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Theodore Roosevelt, progressive — 5 Comments

  1. He is not the only one. A good argument can be made that Nixon was a progressive republican too… and not because he had political problems and was forced out…

  2. In 2011 was published “Theodore Roosevelt in the Badlands”, by Roger Di Silvestro, a history of TR’s several years as a largely absentee owner of a ranch in South Dakota’s Badlands.
    TR hoped to make big money from cattle ranching in the 1880s. But he did not, and he screwed over his impecunious managers (who were his minority partners, the two grunts and their families, all from New England, who had to endure the terrible winters) when he bailed out.

    There is a tell in this tale of the ardent Progressive who cloaked himself in early environmentalism and preservation: The bison (aka buffalo) herds had been decimated by this point. TR loved to hunt from horseback, and one wintry day rode up on a tiny group of bison–one bull, 3 or 4 cows, a calf. He killed the bull despite his knowledge of bison numbers, couldn’t help himself.

  3. The problem is not with classical progressivism per se, but with its generational evolution, especially the development of internal inconsistencies. It’s the same problem which afflicts every philosophy, including liberalism, where the generational variety little resembles its classical predecessor. The problem is principally with generational “rebels” and selective standards.

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