This Piece Originally Appeared in medium.com

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It’s a comparison not often made in popular media, but our president Theodore Roosevelt from 1901–1908 and Progressive Party 2020 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders share much of the same platform. Besides both hailing from New York City (Teddy from swanky Manhattan and Bernie from working class Brooklyn), these warriors of democratic equality and fresh air share many common views of the America we all deserve.

Have a look at these quotes and see if you can decide who said it:

“The most practical kind of politics is the politics of decency.”

In his first year of the presidency, Theodore Roosevelt said this to Harvard and Yale undergraduates invited to his home at Oyster Bay, Long Island. He was very aware of the struggles of working class and poor people in New York City. Although he was well-heeled, his famously observant eye witnessed the harsh realities of working and poor people for whom there was little representation in the halls of city, state, and federal government throughout the 19th century.

“Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches, or its romance.”

This one is T.R., too. Roosevelt didn’t only want to preserve the wild lands and fauna of the U.S. for hunters and sportsmen. He was keenly aware that the nation’s true heritage flowed through pristine rivers and streams, was rooted in virgin forests, and stood tall through the highest peaks of the Rockies. He saw it as a crime to humanity to desolate natural wonders for the short-term gains of business. Like Roosevelt, Bernie Sanders has been a stalwart defender of national monuments and public lands in the face of mounting attacks from private industry.

“People should not underestimate me.”

Sanders fired this shot across the bow of the political establishment upon announcing his presidential primary candidacy in 2016. Bernie has risen from Mayor of Burlington to U.S. Senator winning every election as an independent candidate, defeating both Republican and Democratic opponents. T.R. was also famous for his fierce streak of independence. Although he rose to the White House as a Republican, he frequently battled powerful party members and even mounted a serious challenge to take back the presidency from his wayward protege William Howard Taft in 1912, representing his own newly formed Progressive Party (today the revived Progressive Party).

“If a bank is too big to fail, it is too big to exist.”

T.R. was known and feared by the powerful as a trustbuster, but this quote is directly from Bernie Sanders. In fact, he introduced legislation with a similar name aimed at breaking up the behemoth financial institutions that control vast amounts of American wealth.

“A great democracy has got to be progressive or it will soon cease to be great or a democracy.”

From his New Nationalism speech, T.R. spoke these words in 1910 between leaving the presidency and running for it again. He was not one to sit idly by while lower classes were marginalized and the natural world was mowed over. What would America be without its vigorous middle class and sprawling wild wonders? Bernie Sanders is fighting equally as hard to ensure we don’t find out in the 21st century.

“A nation will not survive morally or economically when so few have so much and so many have so little.”

This one’s the core of Bernie’s message. His lifelong fight to equal the playing field between the haves and have nots informs his position on every issue. Don’t be surprised to see this quote of his in a campaign ad this year. And if T.R. saw that ad, he’d probably be on board. It was Teddy who introduced the idea for an American estate tax with an aim to preserve democracy. In his view, generational accumulation of fortunes would lead to a ruling class ascended by birth, not on merits or usefulness to society.

So there you have it. Some inspirational quotes spoken in the early years of consecutive centuries by two independently minded progressives. How many did you guess correctly?

More than a century later, we are still not there on these issues. We’re still fighting for the basic tenets of a progressive, equitable society. And it’s just sad that a presidential candidate who is fighting back against democracy-killing corporate greed is regarded as out of mainstream.

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