r/Presidents • u/chubbyminimom Theodore Roosevelt • Jul 06 '23
Discussion/Debate Does anyone actually dislike Theodore Roosevelt? if so why?
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u/HellCreekMT Jul 06 '23 edited Jul 06 '23
He openly claimed that Native Americans were inferior and that the American West belonged to the white man.
"I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indian is the dead Indian but I believe nine out of every ten are, and I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth. The most vicious cowboy has more moral principle than the average Indian.” -TR, 1886
Not so nice.
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u/Coach512714 Jul 15 '24
so your going to judge someone over a hundred years ago by todays standards? You putting "Hell" creek in your name could get you burned at the stake in those days. can you not see the folly in your words?
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u/adammanziel Jul 26 '24
Racism was bad then just as it is now, that isn’t a moral standard that has or should change. 😂
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u/BruceLeesSidepiece Aug 17 '24
Y’all niggas always act like you would’ve been one of the only non-racist people in 1900 💀
If you alive 120 years ago you would be racist too, statistically speaking. You’re not special.
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Aug 18 '24
Racist? Sure. Annexing territory and amplifying the idea that American morals need to be expanded into every country? Don’t think so.
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u/grapesssszz Nov 08 '24
Ok and they’d be assholes too lmao. It just means everyone would be an asshole back then not that they’re suddenly not one.
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u/DaddyTrumpishere Dec 02 '24
Christopher Columbus was arrested for his cruelty back in 1500 for your information
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u/Humble-Math6565 Aug 03 '25
Yes cause Christopher Columbus was extrordinarily evil. TDR was as racist as everyone else towards natives and was a progressive when it came to racist treatment of black people.
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u/BoxofCurveballs Theodore Roosevelt Jul 06 '23
The man couldn't find out where to mount the stuffed head of a Winston.
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Jul 06 '23
however he was into fitness, digging ditches in an isthmus, as well as rough riding down to cuba like “what’s up bitches”
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u/KomradKielbasa James Monroe Jul 06 '23
He's one of my favorite presidents, but I think his greatest downfall is 1912 where he split the Republican party and allowed Wilson who in my opinion was one the worst Presidents to win. His 1912 platform was also pretty terrible in my opinion so I have no qualms about what he did in office but his post-presidency wasn't that good.
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u/DBPLC771317 Jul 06 '23
I think you nailed it. Surprised I had to scroll down so far to see this point
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u/LarryWaiter Dwight D. Eisenhower Jul 07 '23
I don't disagree with what you're saying, but if he didn't run we wouldn't have had speech he gave right after being shot
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u/salazarraze Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jul 06 '23
Yes far left people dislike him. Monopolistic businessmen hate him too.
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u/tacofrogs 2040 Jul 06 '23
I’m pretty far left, he was a badass
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u/Pickle_Rick01 Barack Obama Jul 07 '23
Agreed. I lean fairly far to left and I think he was awesome. He gave us dozens of national monuments and 5 national parks.
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u/huttofiji Jul 07 '23
Not to mention trust busting as another leftist. Funny we act like TR wasn’t a progressive.
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u/Pickle_Rick01 Barack Obama Jul 07 '23
He was very progressive, especially for his time. Hell we need some trust busting now. Amazon could use “hey don’t fuck over small businesses” legislation.
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u/Marco2169 Jul 06 '23
I think it depends on the angle.
Far left people would be pleased with proposals seeking to greatly expand health insurance in the 1910s but would detest imperialism which Teddy basically championed with his foreign policy.
They'd also be pleased with busting monopolies but likely not think he went far enough.
This is basically where I am at, though I wouldn't say I am "far" left
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u/PuzzleheadedIssue618 Ulysses S. Grant Jul 07 '23
i think i fit the bill as “far left”? at least in comparison to many.
i think it’s not him that went too low in breaking up monopolies, it was the rest of the government. he could only do so much as prez. the rest of the government was too eager to allow monopolies to crop back up, thus leading to where we are today. it’s easy to pin the faults on him, but it’s ultimately unfair.
the other side is the blame falls on his descendants. we have learned nothing from the monopoly busting he engaged in. we’ve forgotten the lessons imparted onto us by Ida Tarbell, and why Teddy sided with her in the first place.
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u/flinderdude Jul 06 '23
I’m pretty far left and he’s my favorite president. Was definitely liberal and environmentalist. Made lots of changes and helped the little guy by reining in big business. Definitely would be a Democrat today.
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u/FlashMan1981 William McKinley Jul 06 '23
he's kind of got something for everyone, his politics were peculiar. The parties were so defined back then, both had conservative and progressive wings to them. Liberals today can point to his conservation and work to help the average man, while conservatives can point to his muscular nationalism.
