Roosevelt’s evolution as a deal-maker defined his presidency—and offers profound lessons to the current occupant of the Oval Office.

Doris Kearns Goodwin

Picture a man with an unquenchable thirst for celebrity, who gets into rows with everybody, who has a gift for punchy quips that make headlines; a man of undeniable charisma who so craves being the center of attention he wants to be the baby at the baptism, the bride at the wedding, and the corpse at the funeral. “While he is in the neighborhood,” one critic grudgingly concedes, “the public can no more look the other way than the small boy can turn his head away from a circus parade!” We speak, of course, not of our current president but of Theodore Roosevelt, based on depictions from more than a century ago.

As a presidential historian, I am often asked which of our past presidents might be best suited for our current moment in time. No doubt it would be Roosevelt. T.R. could surely master our social-media age and especially the Twitterverse with his vivid, memorable aphorisms: “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” “Don’t hit till you have to; but, when you do hit, hit hard.” “It is hard to fail but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.”

Like President Trump, Roosevelt took office in turbulent times. At the turn of the 20th century, the Industrial Revolution had shaken up the economy much as the technological revolution and globalization have redefined our lives today. Big companies were swallowing up small companies. New inventions had quickened the pace of life to a frenzied degree. People in rural areas felt alienated. A menacing gap had opened between the rich and the poor.

Roosevelt looked to the future with what he called a “Square Deal”—for the rich and the poor, the capitalist and the wage-worker. Candidate Trump promised to utilize his skill, which he laid out in The Art of the Deal, to bring America back to a simpler time of greatness. But, in the end, the success of any deal depends on the character and the experience of the dealer. No one would argue that either Roosevelt or Trump suffered from a deficiency of bravado or confidence. Yet Roosevelt grew in power precisely because he grew to know his limitations, because he developed the humility to acknowledge his mistakes. After his first, wildly successful term in the state legislature, he developed, in his own words, a “swelled” head. Whenever opposed, he would yell, pound his desk, and retaliate with venom. While his blistering language made great newspaper copy, he soon found himself bereft of support. It began to dawn upon him, he conceded, that he was “not all-important” and that “cooperation from other people” was essential.

That President Trump has not developed such humility is evident. When asked during his campaign whom he consulted on foreign policy, he said, “My primary consultant is myself, and I have a good instinct for this stuff.” Accepting the Republican nomination, he noted, “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.” In the long run, however, the presidency has a way of humbling even the most self-assured.

While both Roosevelt and Trump were born to extraordinary privilege, Roosevelt’s empathy slowly expanded through his long political career. As a state legislator, he investigated the dreadful conditions in New York City’s tenements. As police commissioner, he roamed the slums between midnight and sunrise. His understanding of his fellow citizens broadened during his time in the armed forces, as New York governor, and as vice president. In sum, he was amply prepared as a leader in 1901 when the assassination of William McKinley catapulted him to the presidency at age 42, the youngest man ever to occupy the White House.

During the unprecedented Republican-primary season of 2016, long and broad public service was perceived as a liability. The times were ripe for a candidate with no political background to catch the lightning. Things were so topsy-turvy and toxic, it seemed as if we had left a world where experience, temperament, and character mattered, and entered one where knowledge of history and government and law had all been jettisoned. Candidate Trump brilliantly capitalized on these atmospherics by railing against the political status quo and giving a voice to those who felt excluded.

Campaigning and stoking one’s base, however, is not governing. Governing requires bringing sides together, rather than simply tallying wins and losses. This understanding of leadership has eluded Trump so far. “You hear lots of people say that a great deal is when both sides win,” Trump maintains. “That is a bunch of crap…. I always win.”

Imagine a leader like Roosevelt, who sought a fulcrum point between contending sides, who strove to forge a common purpose among conservatives and progressives. To knit classes and regions together, he traveled by train for weeks at a time through rural areas and cities in places where he had been defeated as well as in states he had won. He listened to local complaints and spoke in folksy language that reached the hearts of his countrymen. His inclusive leadership sutured, rather than exacerbated, divisions.

