Social Thoughts on "Heritage" Americans/Canadians?

[Deorum]

Because nobody since him has enjoyed that level of popular support.

Well, now we're literally back to where this started.

FDR had firm control of Senate and House though

That's an understatement, lol. He had 75-80% majorities in both chambers and held them down over the course of multiple cycles. He's the most dominant American politician statesman in modern history, if not ever. But you also have to consider that he was the head of the party and top of the ticket, meaning a large part of the party's success was tied to his leadership, platform, and policies.

I think I've played enough FDR Defender in this thread, in any case. With him, it's just basic acknowledgment and respect. He isn't even my favorite Roosevelt. I'm a Ted Head, and find him a lot more impressive than FDR, tbh. There's a dude who fundamentally changed America (in addition to revolutionizing global commerce) armed with little more than the bully pulpit and a couple of ten year old federal statutes. He didn't employ a brain trust or need supermajorities in Congress to do that. A solid 1/3 of his own party didn't even like him, and any shot of winning a single state in the South for the 1904 election evaporated the second he formally invited a black guy to the White House, lol.

 

[Deorum]

That's why...

Theodore Roosevelt National Park = NoDak.

Theodore Roosevelt Center = NoDak.

Theodore Roosevelt POTUS Library = NoDak.

@Mr Holmes

 

[Deorum]

A solid 1/3 of his own party didn't even like him, and any shot of winning a single state in the South for the 1904 election evaporated the second he formally invited a black guy to the White House, lol.

 

[Islam Imamate]

Ted doing righteous shit like this only for Woodrow Wilson to play Birth of a Nation in the White House.

 

[Rod1]

Well, now we're literally back to where this started.




I think I've played enough FDR Defender in this thread, in any case. With him, it's just basic acknowledgment and respect. He isn't even my favorite Roosevelt. I'm a Ted Head, and find him a lot more impressive than FDR, tbh. There's a dude who fundamentally changed America (in addition to revolutionizing global commerce) armed with little more than the bully pulpit and a couple of ten year old federal statutes. He didn't employ a brain trust or need supermajorities in Congress to do that. A solid 1/3 of his own party didn't even like him, and any shot of winning a single state in the South for the 1904 election evaporated the second he formally invited a black guy to the White House, lol.

And he didn't see Japanese as an incompatible race either

 

[Deorum]

Ted doing righteous shit like this only for Woodrow Wilson to play Birth of a Nation in the White House.

Ted certainly wasn't perfect, and it would be entirely disingenuous to paint him as some kind of civil rights icon because he was not. He was entirely preoccupied with the core issues of his platform (corporate regulation, consumer protection, conservation of natural resources, and expansion of US geopolitical power). On those fronts, he was the greatest POTUS in American history.

What you can say, at the least, is that he believed in equal opportunity and equality under the law. He judged on individual merit and wanted all Americans to succeed. He certainly didn't look to actively suppress or roll back opportunities and rights. The dinner was mostly symbolic but yet historic because it was the first time a POTUS had ever done anything as such, and it came at significant political cost to him. He had also desegregated public schools as governor of New York.

He gets criticized for imperialist and "warmongering" rhetoric, yet how many wars did this warmonger initiate and start when he was actually the President of the United States? The most dramatic foreign policy action he took was utilizing the US Navy to enforce a blockade in support of a bloodless revolution to secure the treaty (ratified by US Senate) and rights to engineer a canal linking the Pacific and Atlantic, which not only greatly enhanced US geopolitical power but revolutionized global commerce and trade at large. After that, he brokered the Treaty of Portsmouth to bring an end to the brutal Russo-Japanese war ("World War Zero") which won him the Nobel Peace Prize (lolz), and then organized the Algeciras Conference to hold off another between Germany and France.

This was an Ultra-Competent POTUS, certainly the most physically and mentally robust to ever hold office because he was also the youngest President in the history of the country.

 

[Deorum]

And he didn't see Japanese as an incompatible race either

Among US presidents, he is Tier 1 and top of the heap for competent, visionary leadership and on the bottom rung for death, destruction, displacement, and instability (domestic and global). It's ironic considering the dude resigned the cozy, authoritative security of being Assistant Secretary of the Navy to go voluntarily fight in the Spanish-American war. It's doubly ironic that he never sent American sons to die in war, given the extraordinary personal loss and sacrifices of his own family and sons.

He's the only POTUS in American history to have a son (Quentin) killed in combat (in World War I). The other three also all served, in both World Wars. One of them (Ted) was the oldest man and only general to take part in the first wave on D-Day at Utah Beach (TR's grandson was there too, on Omaha). Another (Archie) had his knee blown out in World War I, only to re-enlist for World War II and take another grenade to his legs. Kermit -- who had accompanied him on major scientific expeditions to East Africa and Brazil for the Smithsonian and American Museum of Natural History -- committed suicide on a US Army base in 1943.

And then there's his father, who was not only a major backer of the Northern cause in the Civil War and funded a bunch of hospitals and children's aid organizations in NYC, but a principal co-founder of two of America's greatest and most venerable cultural institutions: The Metropolitian Museum of Art and American Museum of Natural History. The charter for the latter was literally signed inside Teddy's childhood home, lol. Who the fuck are these people.

Heritage Americans?? I think we've found them.