omg Teddy Roosevelt for president!

p.s. thanks to alfred for the recommendation of 1912, which i finished last week.

You're welcome.

Be careful with Teddy as a role model. As an uncommonly shrewd politician, he refused to take positions or, in the case of trust-busting, would pay lip service to the need but back away from the reality (Taft actually prosecuted more trusts). It's barely remembered now that McCain's favorite president was essentially lame duck for almost two years thanks to a recalcitrant Congress.

The second Morris bio has even better prose, as if now that he's entered the phase of Teddy's life with which most people are familiar he can deepen the portraiture. The first fifty pages, recounting the aftermath of McKinley's death (Teddy was on a mountain), are just masterly.

isn't the medical consensus that that expedition basically killed him, and he would otherwise have taken the presidency in 1920 when he rejoined the republicans?

Totally. Wilson fractured the Democratic Party for twelve years. The much-discussed "smoky hotel room" in which GOP mandarins picked non-entity Warren Harding testified to the leadership gap after Teddy's death.

Also: TR's behaviour through most of WWI was disgusting.

I think the Dem demographic rainbow would be rather upset with invoking a 5-star imperialist like TR even solely on domestic/corporate matters.

Nixon also obsessed w/ him, as in White House farewell speech.

Nixon's favorite president was Wilson!

well of course he was a politician, and a shameless self-promoter. and his presidency was a mixed bag, like most presidencies are viewed close-up. but if you look at the entire arc of his career, from the state assembly on, he was pretty consistent and outspoken in his ideas about political corruption, the dangers of concentrated wealth and the need for good, strong laws and regulation. even when those ideas were hardly to his advantage within the republican party, which was most of the time.

xp:
yeah on foreign policy in general i think it's best to just shield your eyes.

Also: Republicans did not stand for states right then. A robust national government supporting high tariffs that tossed a few crumbs to ex-slaves = the GOP between 1865-1920.

yeah, wilson had to pay more deference to jim crow than republicans did, because of the democratic coalition. and both his and TR's warmonger sins are undeniable. but i think they were still the two strongest social reformers the country had from lincoln to fdr. and that was a product of the times as much as their leadership, but they were also committed to those causes.

anyway, i'd rather obama invoked roosevelt than reagan.

I said this on the US politics thread, but I can't recommend this book more highly, especially on the naked corporate cocklicking of SCOTUS.

BHO's first "Reagan was inspiring" quote on campaign trail = huge uh-oh

xp

I finished this over the holiday: this man gets my vote as the greatest figure of that period.

i'd like to read that, know very little about brandeis.

wilson had to pay more deference to jim crow than republicans did

Deference? I thought Wilson was an out-and-out bigot.

I was going to say.

As noted here by Alfred at the start:

Woodrow Wilson - Classic or Dud?

"As governor, Sarah Palin paid deference to ill-educated morons."

i mean political as opposed to personal. the democratic party was committed to segregation policy-wise with a fervor that republicans weren't required to match.

(and yeah i'm overstating things by calling wilson a social reformer. he was more a bureaucratic reformer, with that kind of progressive faith in the power of bureaucracy and sound management.)

i think it's mostly just striking to me if you look at what was accomplished legislatively in that era vs. what it seems possible to even talk about now. it's easy to give the guys who happened to be president then credit for things that went way beyond their personal goals or achievements.

It's really amazing how Reaganism has completely defined "the possible" for our two goddamn parties for 30 years. I'm pretty sure RWR secretly learned sorcery at Warner Brothers.

Substitute "Rooseveltism" and you sound like Barry Goldwater in '62.

I don't believe in the Great Man theory of history. Forces, movements, and ideas coalesce around figures; Reagan happened to be there, and did a supernatural job articulating them.

Supernatural? He IS a sorcerer!

http://www.pierretristam.com/images2/i08/0713-mccain-reagan.jpg

Oh right, levitating the table.

that looks like a production still

"You see, John, this table here...it's gotta rise."