Imagine a leader who developed remarkably collegial relations with the press, those now termed the “enemy of the American people.” Roosevelt invited reporters to meals, took questions during his midday shave, and, most importantly, absorbed their criticism with grace. A celebrated journalist mercilessly lampooned Roosevelt’s memoir of the Spanish-American War by claiming Roosevelt should have called the book Alone in Cuba, since he placed himself at the center of every action and every battle. Roosevelt replied with a winning capacity for self-deprecation: “I regret to state that my family and intimate friends are delighted with your review.”

Consider today the novelty of a leader like Roosevelt. When friends warned him against keeping on the slain McKinley’s Cabinet, fearing some members might not be loyal to the replacement president, Roosevelt replied, “If the men I retained were loyal to their work they would be giving me the loyalty for which I most cared.” What mattered was their sworn loyalty to the job and the country—not their personal fealty.

Imagine a leader who used “the bully pulpit,” a phrase Roosevelt coined to connote the platform inherent in the presidency, to educate the American people about the importance of a healthy civic life. “Bully” to Roosevelt meant first-rate or superlative: gaining one’s objective by persuasion rather than through the darker meaning of bullying. “Civic life,” Roosevelt preached, “must be marked by the fellow feeling, the mutual kindness, the mutual respect, the sense of common duties and common interests which arise when men take the trouble to understand one another.” Acrimony and antipathy develop, he argued, when “the two sections, or two classes, are so cut off from each other that neither appreciates the other’s passions, prejudices, and indeed, point of view.”

The Square Deal, the slogan that would come to characterize Roosevelt’s entire domestic program, was predicated upon this fellow feeling and a determination to be fair to all. “I believe in rich people who act squarely, and in labor unions which are managed with wisdom and justice. But when either employee or employer, laboring man or capitalist, goes wrong, I have to clinch him, and that is all there is to it.”

The Square Deal, like all deals, hinged upon intention, promises, pledges, and execution. All deals are based upon stability and coherence. The words that make up a durable deal cannot be granted one day and walked back the next. Roosevelt called words that were emptied of meaning “weasel words,” as if a weasel had sucked out the nourishment of truth and left behind an empty shell.

Today, a pattern has emerged of misspoken statements, half- truths, invented distractions, and outright fabrications. Critical analyses and disagreements are termed fake. Blatant falsehoods are repeated again and again. Yet constant repetition of an assertion does not make it true—except perhaps in the nonsense realm of Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark: “Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true.”

This is beyond simply winning or losing. There is a terrible danger in growing accustomed to the erosion of meaning in our political discourse. Serious, perhaps lasting, damage is being done to our identity as Americans and to our democracy. We are moving in a direction in which trust will be vaporized and truth becomes a fugitive.

Roosevelt’s evolution as a deal-maker defined his presidency—and offers profound lessons to the current occupant of the Oval Office.

Doris Kearns Goodwin

Picture a man with an unquenchable thirst for celebrity, who gets into rows with everybody, who has a gift for punchy quips that make headlines; a man of undeniable charisma who so craves being the center of attention he wants to be the baby at the baptism, the bride at the wedding, and the corpse at the funeral. “While he is in the neighborhood,” one critic grudgingly concedes, “the public can no more look the other way than the small boy can turn his head away from a circus parade!” We speak, of course, not of our current president but of Theodore Roosevelt, based on depictions from more than a century ago.

As a presidential historian, I am often asked which of our past presidents might be best suited for our current moment in time. No doubt it would be Roosevelt. T.R. could surely master our social-media age and especially the Twitterverse with his vivid, memorable aphorisms: “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” “Don’t hit till you have to; but, when you do hit, hit hard.” “It is hard to fail but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.”

Like President Trump, Roosevelt took office in turbulent times. At the turn of the 20th century, the Industrial Revolution had shaken up the economy much as the technological revolution and globalization have redefined our lives today. Big companies were swallowing up small companies. New inventions had quickened the pace of life to a frenzied degree. People in rural areas felt alienated. A menacing gap had opened between the rich and the poor.

