The majority of the passengers on the U.S.S. America (the voters) have spoken, and are in agreement with appointing a new captain and crew (Trump as president, and the GOP in the Senate, and most likely the House as well), who, along with their allies on the Supreme Court, will turn the ship sharply starboard (that’s to the right for those unfamiliar with maritime lingo). I hope I’m wrong, but my gut tells me we’re heading to uncharged, choppy waters and there are storm clouds on the horizon.
Unlike Trump who still refuses to concede his defeat in 2020, Kamala Harris graciously conceded, as has been the practice generally in American elections from the beginning. I agree with her. Trump got the votes, and it’s clear that a majority (no matter how slim) of the Americans who are eligible and bother to vote prefer his right-leaning, transactional, promise them the Moon style of governing, and are unbothered by his lies and gross behavior. Giddy with what they see as a win, I doubt that many of them remember the promises he made, which he will be hard pressed to keep. Will he settle the war in Ukraine before inauguration as promised? I’m sure he and Hungary’s Orban could come up with something that would please Putin, but it’s doubtful that Ukraine or NATO will go along. My bet is he’ll probably rely on most people not remembering and his core fan base not caring and just forget it. Same for the Middle East. He’ll encourage Netanyahu’s worst instincts and that crisis will just become more muddled.
His first day of autocracy will be interesting to see. Will he actually begin trying go deport millions of undocumented aliens? And, just how will he do it? Federalize several state National Guards? That’s a possibility and a lot of red state governors will go along, but will untrained National Guard soldiers have the wherewithal to do this without totally botching it up. How about the U.S. Army? Well, there’s still the Posse Comitatus Act, and if he tries to declare a national emergency or insurrection to justify getting around that, the court cases will take years to untangle even with a compliant Supreme Court, unless he just declares himself dictator supreme and says to hell with the court, Constitution and the law.
At this point, many people are again raising the Hitler or Mussolini images, but in this I think they’re wrong. Trump’s no Hitler. He’s something closer to home and farther back in time.
To understand Donald Trump and his minions, one has to look back to the United States of 1828, which saw Andrew Jackson returned to the White Hose after losing in 1824, according to Auburn University political science assistant professor Spencer Goidel. It’s Jackson, not Hitler, who Trump models himself on. The media paid little attention, for example, to the fact that Trump hung a portrait of Jackson in the Oval Office during his first term.
The parallels between Trump and Jackson are unmistakable and extremely unsettling, and the mainstream media, as ignorant of our nation’s history as most of our citizens are, has utterly failed to address this issue.
In 1824, Jackson was narrowly defeated and, like Trump in 2020, claimed the election was stolen from him. A political outsider, Jackson styled himself a ‘man of the people,’ and claimed that he would rid the country of the ‘corrupt’ aristocrats running it. In a 2017 speech in Ohio, Trump promised to ‘drain the Washington swamp.’ Upon taking office, Jackson began the process of remaking his party in his image and reshaping the government, at the federal and state level, to give himself almost unchecked power and authority. Using the ’spoils system’, Jackson rewarded loyalists by putting them in key positions so that his allies were throughout federal and state institutions. While this was done under the guise of reform, it often led to widespread corruption and inefficiency. In October 2020, Trump issued an executive order that would have stripped civil service protections from government employees he perceived as disloyal to him and encouraged expressions of allegiance to the president during the hiring process. Called Schedule F, had Trump not lost the election that November, it could’ve resulted in the firing of at least 50,000 career federal workers and would’ve created disorder and low morale within the government service. It’s very likely that something akin to this will be revived after he’s inaugurated in January 2025.
Jackson, while he had no specific animosity toward Native Americans, did not believe their cultures were equal to Whites, and despite public outcry and court decisions against it, initiated the forced removal and relocation of Native Americans from their ancestral lands in the southeast – the ‘Trail of Tears,’. Even though 56 percent of American voters think that most undocumented people in the Untied States should be allowed to apply for legal status, Trump has vowed to use all available government resources, including the military, to forcibly detain and deport millions. Immigration advocates warn that this move will be costly, divisive, and inhumane, and is likely to have a negative economic impact on communities where undocumented people make up a significant portion of the work force.
Jackson acted with near-total impunity (something that the Supreme Court has come close to granting the president). Jackson’s war with the banking system led to a bank panic, and he indulged in violent hatreds and personal animus. Some historians see him as vengeful and self-obsessed. He demonized those who crossed him. He was a strong supporter of states’ rights and the extension of slavery into the western territories. Jackson made it clear that he was the absolute ruler of his administration’s policy and he never deferred to Congress or hesitate to use his presidential veto power.
When Trump is looked at in this light, sane people will agree that there are incontrovertible parallels. Jackson was an ego-driven, vindictive autocrat who the opposition dubbed King Andrew the I, the closest thing the United States has ever had to a Caesar or emperor. He was popular with much of the public who admired his rough-hewn directness and even his vulgarity.
There is no certainty now where the country is going. Will the threatened high tariffs on foreign goods, mainly but not solely on goods from China, really create a booming economy, or will they cause price spikes and shortages of certain goods that will hit the middle class and the poor like a gut punch? Will Trump really settle the crises in Ukraine and Gaza, or will he send a signal to the aggressors that will only widen the conflict. Wealthy investors and billionaire business owners are cozying up to him now, but what will the rest of us do when the largesse fails to trickle down as has always been the case?
Will the ship’s change of course to the right lead us to a wonderful destination, or will we be caught in a storm that will leave us on the rocks?
Only time will tell.