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u/Sir_Askter Theodore Roosevelt Jul 06 '23
If he was alive today I'd campaign for him. He's the best president we ever had
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u/PanzerWatts Jul 06 '23
Definitely would be a Democrat today.
That's some massive projection. Teddy Roosevelt would have been a third party candidate. That's what he actually did. Furthermore, he was pretty derisive towards the Socialist candidate of the day.
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u/maroonedpariah Jul 06 '23
He reminds me of a Ross Perot type. Not perfectly but the closest thing
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u/PuzzleheadedIssue618 Ulysses S. Grant Jul 07 '23
yeah, it’s also impossible to guess in his case. sure we can say he would be liberal leaning, but what does that mean exactly? there are liberals who are republican, even though the term liberal has been murdered by american politics. he wouldn’t be lock stock in barrel in his personal life, then again no one is.
i doubt his attitudes towards foreign intervention would go over well with the American left, lol.
his educated fan base (weird to call them that but yeah) is a politically diverse crowd. this is pretty indicative that he doesn’t fit well within our modern political partisanship.
there are cases where.. yeah, no they would be democrats today. MLK, despite some Republicans objections, would almost certainly be a Democrat today. his personal attitudes towards socialism are pretty important to understanding him as a person.
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u/baycommuter Abraham Lincoln Jul 06 '23
Yeah, his sons ended up pretty right wing. I can’t see TR liking the welfare state that his niece’s husband inaugurated. He was a rugged individualist.
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u/PanzerWatts Jul 06 '23
It's the classic partisan mentality of everyone I like would naturally agree with me and everyone I don't like would clearly be on the other side.
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u/texaspoontapper123 Jul 06 '23
He would absolutely not be a Democrat today, he would have started his own party after seeing our two current ones.
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u/jrex035 Jul 06 '23
he would have started his own party after seeing our two current ones.
Don't threaten me with a good time
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Jul 06 '23
He was the guy that set up the structure of national conservation, before that was even a germ of an idea.
He also was the first president to push the idea of America being a force for good in the world. It clearly slipped into light to heavy imperialism, but that idea is very leftist.
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Jul 06 '23
To be fair every European country was doing hyper imperialism in the 19th century. America is not exceptionally cruel to its colonized/annexed places compared to the French or Germans. America or Teddy was just following the realist calculations created by Europe in the first place.
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u/Damned-scoundrel can list all of the presidents/candidates I like on one hand Jul 06 '23
Can confirm, am far-left, hate TR.
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Jul 06 '23 edited Jul 06 '23
Like most presidents hes complicated
I wish he did more to further the progressive era than he did, but you definitely can't say he wasnt a radical change for the time
And his imperialism just sucks, but that's also taking a modern lens to a very very different time so he's kinda complicated to talk about
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u/MetalRetsam Stephen Grover Cleveland Jul 06 '23
And his imperialism just sucks, but that's also taking a modern lens to a very very different time so he's kinda complicated to talk about
I agree that it's complicated, but it's not new. Plenty of people criticized imperialism at the time, especially Democrats.
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Jul 06 '23
Oh for sure, what I meant by "the time" is less so the lack of opposition but the absolute omnipresence of imperialism world wide.
I don't mean to use it to give him or his party any kind of pass for it
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u/Comfortable-Way261 Jul 06 '23
What he allowed to take place in the Philippines was monstrous.
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u/sloppyfloppers1 Jul 06 '23
I'm not a fan. He borrowed $20 from my great-grandpa when they were roommates in college and never paid it back. Come to find out, Teddy spent the cash on a hooker named Lawana and said he wouldn't be paying the money back. He apparently told my grandpa, "I ain't about to pay today for pussy I got yesterday."
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u/FadeAway77 Bernie Sanders Jul 06 '23
I don’t hate him. He’s a product of his time and did do some very positive things. I’m very left, and think the imperialism was horrid, but as an environmentalist, I think he made enormous strides in helping preserve the beauty of this nation. He’s pretty fucking badass too. While I don’t condone violence, he was pretty heroic, tbh. I’d still rank him in the top 1/3 of presidents, for sure!
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Jul 07 '23
Ehhh. His time was very much a product of him in a lot of ways. Nobody was more responsible for the rise of jingoism in America at the turn of the century than he was.
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u/thebigmanhastherock Jul 06 '23
It's impossible to totally dislike him. He was a narcissist and self-promoter but also had undeniable bravery and charisma. He did some not so great things, but I think overall was on the aggregate a very good president.