Roosevelt looked to the future with what he called a “Square Deal”—for the rich and the poor, the capitalist and the wage-worker. Candidate Trump promised to utilize his skill, which he laid out in The Art of the Deal, to bring America back to a simpler time of greatness. But, in the end, the success of any deal depends on the character and the experience of the dealer. No one would argue that either Roosevelt or Trump suffered from a deficiency of bravado or confidence. Yet Roosevelt grew in power precisely because he grew to know his limitations, because he developed the humility to acknowledge his mistakes. After his first, wildly successful term in the state legislature, he developed, in his own words, a “swelled” head. Whenever opposed, he would yell, pound his desk, and retaliate with venom. While his blistering language made great newspaper copy, he soon found himself bereft of support. It began to dawn upon him, he conceded, that he was “not all-important” and that “cooperation from other people” was essential.

That President Trump has not developed such humility is evident. When asked during his campaign whom he consulted on foreign policy, he said, “My primary consultant is myself, and I have a good instinct for this stuff.” Accepting the Republican nomination, he noted, “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.” In the long run, however, the presidency has a way of humbling even the most self-assured.

While both Roosevelt and Trump were born to extraordinary privilege, Roosevelt’s empathy slowly expanded through his long political career. As a state legislator, he investigated the dreadful conditions in New York City’s tenements. As police commissioner, he roamed the slums between midnight and sunrise. His understanding of his fellow citizens broadened during his time in the armed forces, as New York governor, and as vice president. In sum, he was amply prepared as a leader in 1901 when the assassination of William McKinley catapulted him to the presidency at age 42, the youngest man ever to occupy the White House.

During the unprecedented Republican-primary season of 2016, long and broad public service was perceived as a liability. The times were ripe for a candidate with no political background to catch the lightning. Things were so topsy-turvy and toxic, it seemed as if we had left a world where experience, temperament, and character mattered, and entered one where knowledge of history and government and law had all been jettisoned. Candidate Trump brilliantly capitalized on these atmospherics by railing against the political status quo and giving a voice to those who felt excluded.

Campaigning and stoking one’s base, however, is not governing. Governing requires bringing sides together, rather than simply tallying wins and losses. This understanding of leadership has eluded Trump so far. “You hear lots of people say that a great deal is when both sides win,” Trump maintains. “That is a bunch of crap…. I always win.”

Imagine a leader like Roosevelt, who sought a fulcrum point between contending sides, who strove to forge a common purpose among conservatives and progressives. To knit classes and regions together, he traveled by train for weeks at a time through rural areas and cities in places where he had been defeated as well as in states he had won. He listened to local complaints and spoke in folksy language that reached the hearts of his countrymen. His inclusive leadership sutured, rather than exacerbated, divisions.

Imagine a leader who developed remarkably collegial relations with the press, those now termed the “enemy of the American people.” Roosevelt invited reporters to meals, took questions during his midday shave, and, most importantly, absorbed their criticism with grace. A celebrated journalist mercilessly lampooned Roosevelt’s memoir of the Spanish-American War by claiming Roosevelt should have called the book Alone in Cuba, since he placed himself at the center of every action and every battle. Roosevelt replied with a winning capacity for self-deprecation: “I regret to state that my family and intimate friends are delighted with your review.”

Consider today the novelty of a leader like Roosevelt. When friends warned him against keeping on the slain McKinley’s Cabinet, fearing some members might not be loyal to the replacement president, Roosevelt replied, “If the men I retained were loyal to their work they would be giving me the loyalty for which I most cared.” What mattered was their sworn loyalty to the job and the country—not their personal fealty.

Imagine a leader who used “the bully pulpit,” a phrase Roosevelt coined to connote the platform inherent in the presidency, to educate the American people about the importance of a healthy civic life. “Bully” to Roosevelt meant first-rate or superlative: gaining one’s objective by persuasion rather than through the darker meaning of bullying. “Civic life,” Roosevelt preached, “must be marked by the fellow feeling, the mutual kindness, the mutual respect, the sense of common duties and common interests which arise when men take the trouble to understand one another.” Acrimony and antipathy develop, he argued, when “the two sections, or two classes, are so cut off from each other that neither appreciates the other’s passions, prejudices, and indeed, point of view.”

