The Year of the Bull Moose

Pundits have been studying the wrong Roosevelt. President Obama shouldn’t look to Franklin, class of 1904—at least not this year, when anything like FDR’s serenity and gentility comes across as aloofness. Obama will have to adopt a different model for his sophomore effort. If the president is to eliminate what he referred to in his State of the Union address as the national “deficit of trust,” he needs to engage the average American’s concerns of economic foul play more directly and more vividly. As Obama negotiates with Congress on a jobs bill and other long-term recovery efforts behind the scenes, he should use the bully pulpit to fight the forces that impede his agenda in the open. This year, Obama should fully embrace the role of the self-sacrificial, morally-driven protagonist of the political theater.

In short, in 2010 Obama must be more like Theodore, class of 1880.

TR’s progressivism was nothing like the technocratic, scholarly progressivism of the present age. He was an active, animated federal regulator concerned with protecting the social fabric and the welfare of the ordinary American. He demanded sacrifice and hard work from his supporters and fair play from his opponents. Like Obama, Roosevelt was confronted with the task of actively restoring government’s credibility in an age of dramatic economic inequality and misconduct. Although Teddy didn’t face massive unemployment as Obama faces today, he did have to confront an economic elite disconnected from the public interest. To counter these foes, TR had to harness the power of populist anger without letting it define him. Obama must now do the same.

Such a transformation seems, on the surface, improbable. The dispositions of these two executives could not be more dissimilar. Whereas TR was known for his vigor and zeal, Obama’s presidency is remarkable for its cool. But perhaps this is changing. In his recent meeting with House Republicans, Obama took fire from the opposition on a national broadcast and appeared, for the first time in a long time, to be the proverbial man in the arena, brow marred with sweat. The president systematically dismissed many Republican counterarguments as mere political posturing—something fresh, something promising.

In TR’s day, promoting the common good and improving the quality of American life meant busting up monopolies and creating hard and fast rules for corporate responsibility. In Obama’s administration, it means advocating substantial financial reform without apology, illuminating the ills of the lobbying culture, and taking quick action against the Supreme Court’s recent, undemocratic ruling granting corporations the right to invest unlimited sums in political campaigns. Roosevelt attacked bankers and the titans of socially-detrimental enterprises from the right, standing up for individual entrepreneurial opportunity and a level economic playing field. Obama must attack from the left and stand up for the financial futures of America’s families and communities.

This is the best pathway toward reviving trust in Washington while the long, slow process of job recovery sets in. Like TR, Obama need not condemn the self-interested and entrepreneurial spirit of Wall Street. He need only argue the truth: Business is underpinned by certain social norms, which are being undermined. Like TR, Obama should condemn misconduct and not condemn wealth. TR’s theme was that prosperity demands a certain level of trust between Wall Street and Main Street. When the economic elite forget that they are also citizens, the trust between the privately powerful and the rest of the public is breached. When houses are foreclosed after irresponsible decisions, when community banks collapse, when hedge funds don’t recognize what they’ve bought and sold, and when credit freezes, the social structure upon which American capitalism relies begins to fail.

There is no doubt that the chief priority of Washington must be vigorously tackling unemployment. Arguably, this should have been done a year ago. Unfortunately, even if the Senate passes a comprehensive job bill this week, as Obama asked it to, we won’t see many of its effects for some time. The bill is likely to be passed piecemeal, and Obama will have to fight with moderate Democrats every step of the way. In the meantime, the president must do a better job of showing average Americans that he’s fighting for them.

Raúl A. Carrillo ’10, a Crimson editorial writer, is a social studies concentrator in Lowell House.