signalmankenneth
Verified User
I just can't see Trump winning in 2024, if he is the GOP nominee, I guarantee he would not get 71 million poplar votes either?!!
CNN —
He was a former Republican president with a mammoth ego, a sense of entitlement and simmering resentments. Critics called him mentally unstable and a racist, and some even noted his small hands.
We’re talking, of course, about one of America’s greatest presidents — Theodore Roosevelt.
There’s been a lot of commentary recently about the legendarily tough Roosevelt, who once insisted on giving a nearly 90-minute speech moments after being shot in the chest by a would-be assassin. After former President Trump recently announced plans to run for the White House in 2024, some pundits said he could provoke a schism within the GOP that could hand the presidency to the Democrats—the same scenario that Roosevelt triggered in 1912.
Roosevelt precipitated this GOP doomsday scenario when, almost four years after leaving the White House, he challenged his party’s presidential nominee in 1912, William Howard Taft. Roosevelt tagged the portly Taft with insulting nicknames such as “Fathead,” “Puzzlewit” and “Flubdub.” When he failed to secure the GOP presidential nomination, he claimed the party’s nominating process was corrupt.
He then formed a third party to run in the general election, which split the GOP base, handing the election to the Democratic presidential candidate, Woodrow Wilson.
“The parallels to 1912 for the Republicans are striking and terrifying,” says Jerald Podair, a historian at Lawrence University in Wisconsin. “There was very little the GOP could do institutionally in 1912 to prevent this debacle. Roosevelt was determined to become president again and held a substantial portion of his party in thrall. So there was no compromise possible, no middle-ground face-saving to save the day.
“1912 is not so much a warning to the Republican Party in 2024 as it is an ominous prediction.”
But look deeper, and you’ll find at least three other ominous parallels between Roosevelt and Trump. They reveal that the line between a great and failed president is much thinner than most people realize.
Yes, Trump and Roosevelt differ in many ways
Comparing Roosevelt with Trump may seem at first like historical blasphemy.
Sure, there are some superficial similarities. Both were born into moneyed New York families, both had wealthy, demanding fathers who profoundly shaped them, and both took on the political establishment of their era.
But Roosevelt was a progressive who battled corporate monopolies, disdained the idle rich and had a genuine compassion for the poor. He championed many reforms — a living wage, a social safety net that included workmen’s compensation, pensions for the elderly — adding up to what he called a “Square Deal” for the less fortunate.
Trump’s signature policy victory during his only term in office was the passage of a tax cut that largely benefited corporations and the wealthy.
Roosevelt’s physical courage was also unquestioned. Before he became president, he once knocked out a gun-toting, drunken cowboy who accosted him in a bar. And he led a regiment of calvary volunteers, known as the Rough Riders, on a famous charge during the Spanish American War in 1898.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/04/politics/trump-teddy-roosevelt-parallels-blake-cec/index.html
CNN —
He was a former Republican president with a mammoth ego, a sense of entitlement and simmering resentments. Critics called him mentally unstable and a racist, and some even noted his small hands.
We’re talking, of course, about one of America’s greatest presidents — Theodore Roosevelt.
There’s been a lot of commentary recently about the legendarily tough Roosevelt, who once insisted on giving a nearly 90-minute speech moments after being shot in the chest by a would-be assassin. After former President Trump recently announced plans to run for the White House in 2024, some pundits said he could provoke a schism within the GOP that could hand the presidency to the Democrats—the same scenario that Roosevelt triggered in 1912.
Roosevelt precipitated this GOP doomsday scenario when, almost four years after leaving the White House, he challenged his party’s presidential nominee in 1912, William Howard Taft. Roosevelt tagged the portly Taft with insulting nicknames such as “Fathead,” “Puzzlewit” and “Flubdub.” When he failed to secure the GOP presidential nomination, he claimed the party’s nominating process was corrupt.
He then formed a third party to run in the general election, which split the GOP base, handing the election to the Democratic presidential candidate, Woodrow Wilson.
“The parallels to 1912 for the Republicans are striking and terrifying,” says Jerald Podair, a historian at Lawrence University in Wisconsin. “There was very little the GOP could do institutionally in 1912 to prevent this debacle. Roosevelt was determined to become president again and held a substantial portion of his party in thrall. So there was no compromise possible, no middle-ground face-saving to save the day.
“1912 is not so much a warning to the Republican Party in 2024 as it is an ominous prediction.”
But look deeper, and you’ll find at least three other ominous parallels between Roosevelt and Trump. They reveal that the line between a great and failed president is much thinner than most people realize.
Yes, Trump and Roosevelt differ in many ways
Comparing Roosevelt with Trump may seem at first like historical blasphemy.
Sure, there are some superficial similarities. Both were born into moneyed New York families, both had wealthy, demanding fathers who profoundly shaped them, and both took on the political establishment of their era.
But Roosevelt was a progressive who battled corporate monopolies, disdained the idle rich and had a genuine compassion for the poor. He championed many reforms — a living wage, a social safety net that included workmen’s compensation, pensions for the elderly — adding up to what he called a “Square Deal” for the less fortunate.
Trump’s signature policy victory during his only term in office was the passage of a tax cut that largely benefited corporations and the wealthy.
Roosevelt’s physical courage was also unquestioned. Before he became president, he once knocked out a gun-toting, drunken cowboy who accosted him in a bar. And he led a regiment of calvary volunteers, known as the Rough Riders, on a famous charge during the Spanish American War in 1898.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/04/politics/trump-teddy-roosevelt-parallels-blake-cec/index.html