The Square Deal, the slogan that would come to characterize Roosevelt’s entire domestic program, was predicated upon this fellow feeling and a determination to be fair to all. “I believe in rich people who act squarely, and in labor unions which are managed with wisdom and justice. But when either employee or employer, laboring man or capitalist, goes wrong, I have to clinch him, and that is all there is to it.”

The Square Deal, like all deals, hinged upon intention, promises, pledges, and execution. All deals are based upon stability and coherence. The words that make up a durable deal cannot be granted one day and walked back the next. Roosevelt called words that were emptied of meaning “weasel words,” as if a weasel had sucked out the nourishment of truth and left behind an empty shell.

Today, a pattern has emerged of misspoken statements, half- truths, invented distractions, and outright fabrications. Critical analyses and disagreements are termed fake. Blatant falsehoods are repeated again and again. Yet constant repetition of an assertion does not make it true—except perhaps in the nonsense realm of Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark: “Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true.”

This is beyond simply winning or losing. There is a terrible danger in growing accustomed to the erosion of meaning in our political discourse. Serious, perhaps lasting, damage is being done to our identity as Americans and to our democracy. We are moving in a direction in which trust will be vaporized and truth becomes a fugitive.

Roosevelt’s evolution as a deal-maker defined his presidency—and offers profound lessons to the current occupant of the Oval Office.

Doris Kearns Goodwin

Picture a man with an unquenchable thirst for celebrity, who gets into rows with everybody, who has a gift for punchy quips that make headlines; a man of undeniable charisma who so craves being the center of attention he wants to be the baby at the baptism, the bride at the wedding, and the corpse at the funeral. “While he is in the neighborhood,” one critic grudgingly concedes, “the public can no more look the other way than the small boy can turn his head away from a circus parade!” We speak, of course, not of our current president but of Theodore Roosevelt, based on depictions from more than a century ago.

As a presidential historian, I am often asked which of our past presidents might be best suited for our current moment in time. No doubt it would be Roosevelt. T.R. could surely master our social-media age and especially the Twitterverse with his vivid, memorable aphorisms: “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” “Don’t hit till you have to; but, when you do hit, hit hard.” “It is hard to fail but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.”

Like President Trump, Roosevelt took office in turbulent times. At the turn of the 20th century, the Industrial Revolution had shaken up the economy much as the technological revolution and globalization have redefined our lives today. Big companies were swallowing up small companies. New inventions had quickened the pace of life to a frenzied degree. People in rural areas felt alienated. A menacing gap had opened between the rich and the poor.

Roosevelt looked to the future with what he called a “Square Deal”—for the rich and the poor, the capitalist and the wage-worker. Candidate Trump promised to utilize his skill, which he laid out in The Art of the Deal, to bring America back to a simpler time of greatness. But, in the end, the success of any deal depends on the character and the experience of the dealer. No one would argue that either Roosevelt or Trump suffered from a deficiency of bravado or confidence. Yet Roosevelt grew in power precisely because he grew to know his limitations, because he developed the humility to acknowledge his mistakes. After his first, wildly successful term in the state legislature, he developed, in his own words, a “swelled” head. Whenever opposed, he would yell, pound his desk, and retaliate with venom. While his blistering language made great newspaper copy, he soon found himself bereft of support. It began to dawn upon him, he conceded, that he was “not all-important” and that “cooperation from other people” was essential.

That President Trump has not developed such humility is evident. When asked during his campaign whom he consulted on foreign policy, he said, “My primary consultant is myself, and I have a good instinct for this stuff.” Accepting the Republican nomination, he noted, “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.” In the long run, however, the presidency has a way of humbling even the most self-assured.

