[March 15th
marked the 250th anniversary of Andrew
Jackson’s birth. So this week I’ve AmericanStudied five sides to this controversial,
influential figure and president,
leading up to this special weekend post on Jackson and Trump!]
On what links
the two polarizing presidents, and what separates them.
Ever since the
start of his surprising and unnerving (to put both adjectives mildly)
successful campaign for the presidency, Donald Trump has drawn an ever-evolving
series of historical comparisons, both American and international, all seeking
to better understand the man and candidacy (and now presidency). My own Talking
Points Memo piece linking Trump to Benjamin Franklin (in one very particular
way) became part of a larger
NPR article on many of those different American historical comparisons. In
the last few months, of course, the bulk of the comparisons have been to
various dictators
and authoritarian leaders, from the Hitlers and Silvio Berlusconi’s of the
distant and recent past (respectively) to the Putins and Kim Jong-un’s of the
present, among many others. None of these parallels lines up perfectly, of
course, but I believe that each has had a good deal to tell us about just what
we’re dealing with in this unprecedented/unpresidented and potentially catastrophic
administration. And that’s definitely true for the
American president to whom Trump has most frequently been compared (including
it seems by Trump himself), Andrew Jackson.
Trump’s
self-made comparison is likely due to the idea of a shared interest in the “common
man,” but as I’ll note in a moment I don’t agree with that parallel at all. Instead,
I would argue that the links between Jackson and Trump are all much more
revealing of Trump’s flaws and failings. Both men have thin skins and violent
tempers that are easily provoked by the slightest perceived slight, with Trump
using Twitter
insults and belittling
nicknames in a manner quite similar to Jackson’s recourse to dueling
challenges. Both have pursued policies that use the power of the federal
government to disrupt the lives and communities of their fellow Americans,
seeking to displace and remove entire such communities from our shared national
landscape. And both have demonstrated an easy willingness to oppose the
judiciary and our democratic system of checks and balances, in favor of a
self-centered and authoritarian desire to see their will done and done as fully
and quickly as possible. (I’m not sure there’s ever been a more Andrew
Jackson-esque moment from a fellow president than Trump
Tweeting “See you in court!” to the federal court/judges who had just ruled
against his immigration/refugee ban.) All of which is to say, Andrew Jackson
wedded bigoted policies to a thin-skinned, violent, destructive, and
authoritarian temperament and governing perspective, and unfortunately Donald
Trump seems well on his way to exceeding Jackson on all those levels.
At least some of
the policies that Jackson pursued in those ways were aimed at democratizing
American politics and society, at providing better opportunities for the “common
man” (even an idea as ill-fated as the spoils system did have that side as well,
since it ensured that political offices could not be passed down to multiple
generations of the same family or otherwise preserved as legacies). Trump
has repeatedly claimed that he has similar goals when it comes to the “swamp”
of Washington and our system, but in every possible way the first months of his
presidency-elect and now administration have revealed that he intends
to do precisely the opposite: to use the office and our government to
further enrich himself and his family, his friends and business partners, and
the most elite of our society’s elites. And while any person from any
background can pursue any potential policies, it seems clear that this policy distinction
between Jackson and Trump could be connected to their very distinct origin
points: as I noted in my first post this week, Jackson’s beginnings were truly
as humble as any president’s have been; Trump is of course far from the first
president who was born into extreme wealth and privilege, but whereas folks like
Franklin Roosevelt and George W. Bush had held other elected offices and worked
in public service prior to the presidency, Trump had literally only ever “worked”
in the gilded towers he inherited from his father. In this way, at least, a
comparison to Andrew Jackson makes Old Hickory look like a pretty darn ideal
alternative.
Next series
starts Monday,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other ways you’d link or contrast Jackson and Trump?
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