I’m all for the Hitler references being made about Donald Trump. There are some frightening similarities to be sure but I think we are missing the more important connection here. Donald Trump relied on some truly American things on his way to the Presidency. The more apt analogy is our very own 7th President Andrew Jackson. And now Trump has chosen to hang a portrait of Jackson in the Oval Office.
Steve Bannon, co author of the inaugural address, called it Jacksonian.
“It was an unvarnished declaration of the basic principles of his populist and kind of nationalist movement. It was given, I think, in a very powerful way. I don’t think we’ve had a speech like that since Andrew Jackson came to the White House,” Bannon said in an interview with The Washington Post. “But you could see it was very Jacksonian. It’s got a deep, deep root of patriotism.
Trump also compared himself to Jackson.
Through a spokeswoman this week, Mr. Trump expressed admiration for Jackson — “an amazing figure in American history — very unique so many ways” — and said he admired his predecessor’s “ability to never give up.”
Jackson read a changing media landscape and used it to his advantage.
Jackson, like Trump, made innovative use of the media. He offered nothing like Trump’s running commentary on Twitter, nor did he even make formal campaign speeches, which were considered undignified for presidential candidates. But he did use newspapers, which were growing in number and importance. A subscriber to as many as 17 papers, he understood the changing media landscape better than his critics did. He personally involved himself in news coverage, once writing a letter urging that a friendly, but alcoholic, newspaperman must be kept sober long enough to “scorch” one of Jackson’s rivals. He counted newspaper editors among his close advisers, and made sure they established a pro-Jackson newspaper in Washington when he took office. (His famous “kitchen cabinet” included these newsmen.) Trump, of course, has made analogous moves by managing his own media relations, asking Sean Hannity for advice and inviting Bannon to serve as his strategist.
So let’s look forward a little. Jackson was a military man. He made his living fighting Native Americans to clear room for US settlers. He signed the Indian Removal Act in 1830, which led to the infamous Trail of Tears.
This was in the days when we didn’t need a wall. We could just push those in our way further west. The effects of the Removal Act were atrocious.
I don’t expect the results from Trump’s executive orders to be much different.
Jackson won a second term. Let’s hope that we won’t be able to say the same for Trump. And even if he does win a second term, history probably won’t look very kindly upon him.
Of course, it took over a century to get Jackson off our currency. That, of course, assumes that the administration will let the Treasury go ahead with the plans to remake the twenty in Harriet Tubman’s image.
The further we get into the 45th president’s administration, the less hope I have. At least I can hope that the Republic survives another century to teach its children that Trump was a disaster.