American Morality: The Rooseveltian Nation and Multiculturalism

The Rise of the Rooseveltian Nation

The Rooseveltian Nation was initially envisioned by Theodore Roosevelt during the epoch in which the United States triumphed in the Spanish-American War and heralded its largely Anglo-Saxon nation of limited diversity as the most dominant racial group on the face of the earth. This concept was further solidified by the efforts of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who strove to reinforce the notion of such a national consciousness, character, and racial makeup through his New Deal programs. However, the Rooseveltian Nation ultimately crumbled due to a plethora of developments near the midway point of the twentieth century. A close examination of those factors reveals that they were ultimately linked to the Cold War and to what many Americans believed was an inherent hypocrisy evinced by their country—a disillusionment that left a number of new ideologies in its wake.

Cold War Hypocrisy and the Civil Rights Movement

The Rooseveltian Nation was able to withstand the throes of the Civil Rights movement, yet it could not endure the backlash of the Vietnam War. Both of these disturbances, as evinced in the domestic state of affairs of the country, were inevitably linked to the Cold War. Despite the grumblings of segregated African-American ranks during World War II, America's hegemony was most dominant during the years immediately preceding it—which helped to justify the conception of the Rooseveltian Nation.

However, with the onset of the Cold War, numerous Americans began to perceive, and on a certain level even resent, the hypocrisy evinced by a country touted as ethically and morally superior during this martial encounter, yet which still enforced Jim Crow laws and rampant racist, prejudicial practices representing "the corruption of American ideals" (Gerstle, 312). This disillusionment ultimately resulted in the Civil Rights movement, which was countercultural in the sense that it involved numerous Americans beyond African-Americans and challenged the very definitions of the Rooseveltian Nation's racial makeup.

Vietnam, Counterculture, and the Collapse of Rooseveltian Nationalism

The disillusionment and counterculture that fostered in the wake of the Vietnam War directly led to "the collapse of the Rooseveltian Nation" (Gerstle, 312). Firstly, it was the first war that America did not win. Additionally, it provided a prolonged opportunity for Americans to become acquainted with the bureaucracy and falsehoods upon which the political machine that the Rooseveltian Nation championed was based.

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the countercultural movement was at its strongest, with an assortment of hippies, rock-and-roll artists and fans, lesbians, gays, and women's rights activists all vying for rights not provisioned by the Rooseveltian Nation. Added to this unrest were the racial interests advanced by the Civil Rights movement and a larger awakening of social justice for groups of different racial and ethnic backgrounds, including Mexicans and Chicanos, Asians, and even Native Americans. Lyndon Johnson's failure in Vietnam and the counterculture represented by all of the aforementioned groups together collapsed the Rooseveltian Nation.