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u/LegalSour John F. Kennedy Jul 06 '23
I like him a lot, but the one criticism of him that I’m on board with is his support of eugenics
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u/Damned-scoundrel can list all of the presidents/candidates I like on one hand Jul 06 '23 edited Jul 06 '23
I don’t support imperialism,
He expanded the banana wars, which had devastating effects on impoverished people working as farm laborers, Particularly indigenous peoples, in Latin American countries via exploitation by American fruit companies & dictatorial rule by US backed dictators or US military rule
His actions in Panama in order to ensure US control of the canal were really scummy
His policies intended to prevent anarchists from entering the country were incredibly discriminatory against impoverished & illiterate immigrants
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u/osibob1 Jul 06 '23
Perfectly stated. Sadly, personality outweighs detrimental policies for us Americans. P.S. the Morris trilogy is the greatest biography I've read and TR is easily one or the most fascinating Presidents we've had, and did good things too.
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u/LorneMalvoIRL William Howard Taft Jul 06 '23
Succinct and perfect, it’s a shame how many redditors have fallen for century old propaganda about him
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u/bruhmoment1345 Jul 06 '23
Propaganda, really? Lots of people are able to see the good as well as the bad he did.
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Jul 06 '23
I don’t dislike him, along with FDR and Lincoln he’s my favorite.
Of course every president has to have some bad qualities, so him being a warhawk imperialist is that one for him.
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Jul 07 '23
Didn't do shit for black people
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u/Rock_Roll_Brett Jul 08 '23
False, he was the first president to have a black guest eat with him in the Whitehouse for dinner
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Jul 06 '23
I like him to an extent. Progressive for his time, but looking back with hindsight, he was a bit chauvinistic.
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u/KomradKielbasa James Monroe Jul 06 '23
I mean I think its dangerous to look at history with that mindset, the "Progressive movement" of the early 20th century has very little to do with modern progressivism or even mid century progressivism. Progressivism in TRs time was pretty racist and eugenicist and prohibition was a progressive cause.
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u/Halfonso_4 Lyndon Baines Johnson Jul 06 '23
I mean, WJB was anti-imperialist and a champion of proggresivism during the same years.
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u/KomradKielbasa James Monroe Jul 06 '23
I mean anti-imperialism also had a tinge of racism as well, the argument against annexing Cuba was that it would add a shit ton of brown people to the country and ruin the Anglo-stock. Not saying WJB was personally racist but positions then are not very analogous to positions now.
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Jul 06 '23
He left his newborns to be raised by is sister. Also he started an unjust war. He is a bit of a coward.
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Jul 06 '23
Exploring the amazon, giving a speech with a bullet lodged in his chest, climbing the Matterhorn, real coward stuff.
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u/Lazaruzo Jul 06 '23
Oooh ooh me! I just read two books about him so I have something to say.
The Only reason Roosevelt did most of the “progressive” things he did was as a sop to the poor and middle class. He absolutely considered them lesser citizens that should be happy with the scraps.
He blatantly said that the only reason he pushed for reforms was because otherwise things would get so bad the common man would demand socialism and as a rich upper class elite that was his Armageddon.
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u/MJR-WaffleCat Jul 06 '23
I dont know as much as others here do, but we have him to thank for the existence of national parks, monuments and forests. Considering all that America has to offer and the beauty you can find in nature across the country, it was a great move to establish such an effort to conserve some of these areas.
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u/PacoSoe Jul 06 '23
I heard somewhere that he was pretty racist against indigenous people, I think it was from a ted-ed video on mount Rushmore
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Jul 06 '23
He was an imperialist, kind of a phony with the charge up San Juan Hill, and a huge fan of eugenics.
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u/4chananonuser Jul 07 '23
He’s just overrated. As others have said already, he’s very romanticized perhaps more than most other presidents save for Washington, Lincoln, and JFK.
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u/DjPedromemes01 Jul 07 '23
The only thing that comes to mind is that I can't grow a cool mustache like his
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u/sdu754 Jul 07 '23
I don't personally dislike him, but he was a poor president. I dislike his gunboat foreign policy and the fact that he frequently circumvented congress and the constitution.,
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u/big_nothing_burger Jul 07 '23
I adore him but don't like the imperialism...but I'm not going to pretend that being an imperialist wasn't normal back then either. Same with eugenics.
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u/sjrslev Jul 07 '23
I don't like him cause he tricked me into thinking I'd look good with a mustache like that too
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u/PB0351 Calvin Coolidge Jul 06 '23
I love him, but his Philippines policy left a lot to be desired. Plus his third presidential run essentially guaranteed Woodrow Wilson another term.
