Book Review with additional commmentary, Michael Wolraich, Unreasonable Men.
This is the beginning and the end of my review of Unreasonable Men
The entire review can be read at http://progressiveamericanthought.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-incumbent-vs-insurgent-roosevelt-vs.html
Insurgents, Incumbents and Political Change
A Review of Unreasonable Men, Theodore Roosevelt and the Republican Rebels Who Created Progressive Politics, (Palgrave/Macmillan, 2014) by Michael Wolraich, with additional commentary.
By Dan Riker
In Unreasonable Men Michael Wolraich brilliantly portrays the differences between insurgents and incumbents, between those who seek power and those who have it. With the skill of a good novelist, he brings the people and events alive in the first 12 years of the 20th Century when an enormous political revolution occurred in the United States. It was brought about by a small group of progressive insurgents, but eventually led by one who first had been an incumbent.
The principal characters in this account are Theodore Roosevelt and Robert LaFollette, but Wolraich also brings many of the other key players alive in the narrative, especially the powerful Republican leaders of Congress, Rhode Island Sen. Nelson Aldrich and House Speaker Joe Cannon, for whom a House office building is named. His vivid descriptions of the people, places and events are so good that they sometimes evoke the smells of cigars and sweaty wool suits.
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There is an interesting comparison between the Roosevelt-LaFollette conflict when Roosevelt was President and how many on the left feel conflicted about President Obama. Obama won huge victories in both of his elections, but has had to operate for most of his Presidency without Democratic control of both houses of Congress. His efforts to compromise with Republicans drew enormous criticism from many of his supporters, especially those on the left. Like Roosevelt, he has tried to have achievements in his Presidency, and he certainly has had some. He might have had many more if the Republicans had been willing to compromise. That intransigence of the Republicans probably saved Obama from drawing greater anger from many of his supporters.
Roosevelt was the first modern President to believe that he had to build a record of achievement as President. Almost every President since him, except, perhaps for Warren Harding, has felt the same. Some have not had the same dedication to serving the people as he did, but every President has cared about his record. But few Presidents have been able to achieve much without Congressional support.
A successful and dedicated insurgency can force change, can make a revolution, can destroy the old order, but when victory comes, and it is time to govern, the insurgent becomes the incumbent. The destructive tactics of an insurgent no longer work when there is a new order to build.