While both Roosevelt and Trump were born to extraordinary privilege, Roosevelt’s empathy slowly expanded through his long political career. As a state legislator, he investigated the dreadful conditions in New York City’s tenements. As police commissioner, he roamed the slums between midnight and sunrise. His understanding of his fellow citizens broadened during his time in the armed forces, as New York governor, and as vice president. In sum, he was amply prepared as a leader in 1901 when the assassination of William McKinley catapulted him to the presidency at age 42, the youngest man ever to occupy the White House.

During the unprecedented Republican-primary season of 2016, long and broad public service was perceived as a liability. The times were ripe for a candidate with no political background to catch the lightning. Things were so topsy-turvy and toxic, it seemed as if we had left a world where experience, temperament, and character mattered, and entered one where knowledge of history and government and law had all been jettisoned. Candidate Trump brilliantly capitalized on these atmospherics by railing against the political status quo and giving a voice to those who felt excluded.

Campaigning and stoking one’s base, however, is not governing. Governing requires bringing sides together, rather than simply tallying wins and losses. This understanding of leadership has eluded Trump so far. “You hear lots of people say that a great deal is when both sides win,” Trump maintains. “That is a bunch of crap…. I always win.”

Imagine a leader like Roosevelt, who sought a fulcrum point between contending sides, who strove to forge a common purpose among conservatives and progressives. To knit classes and regions together, he traveled by train for weeks at a time through rural areas and cities in places where he had been defeated as well as in states he had won. He listened to local complaints and spoke in folksy language that reached the hearts of his countrymen. His inclusive leadership sutured, rather than exacerbated, divisions.

Imagine a leader who developed remarkably collegial relations with the press, those now termed the “enemy of the American people.” Roosevelt invited reporters to meals, took questions during his midday shave, and, most importantly, absorbed their criticism with grace. A celebrated journalist mercilessly lampooned Roosevelt’s memoir of the Spanish-American War by claiming Roosevelt should have called the book Alone in Cuba, since he placed himself at the center of every action and every battle. Roosevelt replied with a winning capacity for self-deprecation: “I regret to state that my family and intimate friends are delighted with your review.”

Consider today the novelty of a leader like Roosevelt. When friends warned him against keeping on the slain McKinley’s Cabinet, fearing some members might not be loyal to the replacement president, Roosevelt replied, “If the men I retained were loyal to their work they would be giving me the loyalty for which I most cared.” What mattered was their sworn loyalty to the job and the country—not their personal fealty.

Imagine a leader who used “the bully pulpit,” a phrase Roosevelt coined to connote the platform inherent in the presidency, to educate the American people about the importance of a healthy civic life. “Bully” to Roosevelt meant first-rate or superlative: gaining one’s objective by persuasion rather than through the darker meaning of bullying. “Civic life,” Roosevelt preached, “must be marked by the fellow feeling, the mutual kindness, the mutual respect, the sense of common duties and common interests which arise when men take the trouble to understand one another.” Acrimony and antipathy develop, he argued, when “the two sections, or two classes, are so cut off from each other that neither appreciates the other’s passions, prejudices, and indeed, point of view.”

The Square Deal, the slogan that would come to characterize Roosevelt’s entire domestic program, was predicated upon this fellow feeling and a determination to be fair to all. “I believe in rich people who act squarely, and in labor unions which are managed with wisdom and justice. But when either employee or employer, laboring man or capitalist, goes wrong, I have to clinch him, and that is all there is to it.”

The Square Deal, like all deals, hinged upon intention, promises, pledges, and execution. All deals are based upon stability and coherence. The words that make up a durable deal cannot be granted one day and walked back the next. Roosevelt called words that were emptied of meaning “weasel words,” as if a weasel had sucked out the nourishment of truth and left behind an empty shell.

Today, a pattern has emerged of misspoken statements, half- truths, invented distractions, and outright fabrications. Critical analyses and disagreements are termed fake. Blatant falsehoods are repeated again and again. Yet constant repetition of an assertion does not make it true—except perhaps in the nonsense realm of Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark: “Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true.”

This is beyond simply winning or losing. There is a terrible danger in growing accustomed to the erosion of meaning in our political discourse. Serious, perhaps lasting, damage is being done to our identity as Americans and to our democracy. We are moving in a direction in which trust will be vaporized and truth becomes a fugitive.

