some states like Nevada and Arizona and Alaska are more owned by the Federal government than they own themselves.
He also was the very first president to fight for social justice.
So his role in helping Wilson, after seeing all this, well, it makes sense. Taft started out his first two years being in the mold of Roosevelt, then said to himself “hey wait a second, this is wrong!”
Like it or not Theodore Roosevelt was the guy who laid the groundwork for the “economic president” that FDR came to embody - disastrous court cases such as Wickard v. Filburn do owe their existence to Theodore Roosevelt and his fight for antitrust and trying to put government in control of corporate america.
TR himself acknowledged this in his own autobiography, saying about himself that:
“I have always believed that it would also be necessary to give the National Government complete power over the organization and capitalization of all business concerns engaged in inter-State commerce.”
What do you think “complete power” means? No, it’s not something cute and cuddly. That’s what Wickard accomplished. TR’s beliefs.
King Teddy the First was a terrible, terrible president.