Where are the Roosevelts of today in our new Gilded Age?

Photo: Library of Congress.

I’m currently rewatching The Roosevelts, the PBS documentary series by Ken Burns.

And as I do, I can’t help but feel a sense of grief—not just for what we’ve lost, but for what we’ve allowed ourselves to become.

We are living in an era marked by ego-driven politics, government by tantrum, and the gleeful sabotage of the public good.

And against this bleak backdrop, the Roosevelts—flawed, complicated, privileged as they were—still stand like towering monuments to what real public service once looked like.

Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin Delano Roosevelt were giants.

That doesn’t mean they were perfect. Far from it. Today, many of their views and decisions would—and should—be challenged, even condemned.

But it is precisely because they were complicated people with flaws and contradictions that their vision, their courage, and their commitment to something greater than themselves feel so rare and necessary right now.

The Roosevelts governed in times that, like ours, were corrupted by greed and threatened by inequality.

Teddy Roosevelt charged headfirst into the Gilded Age, not with empty slogans, but with action: trust-busting the oligarchs of his day, taking on the monopolies and the tycoons who thought the law didn’t apply to them.

He saw the nation’s natural beauty being devoured for profit and stepped in to protect it, giving birth to the conservation movement.

When was the last time we saw a leader do something bold simply because it was right?

Franklin came into office amid the wreckage of the Great Depression, when despair and hunger gripped the country.

He didn’t blame the poor for being poor. He didn’t turn away from the suffering or accuse struggling Americans of laziness. He built something better.

The New Deal wasn’t perfect, but it was a lifeline—Social Security, unemployment insurance, banking reform, jobs programs. He redefined the role of government as an instrument of compassion, not cruelty.

And let’s not forget Eleanor. She was a Roosevelt too, by blood not just marriage.

She redefined the role of a First Lady, standing up for workers, for women, for the rights of Black Americans.

She was a one-woman moral compass in a time when it would’ve been easier to stay silent.

Even after her time in the White House, she helped shape the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Now look at us. Look at what we have.

In an era where Trumpism dominates one party and cowardice infects the other, where is the statesmanship?

Where is the courage?

Where are the leaders willing to do what is hard but right?

We live again in a Gilded Age—except this time, the gold is thinner, the greed more shameless, and the consequences more devastating.

Billionaires treat the economy like a casino. Basic rights are treated like privileges. Science is denied, facts are twisted, and cruelty is mistaken for strength.

The comparison is unavoidable! We are reliving the very circumstances that once called forth the Roosevelts.

But today, no one is rising to the moment. At least we only see seeds of what could come? (I’m looking at Gov. J.B. Pritzker.)

We don’t need saints.

We don’t need mythic saviors.

The Roosevelts themselves would likely be torn apart by today’s media and political machinery.

But we do need servant leaders—people who govern not for applause or profit or vengeance, but because they believe the people deserve better. Leaders who are willing to speak hard truths, take real risks, and fight for the dignity of those with no power.

The Roosevelts were not perfect people. But they were great public servants. And greatness today is not only in short supply—it feels deliberately strangled.

In this new Gilded Age, we are left asking, where are the Roosevelts of our time?

And if they aren’t here yet, what will it take for us to become the kind of nation that calls them forth once again?

Because without them, without that kind of moral courage, vision, and fierce sense of duty, we are not just in decline.

We are surrendering.

And the Roosevelts, whatever their faults, never surrendered.