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10 | T UESDAY, JULY 30, 2019 THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITIONTheodore Roosevelt died a century ago
in January, but his political legacy re-
mains up for grabs — today, perhaps,
more than ever. Everybody wants him
on their team. Senator Elizabeth War-
ren, a Democrat, has repeatedly cited
Roosevelt as her favorite president and
her “dream” running mate because, like
her, he pushed a progressive agenda
that included taking on industrial trusts.
“Man, I’d like to have that guy at my
side,” she told Ari Melber of MSNBC in
March.
Roosevelt was, of course, a Republi-
can, at least until 1912, when he ran as a
third-party candidate. Still, many in that
party continue to claim him as one of
their own — even as a forebear of Presi-
dent Trump. “I think the United States
once again has a president whose vi-
sion, energy, and can-do spirit is remi-
niscent of President Teddy Roosevelt,”
Vice President Mike Pence said in 2017.
At a gathering
earlier this month
dedicated to building
a nationalist conser-
vative movement —
called, appropriately,
the National Con-
servatism Confer-
ence — Senator Josh
Hawley of Missouri
approvingly cited
Roosevelt in a speech
about the rising
threat of “cosmopoli-
tanism.” Mr. Hawley,
one of the many
young Republicans jockeying to take
over the party once Mr. Trump leaves
office, knows what he’s talking about:
He wrote a well-received book about
Roosevelt’s political philosophy.
Like a handful of other figures in
American history — Washington, Lin-
coln, King — Roosevelt inspires admira-
tion across the political spectrum, in
part because his own politics are so hard
to place. Through his career and his
voluminous writings, he can appear as a
reformer, a nativist, an imperialist, a
trustbuster, a conservative and a pro-
gressive — often at the same time.
And it makes sense that Roosevelt is
in such demand. He came to promi-
nence in the late 19th century, a time
marked by many of the same challenges
we face today. Immigration was reshap-
ing the population. Technology and
globalization were tearing down old
industries and building new ones. Cor-
porate power was at an apogee. The
Republican Party was at war with itself.
Roosevelt offered answers to all these
challenges, and it’s easy to see why a
left-leaning Democrat like Ms. Warren
would find them compelling. One of his
first significant steps in office was to file
suit against Northern Securities, a
railroad holding company he claimed
was illegal under the Sherman Antitrust
Act. Though often skeptical of organized
labor, he supported unions. He was,
famously, America’s conservationist in
chief.Roosevelt also backed significant
expansions of the regulatory state, like
the Pure Food and Drug Act. And he
pushed for greater government control
over a number of industries through the
Interstate Commerce Clause, a tool
later used by his distant cousin Franklin
D. Roosevelt to build the New Deal.
His progressive zeal continued after
he left office in 1909. A year later, Roose-
velt delivered one of his most famous
speeches — “The New Nationalism” —
in Osawatomie, Kan. In it, he called for a
generous minimum wage, a progressive
income tax, an estate tax and laws that
would essentially ban corporate inter-
ests from politics.
“The man who wrongly holds that
every human right is secondary to his
profit must now give way to the advo-
cate of human welfare,” he said — the
sort of idea that, he noted, would surely
get him branded a communist.
But if Roosevelt was a progressive, he
was not a particularly liberal one, espe-
cially by today’s standards. He had little
patience for pluralism — he derided
what he deemed “hyphenated Ameri-
cans” — and he believed that America’s
future depended on constructing a
unified, common culture, a call thatechoes strongly among those pushing
for a new conservative nationalism
today.
At the National Conservatism Confer-
ence, Rich Lowry, the editor of National
Review, picked up on one of Roosevelt’s
core themes in his speech, “Why Amer-
ica Isn’t an Idea.” Like Mr. Lowry,
Roosevelt believed that America’s
political culture was rooted not in uni-
versal principles about things like
liberty and individual rights, but in the
specifics of its history, its landscape and
the experience of its people — which to
Roosevelt meant predominantly North-
ern Europeans.
That’s one reason Roosevelt, like
many of today’s conservative national-
ists, endorsed restrictions on immigra-
tion. In his 1905 message to Congress,
he said: “It will be a great deal better to
have fewer immigrants, but all of the
right kind, than a great number of immi-
grants, many of whom are necessarily
of the wrong kind.”
