The Big Difference Between Donald Trump and Teddy Roosevelt
This surely counts as “negative” information, but Trump and Roosevelt did have much in common. Like
Roosevelt, Trump is a crude imperialist dedicated to American expansionism
regardless of the desires and aspirations of the rest of the world. He probably
will not succeed in colonizing Greenland and Canada (or Gaza) as Roosevelt once
colonized the Philippines, but his rhetoric to that effect is sincere. The men
share an obsession with masculinity—their own and that of the country. (On
Roosevelt’s imperialism and his cartoonish tough-guy persona, you might be
surprised to find that a 2008 Yale University Press book by future senator Josh Hawley is quite
good.) The two presidents also share a racist
and eugenicist
worldview.
But as the existence of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park—and
Teddy’s comments on patriotism—suggests, that’s where the comparison ends. Roosevelt
has been called the “conservation president.” He enacted the Antiquities Act of
1906, which gave him—and presidents ever since—broad leeway to declare new
national landmarks and monuments. He used the law to protect six cultural
areas, including Montezuma Castle, and 12 natural areas, including a huge
swath of the Grand Canyon. He also doubled the number of national parks from
five to 10, adding Oregon’s Crater Lake, South Dakota’s Wind Cave, North
Dakota’s Sully’s Hill, Colorado’s Mesa Verde, and Platt, Oklahoma. He created
150 national forests and 55 bird sanctuaries and game preserves. In total, he protected some
230 million acres of public land.
At
the 1903 dedication of the gates of Yellowstone National Park, the
first-ever national park, which had been created by President Ulysses S. Grant
in 1872, Roosevelt said, “Nowhere else in any civilized country is there to be
found such a tract of veritable wonderland made accessible to all visitors … noteworthy
in its essential democracy.” Private lands, he said, can benefit the larger
community but from the standpoint of the public interest, “could never be more
than poor substitutes” for national parks “created, and now administered, for
the benefit and enjoyment of the people.”
That’s probably why Trump and congressional Republicans hold
our public lands in such deep contempt. Why would they let “the benefit and
enjoyment of the people” stand in the way of billions of dollars for the
superrich? The version of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act currently being negotiated
in the Senate puts hundreds of millions of acres of public lands up for sale to
pay for billionaire tax breaks. Some of those targeted are popular
recreation spots, hunting grounds, wildlife conservation areas, and even
historic sites. An April poll by YouGov found
that 71 percent of Americans, including 61 percent of Trump voters, oppose the
sale of public lands to private bidders.
