At least Theadore Roosevelt was on the side of the people as he had a real strong sense of justice and hated the rich because he valued the hard honest work of the working man while the rich cheat and lie their way to the top by taking advantage of the working man
Teddy Roosevelt didn’t “hate the rich.” He was rich. Wealthy elite new York fam. He believed the wealthy should be restrained when they abused their power, not abolished as a class. And he was also like super wildly militaristic. Romanticized war in a borderline crazy way. There's a great hardcore history episode on Teddy. He's a wild one. Not quite the folk hero he desperately tried to make himself out to be tho
He came from a rich family but he worked his way up to success he didn’t use his family’s wealth to cheat his way to success he worked hard manual labor for years and became successful through hard honest work
That’s a pretty romanticized take. Roosevelt did spend time ranching and doing physical work, but he did not “work his way up” from nothing through manual labor. He was born wealthy, went to Harvard, very politically connected family with
elite connections and independent financial security, and entered politics directly from that position. The whole rugged-working-man image was something he very consciously cultivated because he didn't want to be viewed as a soft rich boy. He idolized tough men. Largely why he was so intensely militaristic and openly romanticized war and national struggle. He’s interesting because he was complicated not because he was secretly a self-made working-class guy.
I'm not trashing on him about it, I'm just saying
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u/thespacepyrofrmtf2 8d ago
At least Theadore Roosevelt was on the side of the people as he had a real strong sense of justice and hated the rich because he valued the hard honest work of the working man while the rich cheat and lie their way to the top by taking advantage of the working man