From an outside perspective I simply don't get the TR myth in American historical memory: it seems bound up in an uncomplicated ecumenical nationalist narrative that falls apart upon closer inspection. His biggest achievement in office was the national park system for crying out loud...
The key point here is that his legacy is not politically live today. He's most remembered for the national park system and for antitrust activism. People on both sides basically think that the outdoors are good and large conglomerates are bad (and in the former case, the national park system is an enormous part of the popular American conception of this country), and the contexts in which those particular achievements took place are sufficiently remote that they're not relitigated today, even though public land management and economic regulation are both still politically salient. It just doesn't advance anyone's interests to say that actually Theodore Roosevelt was bad.
