Roosevelt New Nationalism Roosevelt's New Essay

Roosevelt's strategy of occupation philosophically presupposed an import to democracy as noted by his 'New Nationalism' speech in 1910. Here, he pronounced that it ought rightly to be nothing less than the purpose of America's being in existence and honoring the claims of the Constitution to incite others to recognize the value of democracy. As Roosevelt argued, "Our country -- this great Republic -- means nothing unless it means the triumph of a real democracy, the triumph of popular government, and, in the long run, of an economic system under which each man shall be guaranteed the opportunity to show the Implicit to the assumptions of Roosevelt's New Nationalism would be such American assumptions as Caucasian racial superiority, Christian moral denomination and western patriarchy. Such is to say that assumptions of cultural superiority and ethnocentrism that would be inherent to Roosevelt's perspective would also have a heavy bearing on future leaders.Indeed, close correlation may be found in the rhetoric which drives Roosevelt's grand sense of American entitlement and that evident in such hawkish modern leaders as President George W. Bush. The messianic message relating freedom, democracy and god which Bush pronounces at politically driven opportunity, echoes historical trends in American military endeavors which presume to be endorsed by God and the good philosophical grounding of the Constitution. It is in this context that military nationalism as endorsed by Roosevelt and Bush's imperialism coincide, relying upon the notion of occupation in order to impose American ideals upon other nations. We can see that Roosevelt's doctrine would be central to forging an American identity in the world which proceeds from a sense of governmental and ideological superiority.

Works Cited

Roosevelt, T. (1910). New Nationalism Speech. Teaching National History. Online at http://www.teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=501.....