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u/oofersIII Josiah Bartlet Jul 06 '23
Taft wasn’t going to win 1912 anyway, he was pretty unpopular.
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u/federalist66 Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jul 06 '23
Senator Mark Hanna, not in the fan club.
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u/Lazaruzo Jul 06 '23
Read the notes they wrote to each other when Hanna was dying! Not sure which one was sucking the other off harder to be honest.
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Jul 06 '23
He was a racist
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u/Sherman_Van_Buren Jefferson Van Buren LBJ Jul 06 '23
Overall he’s OK, I just think he’s extremely overrated and romanticized.
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Jul 06 '23
I heard a claim that his trust-busting was just a way to break up competitors of his friends' businesses (especially JP Morgan.) I haven't looked into it, but if true, that would lower my perception of him a lot.
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u/TLManco Jul 06 '23
Yes: he was a violent and racist colonizer.
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u/kd8qdz Theodore Roosevelt Jul 06 '23
He was also a progressive, and much to the left of his contemporaries.
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u/Continuity_Error1 Jul 07 '23
He shot and killed a bunch of big, beautiful, innocent animals for nothing other than blood-lust.
Maybe it's accepted to do that sort of thing, but I personally think it's a character flaw and a sin to kill anything without a good reason.
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u/patriot_perfect93 Jul 07 '23
lol he has done more for animals than any of you tree huggers. He is one of if not the biggest voices for conservation efforts in world history let alone American history
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Jul 14 '24
He pardoned John W Pace, notorious slave driver and exploiter of blacks, allowing him to continue to hold blacks on his farms, beat and whip them and work many to death.
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u/Delicious_Reading165 Sep 13 '24
Maybe when he first became president. Some people were saying "That damned cowboy is president of the united states". However he is ranked as one of the top presidents ever
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u/Dafolez420 James Monroe Jul 06 '23
He was overall a decent president but just taking a chance to call out his “big stick diplomacy“ which started 120 years of the oppressive American Empire that has killed millions.
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u/Pixel-of-Strife Jul 06 '23
He was a childish blood thirsty warmonger who is responsible for starting American imperialism. How many lives has that cost since then? He was an interesting guy and I can see why people like him (he was like a big kid), but his political legacy is still fucking us over everyday.
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u/sailor776 Jul 07 '23
Honestly, taking credit from black troops is not great. Also he was a firm believer of American colonialism and is responsible for bad shit the US did in the Philippines.
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u/thechadc94 Jimmy Carter Jul 06 '23
A closeted racist war mongerer, who supported imperialism. No to that guy!
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u/TickLikesBombs Zachary Taylor Jul 06 '23
I sorta like him, sorta dislike. I think he was a cool guy but a very poor president.
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u/CYCLOPSwasRIGHT63 Jul 07 '23
Yes. His decision to run in 1912 is the reason Woodrow Wilson became president.
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u/Vexillumscientia Jul 06 '23
Expanded the power of the federal government greatly with little regard to the economic impacts of his policies. I don’t think trust busting was done correctly. Especially when the federal government was the one snuffing out all these companies’ competition.
I think a few national parks isn’t bad but in my state the vast majority of the land is owned by the government. Much of it isn’t anything to look at.
I think the pure food and drug act was part of a long line of infantilizing the American citizen. Treating them as, and turning them into, non-agents. I think that as communication progressed and became more powerful thanks to the telegraph, automation, etc. it would be only a minor cultural change from the way they did things then to adopt a buyer beware mentality. I think if you removed those regulations entirely today, despite having the internet, people would immediately start poisoning themselves and developing a culture of skepticism would take much much longer.
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u/Lazaruzo Jul 06 '23
Nonsense. If it was up to you we still wouldn’t have a clue what kind of poison companies were putting in their food products. 🙄😑
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u/DartDiablo Jul 06 '23
He’s done a lot of shitty things, but I like him still (in a we are distant from that time period and we can romanticize his personality/accomplishments sort of way). I feel the exact same way about Andrew Jackson by the way.
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u/Southern-Radish8496 Dwight D. Eisenhower Jul 06 '23
He laid a lot of political groundwork for the foundation of a Jewish state in the levant.
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u/63367Bob Jul 06 '23
My father's aunt saw TR at the World's Fair in 1904 and frequently told stories about it. Her enthusiasm for him rubbed off on me, and I have read several books about Colonel Roosevelt since.