Especially in his later years, Roose-
velt’s nationalism, already problematic,
became overtly racist. He proposed
subsidies for white Americans to have
more children and endorsed sterilizing
the poor and mentally handicapped — aeugenic natalism that Senator Hawley
writes in his book, “Theodore Roose-
velt: Preacher of Righteousness,” was
“not entirely dissimilar to that pursued
by the German Third Reich.”
In the book, Mr. Hawley takes pains to
criticize Roosevelt for his racism, which
he concedes was central to Roosevelt’s
vision for America, and not just an
artifact of his time and place. Roose-
velt’s welfare-state agenda, he writes,
was not an end in itself; it was a means
to facilitate the growth of a culturally
homogeneous nation, dominated by the
descendants of Anglo-Saxon settlers.
Ms. Warren may dream of having a
trustbuster as a running mate, but
probably not one who refers to white
people as the “forward race.”
Still, Roosevelt’s nationalism
presents an even bigger problem for the
right. Like Roosevelt, Mr. Hawley and
others at the National Conservatism
Conference endorsed a long list of ideas
to facilitate a common American culture
— breaking up big business, protecting
domestic labor, rebuilding heartland
economies.
But all of that requires a powerful,
centralized federal government, rooted
in an expansive executive branch — the
kind that Roosevelt favored and Ms.
Warren supports, but that sits at odds
with the main currents of national con-
servatism and its belief that the federal
government has been captured by
“cosmopolitan” elites.
It’s a problem that Mr. Hawley con-
cedes in his book. “In the long run, then,
Roosevelt’s tenure represented not so
much the arrival of the imperial presi-
dency as it did the birth of a fourth
branch of government whose existence
has strained the constitutional order,”
he writes.
To be fair, Roosevelt is not yet a poster
boy for the nationalist right. But even if
they don’t fully embrace him, his atti-
tude toward public policy illuminates
the difficulty faced by any movement
that eschews both big government and
big business. In both practical and
political terms, it’s hard to see how you
can tame one without the resources of
the other.
Perhaps, then, the question is not
whether Roosevelt belongs to the right
or the left; rather, it’s why anyone
today wants to claim him at all. There is
a lot to admire about Roosevelt, and
also a lot to abhor, and in the end per-
haps the best to be said is that he was a
man of dynamic intellect and some-
times despicable ideas who drove his
country forward until he, inevitably, fell
behind the curve.
One thing is sure, though — Roosevelt
would have laughed at the thought of
anyone picking apart his legacy to
partisan ends. “There are on each side
unhealthy extremists who like to take
half of any statement and twist it into an
argument in favor of themselves or
against their opponents,” he wrote in- “No single sentence or two is
sufficient to explain a man’s full mean-
ing.”
Clay Risen
CLAY RISENis a deputy Op-Ed editor for
The Times and the author of “The
Crowded Hour: Theodore Roosevelt, the
Rough Riders, and the Dawn of the
American Century.”Who owns Theodore Roosevelt?
From
Elizabeth
Warren to
Mike Pence,
politicians
want to claim
him as their
inspiration.
They might
want to
reconsider.U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, in 1902.HISTORY ARCHIVE/UNIVERSAL IMAGES GROUP, VIA GETTY IMAGESNEWS ANALYSISFriedrich Hayek, whose thoughts used
to count for something among well-
educated conservatives, made short
work of nationalism as a guiding princi-
ple in politics. “It is this nationalistic
bias which frequently provides the
bridge from conservatism to collectiv-
ism,” he wrote in “The Constitution of
Liberty.”
That point alone ought to have been
enough to dim the right’s new enthusi-
asm for old-style nationalism. It hasn’t.
A three-day public conference this
month on “national conservatism”
featured some bold-faced right-wing
names, including John Bolton, Tucker
Carlson and Peter Thiel. The Wall Street
Journal’s editorial page published a
piece from Christopher DeMuth, a
former president of the American En-
terprise Institute, on the “nationalist
awakening.” Yoram Hazony, an Israeli
political theorist, has gained wide atten-
tion among U.S. conservatives with his
book, “The Virtue of Nationalism.”
