You have to admire the Kennedy family. They are an American political dynasty, that has served the people of this country well, even well into recent years. I have no problem with that. More power to them, in fact.
But I sometimes wonder about the Roosevelts. They are another former American political dynasty. And they too, have a long history, of political service to this country. Theodore, FDR, and Eleanor. I looked it up. And Eleanor Roosevelt died in 1962. Up till the very end, she was politically active. She was a delegate at the UN. And an advocate for human rights worldwide. Here is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, she was instrumental in passing. In fact, if you look at the top of the page, there is still the famous photo of her holding the Spanish version of this important international document.
Anyways, you don’t hear much about the Roosevelts anymore. And I say, Why not? They still could have so much service to offer this country, I think at least. Even to just fund an important, progressive-thinking political candidate, would do so much good.
And that is why I put this in IMHO. This is an open letter to the Roosevelts. Get involved in politics again. We desperately need you. And you could do so much good.
One of the grandsons served on the city council of Long Beach, CA in the late 90’s. The rest appear to have led normal sort of lives. Here is an article about the descendants of Franklin and Elenor: Roosevelts and the Quirks of Destiny - The New York Times
To be honest, Democrats of today just dont seem to have large families that could create a dynasty. Bill and Hillary only had one kid. Carter just had 1. The Obamas have just 2.
Theodore Roosevelt produced a different line of descendants than Franklin Roosevelt. There was Kermit Roosevelt Jr., II, and III (who I think is still alive). They haven’t been very politically involved as far as I can tell, but they seem to have led fairly illustrious and/or professional lives. The latest is a law professor and author, whose name I’ve seen in the news from time to time.
Too bad Harry Truman didn’t produce a dynasty. In the election season of 2004, I saw an op-ed piece by Bill O’Reilly, bemoaning the low grade and general dishonesty of political candidates and campaigns across the board, Democratic and Republican alike. Fair and balanced, he could be when he so chose. He concluded one of the paragraphs with:
Here in the UK, there tends to be a polite change of subject when discussing the descendants of Winston Churchill who went into politics.
But there are signs of dynasty-ism emerging in present-day politics, probably part of the process by which more and more candidates and MPs seem to come through the “inside track” of internships/think tanks/policy advisers and so on, in which having the free run of the parental address book (and some financial support behind them) obviously carries a fair bit of weight.
The Taft family has been involved in politics and public service since before Independence Day and still has members in public service. Lincoln Chaffee is a member of the family.
I think at some point the family’s history of public service influences or pushes the younger generation towards the same.
Nitpick: Carter had four. Amy was the only one still at home during the White House years, but she does have several older brothers, and her nephew Jason Carter was the Democratic candidate for governor of Georgia in the last election.
One issue with the Roosevelts is that they were a divided family. One branch of the family were Republicans who felt that Theodore Junior (son of the President) should have been the political heir. They bitterly resented Franklin usurping the family name.
The divide still seems to exist. In the 2013 NYC mayoral election, Franklin Roosevelt III supported the Democratic candidate Bill de Blasio and Theodore Roosevelt IV supported the Republican candidate Joe Lhota.
The Taft family had many members in high-ranking public-service, but do you have a cite for Lincoln Chaffee’s connection?
I see that Chaffee’s gt-gt-uncle married, in old age, a sister of First Lady Helen Herron Taft. But that’s rather pushing the notion of genetic connection, no?
Yeah Teddy was not too fond of FDR. It would have been interesting if he survived the war. He died at 56 of a heart attack in Normandy. He was young enough to continue his political career. He was awarded an undeserved (in my opinion) Medal of Honor for his actions on D-Day. Others did more and were recognized less but they weren’t the son and cousin of a president.
The idea of “political dynasty” sounds like a code word for “royalty”. IOW, people the public somehow thinks are inherently genetically better at governing.
That kind of thinking has no place in the mind of an American.
