What Unites Great American Presidents? Roosevelt, Trump, and the Triumph of Principle
As I revisit Bret Baier’s To Rescue the American Spirit for a second time, the lessons of American leadership—and the parallels between Donald Trump and Theodore Roosevelt—resonate more strongly than ever. In our age of uncertainty and polarization, the nation’s course depends on leaders willing to defend its foundational values, informed by history, reason, and moral responsibility.
Both Presidents Trump and Roosevelt are best understood as “populist nationalists”—outsiders who challenged entrenched interests, wielded executive power decisively, and drew their strength not from party orthodoxy, but from their devotion to the American people. Like Roosevelt a century before him, Trump has negotiated peace in turbulent regions, projecting strength through respect rather than bluster. Both leaders, while hardly traditional conservatives, share a common conviction: that the duty of a president is to risk political capital—sometimes even personal power—for causes grounded in the public good.
What binds them most closely, however, are the moral and philosophical foundations of their leadership. The roots of Roosevelt’s New Nationalism can be traced to the Catholic tradition, especially Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, which advanced the principles of universality, service, solidarity, and stewardship. Both presidents embraced social mobility, opposed oligarchic and mercantilist concentrations of power, and affirmed the importance of patriotism rooted in America’s heritage.
This is not merely academic history. The contrast between these leaders and today’s progressive social democrats could not be clearer. Where true conservatives rely on reason, history, and logic to shape policy for the long term, progressive ideologues often turn to sentiment and immediate emotional appeal. Such emotionalism now dominates political discourse, as seen in reactions from politicians quick to label opponents as “fascist” or “Nazi,” and in calls for radical transformation untethered from the nation’s founding principles.
As C. S. Lewis so wisely warned in his essays “God in the Dock” and “The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment,” mercy detached from justice—compassion without recognition of guilt and consequence—becomes not kindness, but cruelty masquerading as virtue. Justice and mercy, Lewis reminds us, must exist together, grounded in the mountain-solid terrain of responsibility. Today’s social justice rhetoric, separated from Natural Law and Biblical truth, risks straying into dangerous waters.
Our Founders, and every American generation until recently, have understood that Biblical and Natural Law truths ground our political philosophy. When mercy and justice are divorced from consequences and personal accountability, we are left only with hazard.
A political analyst on Fox News put it plainly: “You don’t have to think about long-term consequences to get a dopamine fix from politics.” This is evident today—look at the demographics energizing progressive victories, fueled by the emotional highs of activism but too rarely by measured reason or historical perspective. There is no moral predicate in calls for “fundamental change”.
Let us not forget what made American leadership great. The Presidents who endure—those who “carry a stick,” use force judiciously, and earn the respect of allies and adversaries—are those whom the people trust to fight for their interests, even against prevailing fashions. Both Roosevelt and Trump showed that a leader’s willingness to defend and restore our national spirit is the surest path to popular support.
In this, Bret Baier’s book is both instruction and warning—a call to remember the differences between rational progressivism and the emotionalism of modern social democracy. Our nation’s future depends on it.
Thank you, Mr. Baier.