And, of course, Donald Trump: “You
know, they have a word, it sort of be-
came old-fashioned, it’s called a nation-
alist,” the president said last October.
“And I say, really, we’re not supposed to
use that word. You know what I am, I’m
a nationalist.”
It says something about the sound-
ness of an idea that its currency owes
less to its intrinsic merits than it does to
the power of a man who has no ideas. Italso says something about the intellec-
tual plasticity of some newly minted
national conservatives that they now
champion a concept they would have
disdained just three years ago.
But let’s give nationalism its due.
Much of the world, including the free
world, is organized around the concept
of the nation-state. Nations — that is,
people whose ties involve not merely
citizenship but also ancestry, culture,
history, language, territory and some-
times religion — can have deeper politi-
cal cohesion, and inspire greater soli-
darity and mutual self-sacrifice, than
mere states. Nationalism offers protec-
tion to “somewhere people” against the
political and moral preferences of “any-
where people.” And transnational bod-
ies like the European Union have large-
ly failed the test of democratic represen-
tation and accountability.
The problem is, the United States is
not “much of the world.” We are a sover-
eign state, not a nation-state. Unlike,
say, Denmark, we have no official lan-
guage and no state religion. Our identity
is oriented toward the future, not the
past. We do have birthright citizenship
— though that, curiously, is something
many of today’s national conservatives
want to abolish. Our national borders
have changed repeatedly and may
change again.
America is the country under whose
banner the descendants of slaves give
military orders to the descendants of
slave owners and stand guard alongside
the children of immigrants from Greece
and Mexico in places like Panmunjom.
It’s where the biological son of a Syrian
immigrant created our first trillion-
dollar company. It’s where Jews cele-
brate Christmas by going out for Chi-
nese food.
All this is the essence of America’s
exceptionalism. It does not require open
borders, rule by U.N. mandarins, obei-sance to progressive pieties or any of
the other ostensible predations of “glob-
alism” that conservative nationalism
claims to oppose.
On the other hand, conservative
nationalism does require the main-
stream conservative movement to
jettison its best principles. Three in
particular stand out.
First, faith in free markets. As Hayek
noted, “to think in terms of ‘our’ indus-
try or resource is only a short step away
from demanding that these national
assets be directed in the national inter-
est.” The path from nationalism to na-
tionalization, or from the “national
interest” to the political interests of the
people in power, can
be brutally short.
Conservatives have
already forsaken the
cause of free trade.
What does Chris
DeMuth think will
happen when Presi-
dent Elizabeth Warren invokes nation-
alism on behalf of her economic
agenda?
Second, faith in free people. Conser-
vatives used to believe in the over-
whelming benefits of immigration. Most
nationalists want to restrict even legal
immigration. Conservatives used to
believe that America should always
speak and sometimes act in defense of
freedom-seekers everywhere. National-
ists strike the bargain that America will
mind its own business if others mind
theirs. Conservatives used to oppose
identity politics for being hostile to
individual freedom. Nationalism is the
superimposition of one form of identity
politics over various others.
Finally, faith in the American exam-
ple. Novus ordo seclorum: We are a new
order of the ages, not just a copy of the
old states of Europe writ large. Unlike
most other nations, we have opened ourdoors to human capital wherever it
comes from (and hence attracted a
greater share of it); and adopted good
ideas irrespective of who first had them
(and hence developed or commercial-
ized them more successfully); and
found ways to smooth, adapt and enjoy
cultural differences (and hence ren-
dered them generally benign). Nation-
alists only want to sharpen or weap-
onize those differences. To what end?
I’m not one to conflate nationalism
with “white nationalism,” much less
with fascism. Nor would I deny that a
nationalism moderated by liberalism
can serve other countries well. When it
comes to the United States, however, we
should recognize nationalism for what it
really is: un-American.Conservatives’ new pyrite
‘National
Conservatism,’
another road
to serfdom.Bret Stephens
Tucker Carlson speaking at the National
Conservatism Conference in Washington.JUSTIN T. GELLERSON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESopinion
The Trump administration has expected corporations
to cheer its efforts to lower environmental safeguards
— to permit poisonous pesticides, to gut mine safety
protections, to weaken rules on methane leaks in the
energy industry.