Roosevelt’s evolution as a deal-maker defined his presidency—and offers profound lessons to the current occupant of the Oval Office.

Doris Kearns Goodwin

Picture a man with an unquenchable thirst for celebrity, who gets into rows with everybody, who has a gift for punchy quips that make headlines; a man of undeniable charisma who so craves being the center of attention he wants to be the baby at the baptism, the bride at the wedding, and the corpse at the funeral. “While he is in the neighborhood,” one critic grudgingly concedes, “the public can no more look the other way than the small boy can turn his head away from a circus parade!” We speak, of course, not of our current president but of Theodore Roosevelt, based on depictions from more than a century ago.

As a presidential historian, I am often asked which of our past presidents might be best suited for our current moment in time. No doubt it would be Roosevelt. T.R. could surely master our social-media age and especially the Twitterverse with his vivid, memorable aphorisms: “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” “Don’t hit till you have to; but, when you do hit, hit hard.” “It is hard to fail but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.”

Like President Trump, Roosevelt took office in turbulent times. At the turn of the 20th century, the Industrial Revolution had shaken up the economy much as the technological revolution and globalization have redefined our lives today. Big companies were swallowing up small companies. New inventions had quickened the pace of life to a frenzied degree. People in rural areas felt alienated. A menacing gap had opened between the rich and the poor.

Roosevelt looked to the future with what he called a “Square Deal”—for the rich and the poor, the capitalist and the wage-worker. Candidate Trump promised to utilize his skill, which he laid out in The Art of the Deal, to bring America back to a simpler time of greatness. But, in the end, the success of any deal depends on the character and the experience of the dealer. No one would argue that either Roosevelt or Trump suffered from a deficiency of bravado or confidence. Yet Roosevelt grew in power precisely because he grew to know his limitations, because he developed the humility to acknowledge his mistakes. After his first, wildly successful term in the state legislature, he developed, in his own words, a “swelled” head. Whenever opposed, he would yell, pound his desk, and retaliate with venom. While his blistering language made great newspaper copy, he soon found himself bereft of support. It began to dawn upon him, he conceded, that he was “not all-important” and that “cooperation from other people” was essential.

That President Trump has not developed such humility is evident. When asked during his campaign whom he consulted on foreign policy, he said, “My primary consultant is myself, and I have a good instinct for this stuff.” Accepting the Republican nomination, he noted, “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.” In the long run, however, the presidency has a way of humbling even the most self-assured.

While both Roosevelt and Trump were born to extraordinary privilege, Roosevelt’s empathy slowly expanded through his long political career. As a state legislator, he investigated the dreadful conditions in New York City’s tenements. As police commissioner, he roamed the slums between midnight and sunrise. His understanding of his fellow citizens broadened during his time in the armed forces, as New York governor, and as vice president. In sum, he was amply prepared as a leader in 1901 when the assassination of William McKinley catapulted him to the presidency at age 42, the youngest man ever to occupy the White House.

During the unprecedented Republican-primary season of 2016, long and broad public service was perceived as a liability. The times were ripe for a candidate with no political background to catch the lightning. Things were so topsy-turvy and toxic, it seemed as if we had left a world where experience, temperament, and character mattered, and entered one where knowledge of history and government and law had all been jettisoned. Candidate Trump brilliantly capitalized on these atmospherics by railing against the political status quo and giving a voice to those who felt excluded.

Campaigning and stoking one’s base, however, is not governing. Governing requires bringing sides together, rather than simply tallying wins and losses. This understanding of leadership has eluded Trump so far. “You hear lots of people say that a great deal is when both sides win,” Trump maintains. “That is a bunch of crap…. I always win.”

Imagine a leader like Roosevelt, who sought a fulcrum point between contending sides, who strove to forge a common purpose among conservatives and progressives. To knit classes and regions together, he traveled by train for weeks at a time through rural areas and cities in places where he had been defeated as well as in states he had won. He listened to local complaints and spoke in folksy language that reached the hearts of his countrymen. His inclusive leadership sutured, rather than exacerbated, divisions.

