The Big Difference Between Donald Trump and Teddy Roosevelt

This surely counts as “negative” information, but Trump and Roosevelt did have much in common. Like Roosevelt, Trump is a crude imperialist dedicated to American expansionism regardless of the desires and aspirations of the rest of the world. He probably will not succeed in colonizing Greenland and Canada (or Gaza) as Roosevelt once colonized the Philippines, but his rhetoric to that effect is sincere. The men share an obsession with masculinity—their own and that of the country. (On Roosevelt’s imperialism and his cartoonish tough-guy persona, you might be surprised to find that a 2008 Yale University Press book by future senator Josh Hawley is quite good.) The two presidents also share a racistand eugenicistworldview.

But as the existence of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park—and Teddy’s comments on patriotism—suggests, that’s where the comparison ends. Roosevelt has been called the “conservation president.” He enacted the Antiquities Act of 1906, which gave him—and presidents ever since—broad leeway to declare new national landmarks and monuments. He used the law to protect six cultural areas, including Montezuma Castle, and 12 natural areas, including a huge swath of the Grand Canyon. He also doubled the number of national parks from five to 10, adding Oregon’s Crater Lake, South Dakota’s Wind Cave, North Dakota’s Sully’s Hill, Colorado’s Mesa Verde, and Platt, Oklahoma. He created 150 national forests and 55 bird sanctuaries and game preserves. In total, he protected some 230 million acres of public land.

At the 1903 dedication of the gates of Yellowstone National Park, the first-ever national park, which had been created by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1872, Roosevelt said, “Nowhere else in any civilized country is there to be found such a tract of veritable wonderland made accessible to all visitors … noteworthy in its essential democracy.” Private lands, he said, can benefit the larger community but from the standpoint of the public interest, “could never be more than poor substitutes” for national parks “created, and now administered, for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.”

That’s probably why Trump and congressional Republicans hold our public lands in such deep contempt. Why would they let “the benefit and enjoyment of the people” stand in the way of billions of dollars for the superrich? The version of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act currently being negotiated in the Senate puts hundreds of millions of acres of public lands up for sale to pay for billionaire tax breaks. Some of those targeted are popular recreation spots, hunting grounds, wildlife conservation areas, and even historic sites. An April poll by YouGov foundthat 71 percent of Americans, including 61 percent of Trump voters, oppose the sale of public lands to private bidders.