It can be assumed, then, that administration officials
thought they were offering the auto industry a gift with
their continued pursuit to undo Obama-era rules on
fuel economy intended to reduce greenhouse gases.
In a remarkable retort on Thursday, though, Ford
Motor Company and three foreign automakers —
which together represent roughly 30 percent of the
American market — announced that their interests lie
more with the planet, or at least with those who care
about saving it, rather than with the president.
Following weeks of secret negotiations, Ford, BMW
North America, Volkswagen Group of America and
Honda agreed with California on a set of auto emis-
sions standards that largely preserves the Obama-era
rules, which set an average fleet mileage goal of 52.
miles per gallon by 2025. The new regulations call for a
fleet average of about 51 m.p.g. by 2026 and include
other incentives. This is a reasonable revision. Presi-
dent Trump’s plan would lower the goal to 37 m.p.g.;
the national average was 24.9 m.p.g. in 2017.
Granted, it’s not as if corporate leaders have sud-
denly developed a higher level of environmental con-
sciousness. Car companies had initially instigated the
lowering of standards. But when 17 car companies
asked the administration in June to back off on weak-
ening auto pollution rules, they hinted ever so loudly
that undoing regulations was now unhelpful and un-
warranted. The automakers did not want to make dif-
ferent models for different states or countries. Their
business is global, with global supply chains, and a
minimal number of models to maximize the efficiency
of design and manufacturing.
An Environmental Protection Agency spokesman
called the California agreement “a P.R. stunt that does
nothing to further the one national standard that will
provide certainty and relief for American consumers.”
But given the market influence wielded by California
and the 13 others states — and Canada — that have
indicated they will sign on, the automakers say the
agreement itself would set one national standard.
“These terms will provide our companies much-
needed regulatory certainty by allowing us to meet
both federal and state requirements with a single na-
tional fleet, avoiding a patchwork of regulations while
continuing to ensure meaningful greenhouse gas emis-
sions reductions,” the companies said in a statement.
Is some of this automotive environmental embrace
driven as much by profit potential as by concern over
climate change? Probably, and that would be a good
thing. If sustainability produces a good return on in-
vestment — as it should — then corporations would be
irrational to ignore it. The California deal also gives the
automakers a hedge against a Democrat winning the
presidency next year and reverting to more stringent
rules.
Unlike the Trump administration, scientists and
engineers at many corporations — even energy compa-
nies — accept the data about global warming. They are
acting on those facts: utilities, by dumping coal-fired
generating plants for more efficient renewables; car
companies, by building more electric and hybrid vehi-
cles. Ford is planning a full EV version of its best-sell-
ing F-150 pickup. Harley Davidson just introduced an
all-electric hog. Ford is also investing in sustainable
transportation. The company’s Ford Smart Mobility
division owns Spin, the shared electric scooter plat-
form.
Unlike America’s president, America’s corporations
are preparing for the severe weather and higher sea
levels associated with climate change that threaten
their manufacturing and logistics operations. Corpo-
rate leaders are realizing that they have to answer to
constituencies other than Trump, and they can no long-
er ignore the economic, social and political conse-
quences of environmental risks.
The investment firm Morningstar recently estab-
lished a Low Carbon Risk Index Family to address
investors’ increasing interest in backing companies
that value sustainability, or avoiding industries, such as
oil and gas, overly exposed to carbon risk. These sus-
tainable funds are still relatively small, but they had
record inflows in the first half of the year.
“Governments are at loggerheads, so the focus is
increasingly on the corporation: what are you going to
step up and do,” says Jon Hale, Morningstar’s global
head of sustainability research. “It’s becoming a solu-
tion-driven debate, rather than sitting on the sidelines.”
The automakers that were left out of the negotia-
tions, including General Motors, Fiat Chrysler Automo-
biles and Toyota, should hop in and go along for this
cleaner ride.The president
wants to relax
auto emission
standards.
Carmakers
say, No thanks.POLLUTERS CLEANER THAN TRUMP
A.G. SULZBERGER,PublisherDEAN BAQUET,Executive Editor
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