Imagine a leader who developed remarkably collegial relations with the press, those now termed the “enemy of the American people.” Roosevelt invited reporters to meals, took questions during his midday shave, and, most importantly, absorbed their criticism with grace. A celebrated journalist mercilessly lampooned Roosevelt’s memoir of the Spanish-American War by claiming Roosevelt should have called the book Alone in Cuba, since he placed himself at the center of every action and every battle. Roosevelt replied with a winning capacity for self-deprecation: “I regret to state that my family and intimate friends are delighted with your review.”

Consider today the novelty of a leader like Roosevelt. When friends warned him against keeping on the slain McKinley’s Cabinet, fearing some members might not be loyal to the replacement president, Roosevelt replied, “If the men I retained were loyal to their work they would be giving me the loyalty for which I most cared.” What mattered was their sworn loyalty to the job and the country—not their personal fealty.

Imagine a leader who used “the bully pulpit,” a phrase Roosevelt coined to connote the platform inherent in the presidency, to educate the American people about the importance of a healthy civic life. “Bully” to Roosevelt meant first-rate or superlative: gaining one’s objective by persuasion rather than through the darker meaning of bullying. “Civic life,” Roosevelt preached, “must be marked by the fellow feeling, the mutual kindness, the mutual respect, the sense of common duties and common interests which arise when men take the trouble to understand one another.” Acrimony and antipathy develop, he argued, when “the two sections, or two classes, are so cut off from each other that neither appreciates the other’s passions, prejudices, and indeed, point of view.”

The Square Deal, the slogan that would come to characterize Roosevelt’s entire domestic program, was predicated upon this fellow feeling and a determination to be fair to all. “I believe in rich people who act squarely, and in labor unions which are managed with wisdom and justice. But when either employee or employer, laboring man or capitalist, goes wrong, I have to clinch him, and that is all there is to it.”

The Square Deal, like all deals, hinged upon intention, promises, pledges, and execution. All deals are based upon stability and coherence. The words that make up a durable deal cannot be granted one day and walked back the next. Roosevelt called words that were emptied of meaning “weasel words,” as if a weasel had sucked out the nourishment of truth and left behind an empty shell.

Today, a pattern has emerged of misspoken statements, half- truths, invented distractions, and outright fabrications. Critical analyses and disagreements are termed fake. Blatant falsehoods are repeated again and again. Yet constant repetition of an assertion does not make it true—except perhaps in the nonsense realm of Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark: “Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true.”

This is beyond simply winning or losing. There is a terrible danger in growing accustomed to the erosion of meaning in our political discourse. Serious, perhaps lasting, damage is being done to our identity as Americans and to our democracy. We are moving in a direction in which trust will be vaporized and truth becomes a fugitive.

Let’s see Trump took office during turbulent times now as an historian you just exposed yourself as being a fraud.

Trump took office with a growing economy whichbyou as a historian ignored. Trump took office markets rising, Home foreclosures almost non existent, inflation down, deficit spending down, GDP slowly rising. I could go on and on as to an agenda that Trump inherited.

Now Obama took Office Fighting two wars unpaid for, lose of federal funds through Bush tax cuts unpaid for,deficit exploding, Auto industry headed to bankruptcy, unemployment at 7.9% and our country purging 800,000 jobs a month. Over 5 million people being foreclosed on, stock market crashing, banks in bankruptcy.

So don’t pass yourself off as a historian your just totally ignoring the facts as to the condition of this country when Obama took office compared to this Pumkinfueher with his manufactored crisis, his pathological lying, his daily Scandels I am getting tired of this garbage that gets posted and ignoring of facts and pass it off as fake news, now we got this new talking points of the Democratic mobs, where are these mobs. Republicans protest but when democrats protest its a mob. That orange haired freak is destroying everything this country stands for he is a narcissistic AH that lacks empathy and concerned about one thing how much wealth and power can he get out of the backs of the middle class.

Tell him to release his personnel and corporate tax returns then you will see what a lying SOB he really is