Spinning in His Grave? TR, Fauci, & the Bureaucratic Beast
21st August 2026
Theodore Roosevelt could be turning over in his grave. And maybe Woodrow Wilson is spinning right along with him. Why? Well, the progressive vision of government-by-expert has taken a major hit in recent days. Someone like Anthony Fauci wasn’t exactly what either of them had had in mind. Or was it?
And just what was it that those presidents claimed to have had in mind? Disinterested expertise. That would be disinterested as in neutral, rather than disinterested as in uninterested. Agencies as advice-givers and agencies as umpires was the idea. And that was that, as far as they were concerned. Or was it?
The Constitution of 1787 might have been a great starting point—at least for TR. Maybe not so for Wilson. Possible differences aside, both of them thought that life in the early twentieth century had already grown too complicated for mere elected officials to handle. Divided government might not yet be a thing of the past, but a modern American government surely needed help when it came to steering the country in a progressive direction. Why not then turn to experts? Congressmen and presidents couldn’t–and shouldn’t–managing things alone. After all, the drafting, debating, passing and signing of legislation somehow ought to be beyond the grubby business of politics.
Therefore, they thought it was high time that the original Constitution of the late eighteenth century give way to a “living constitution” for the twentieth century and beyond. That certainly was Wilson’s preferred term. Of course, it wouldn’t be necessary to bother with a series of constitutional amendments to achieve this. Such would be a lengthy process at best. Besides, that very clumsy process was little more than an eighteenth-century relic.
Constitutions are only as effective as the men (and they are mostly men) who enforce them.
Don’t forget that both Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson were explicitly ‘progressive’, party affiliation notwithstanding. If I could go back in history and shoot three people as children, two of them would be TR and WW. (Actually, shooting TR would probably be enough, because his ego is the reason WW became a problem.)