Neither of the current major party candidates is the "Grey Champion".

[Bob Butler 54]

(09-26-2016, 10:45 PM)Einzige Wrote: Points one and two conceded (Roosevelt and Wilson were both 'Progressives', but of very different kinds). My point is that, generally Disaster Presidents seem to be radicalized versions of the Prophets of their cycles - LBJ as a radicalized FDR and Bush II as a radicalized Reagan.

Harding and Coolidge, however, seem to have rejected Teddy Roosevelt's 'Progressivism' in favor of a laissez-faire approach to economics. Certainly Hoover was more like T.R. than his two immediate Republican predecessors.

I'm not sure of the word 'radicalized'.  To me, 'radical' implies something extreme and new.  I see LBJ and Bush 43 as taking the FDR and Reagan values beyond the point of reason.  This can get you elected.  A politician pushing an approach that worked big time a short time ago can get into power.  Problem is, many ideas can be taken past a point of no return.  Many times, the conservative and progressive factions are both pushing valid ideas that work in one time, but can be over done and fail when applied to an absurd degree.  There was much positive in both Morning America and the New Deal, in their correct times, but to a great extent the two sets of values oppose one another.  Leave one party in power too long and they are apt to over extend their policies beyond the point of failure.  Disaster presidents are often heirs of great presidents, but are unable to recognize changing circumstances.  If it worked for FDR or Reagan, why shouldn't it still work?  If an idea worked in moderation, why not take it past the point of absurdity?

This is a trap many fall into when they commit to partisan thinking.  If you get locked into 'my party's ideas good, other party's ideas bad' thinking, one cannot understand dynamics where there is a proper balance between conflicting ideas or when there are natural cycles where one set of ideas resonates during part of the cycle, while another resonates at another time.

I also don't view TR the same way.  TR's 'Square Deal' was a warm up to FDR's 'New Deal'.  TR was a progressive.  Harding and Coolidge indeed leaned laissez faire, but I don't see TR as cut from the same cloth.  Harding, Coolidge and Hoover were more the heirs of Taft.