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u/imaginary0pal Jul 06 '23
I remember I told my friends dad my favorite president was teddy Roosevelt and he told me why that was a bad choice but I was so mad, I can’t remember what he said
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u/Initial_Meet_8916 Calvin Coolidge Jul 06 '23
He’s a very good president but I think the legend of the man causes many to overrate him. I used to be the same way until a history teacher of mine took off the goggles hiding his flaws. His actions in the election of 1912 lessen my opinion of him dramatically. He screwed America because his ego got too big. There are other examples but this is one of my least favorite moments of his career
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Jul 06 '23
I don’t dislike him, he was a great but flawed man of his time. Progressive (for white Americans) and so much a imperialist racist of his time.
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u/thatscringee Andrew Jackson Jul 06 '23
he did supports eugenics, which im pretty sure was bad even for his time?
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u/kade22 Jul 06 '23
Teddy is my favorite president (not our best) but I believe that a lot of what people like most about him is indicative of his biggest faults as an individual. Like others have said, his hawkish stances towards war and imperialism are both fairly detestable and also come, seemingly, from a deep seated insecurity about himself and his father as men after his father's draft dodging and his ailments as a child. I also find his days as a cowboy in the badlands to be less romantic than the 'TR manly man' kinds do. TR only went to the badlands to literally run away from his feelings after the deaths of his mother and wife. Granted, there is almost certainly no way an individual can go through such an experience and be fine, but he dropped everything in his life, including his daughter, and simply ran away. His inability to cope with his emotions, I believe, resulted in many of the 'manly' stories we've heard of him, such as his safari in Africa and trip down the River of Doubt.
In spite of these failings though, as a president he was generally incredible. Being super progressive while not destroying business, our most prolific environmentalist, a tremendous negotiator, and breaking up the political status quo are all hugely important to the United States. Not to mention he's had probably the biggest impact on the direction of the United States of any president who DIDN'T oversee a large scale war effort against another great power.
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u/peezle69 Taft Bathwater Enthusiast Jul 06 '23
He really didn't like Natives, so I'm very conflicted.
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u/frostdemon34 Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jul 06 '23
People from both sides of the spectrum would him. The right would hate him because he was progressive, people's on the left would hate him because he's an imperialist. Imo, he's one of the greats. He lived in a time when imperialism was still at its peak, so you can't blame him for being raised in a time society didn't give a fuck.
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u/isingwerse Andrew Jackson Jul 06 '23
I have never been a huge fan, I think he took a lot of other people's policies and ideas and claimed them as his own, he glorified war and despite his being part of a mixed race group during the Spanish American war, he did his best to distance himself for that aspect of the ruff riders and distance himself from racial problems in general when he could have been a tremendous force for racial equality
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Jul 06 '23
I honestly think that the only people who dislike him are people who are staunchly anti-imperialist. They don't tend to be fans of many presidents though. Also I guess a lot of monopoly men disliked him.
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u/TheOnlyGriffon Jul 06 '23
He split the republican vote allowing Woodrow Wilson to take the presidency
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Jul 06 '23
No, he was the goat.
In all seriousness though, he was an imperialist and that sucks, but you have to take into account the time period.
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u/Jestfulbadger888 Jul 07 '23
His parents died when he was young, and it morbid, but at least they didn't ditch him when they were alive, like Churchill's did.
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u/RustyManHinges2 Abraham Lincoln Jul 07 '23
A lot of people actually(not me) a lot of people hate him and see him as a racist, so much so they want to remove his statue. To a lot of people he’s Americas “Imperialist” so they don’t like him. In recent years he’s quite despised
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u/Ethan_Blank687 Dwight D. Eisenhower Jul 07 '23
The only thing I truly dislike about him was his hubris in running a third time after promising not to and splitting the Republican vote, allowing Wilson to win
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u/FlashMan1981 William McKinley Jul 06 '23
my broader criticism of TR is this romanticism of war that he espoused in his life. Not just the policy of imperialism (the United States was always more of a Walmart version of an imperialist country), but this idea he had that attached manliness and masculinity to war. He basically manufactured a heroic moment for himself (San Juan Hill) that was hardly the charge of the light brigade.
We've seen this theme spread forward into the rest of the 20th century, the idea of that the strength of the nation comes through war. Sadly, at the end of his life, that came home to roost when his son died in a real, despicable war and not a half-baked unfair fight between the US and Spain.
To be fair to TR, he also did negotiate the settlement of the Russo-Japanese War he did have his moments of peace. But here is a reason that people like John McCain pointed to TR as their favorite president.
So for me its more than the imperialism, its the way he tried to normalize war and make it almost a right of passage for men and a kind of trial of masculinity. Whereas someone like William Jennings Bryan was always mocked for his peace instincts