At the Republican National Convention, Donald Trump Jr. compared his father to legendary President Teddy Roosevelt. As Jr. pointed out, an attempted assassination of TR had occurred less than a mile from the current-day convention site in Milwaukee in 1912. Running a third campaign to get back in the White House after a previous term as president, Roosevelt was hit in the chest by the would-be assassin’s round on the way to deliver an address.
Roosevelt famously continued speaking while bleeding from his wounds and vowed that it would take more than a bullet to kill a “bull moose.” Trump memorably raised his fist mere seconds after almost losing his life on July 13 and powerfully encouraged the crowd to “fight!” in the face of evil.
At a 2015 debate watch party before Trump was even taken seriously by many Americans, an early supporter named Ron VillaReale first introduced the parallel to me: “The silent majority is sitting there waiting for a leader. He’s the first person since Teddy Roosevelt who has even bothered to act like a leader or even had any sense of what leadership really is.”
Even the corporate media have tried their hand at Trump and Roosevelt comparisons in the past, with John Blake writing a screed at CNN in December of 2022 about how the schism Roosevelt caused with a third-party run with the Bull Moose Party could come to be Trump’s legacy as well. So far, Trump has brought immense leadership to the GOP
