...[archy's] assumptions about TR keeping Communism from our shores, is utterly delusional, fallacious, and a conjecture that is unsupportable by facts.Even when President, Roosevelt justified his populism by saying it was either that or socialism. Out of office, he kicked up the rhetoric even more. It was as much a posture as an act of self-justification.TR conjured up and ran on the Bull Moose ticket, because of his ego. There would have been no BM party with TR. He was a one man show and a sideshow , unfortunately, at that.
My understanding is that Roosevelt rather kicked up socialism than stopped it. His theory was that in order to stop socialism he'd have to act like it.
American politics uniquely absorbs dissent. Roosevelt took it further. He cannot be credited with stopping the advance of communism. I'd give Taft far greater marks on that, for he stood for constitutional government and stopped cold the populist tide that Roosevelt tried to ride back into office.
Evidently not, since it did not successfully emerge in Rusia until the 1917 Revolution. Had there been no Great War, or no American participation in it, would Communism have been stillborn? But Roosevelt certainly had many on his coat-tails attracted to the Labour and Socialist movements then active in the U.S.
I'd give Taft far greater marks on that, for he stood for constitutional government....
Socialist leader Eugene Debs backed Taft, who Debs saw as being defeatable. Roosevelt undermined those whose support might have gone to the Socialists, and thereby weakened the Socialist cause.