I don't believe in the Great Man theory of history. Forces, movements, and ideas coalesce around figures; Reagan happened to be there, and did a supernatural job articulating them.

― Blue Fucks Like Ben Nelson (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, January 29, 2010 5:12 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark

mostly otm, altho you do need the right figure. like, people are trying to turn sarah palin into something that she clearly is just not up to, and she's never going to be president. obama obviously lots of people wanted to be a figure of one kind or another, and he wants to be a figure too, but the things i think he wants to embody (bringing the country "together," "healing") are not actually politically available to him, and he's not really inclined or equipped to embody the other things people want him to.

yes Alfred, of course he was a figurehead, and they couldnt have done it w/out him.

FYI, just noticed that the third volume of Morris's bio, Colonel Roosevelt, is scheduled to be released in November. Exciting! I recently finished Rise and just started Rex, with River Of Doubt next on the docket. What a fascinating life that dude had.

This is welcome news!

a+

Hahah well that takes care of part of my Xmas gifts for my dad then. (See comment near start of the thread.)

Anyone else excited for the Ken Burns series on the three Roosevelts?

As soon as my dad saw a promo for it he was all charged up. (Teddy is still his all time fave president, along with Lincoln.)

He's always been high on my list of U.S, presidents #lol #weed

Scorsese-DiCaprio film on TR in the works

plz God no

That was rumored aaaaages ago, sounded like the dumbest casting ever and no less so even as Leo has gotten puffier.

yes, but it is now "set" at Paramount

http://deadline.com/2017/09/leonardo-dicaprio-martin-scorsese-teddy-roosevelt-movie-paramount-1202177329/

I went to the TR Birthplace site on East 20th St in Manhattan yesterday, and didn't know til the tour started that the mansion is a replica! Original was razed around 1916. They have family furniture and relics in it though.

It just occurred to me after scanning through that it was this thread that inspired me to read the Morris biographies years ago. So thanks! I really must do that again sometime.

most overrated president ever

Overrated sure, but not most overrated He was bonkers and imperial, but he also really liked rattling cages and his reformist streak was legit if limited. Edith Wharton's favorite politician, with all that implies. I'm biased by Edmund Morris, I know, but he was a pretty unusual guy.

To quote my OP from 13 (!) years ago, "One of the chief factors in progress is the destruction of special privilege." Easier to say than do, but still he said it.

One of the best writer presidents, legit erudite, much more of statesman than the unhinged jingo of the 1910s, would have gotten the GOP nomination in 1920 and likely have won again. But a symbol of rebellion that didn't do much as prez except play president exquisitely well.

http://www.foundationsmag.com/tr-character.html

Not long ago two of the wealthiest men in the United States publicly committed themselves to the proposition that to go to college was a positive disadvantage for a young man who strove for success.

This essay could've been written today.

a symbol of rebellion that didn't do much as prez except play president exquisitely well

Yep, though that's a weakness of the system as much as the president. And playing the role well counts for something. (Or used to.) But sure, he was more big talk than big stick.

alfred -- surely TR is not overrated than wilson?

I'm pretty sure it was on another thread, or else on a link from another thread, where I recently read a quote from Alice Longworth, Teddy's daughter, who said TR wanted to be "the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral."

omg Alice Longworth for president!

Teddy's statue in front of Nat Hist in NYC coming down, and i'm all for it, me the #1 genocidalist ilxor:

https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/controversial-theodore-roosevelt-statue-will-be-removed-american-museum-natural-historys-front-steps

If you blast him off Mt Rushmore tho, Reagan or Trump will replace him and you know it.

I thought removing a TR statue was a little extreme until I saw the actual statue and was like uh yeah that DEFINITELY needs to come down, jeez

Yup. I'm not sure the museum would be taking it down on its own if Roosevelt were the only figure it depicted.

i'm surprised it's lasted this long / i'm not surprised it's lasted this long

Jesus

still a lot of Great White Fathers around