As a progressive, waking up on January 20 to the news that Donald Trump would be sworn in that day as president must have felt similar to an abolitionist waking up on March 4, 1829 to the news that Andrew Jackson was being sworn in that day as the 7th president of the United States. To be sure, as those abolitionists well knew, the National Democratic Party that would soon morph into the Whigs did not have abolition of slavery on their platform, and if you were part of the relatively small demographic of Americans that supported ending the institution, the soon-to-be Whigs left much to be desired in terms of policy prescriptions. But, as one of my mentors in graduate school once put it, “If you at all cared about slaves, women, or Native Americans in the mid-19th century, you voted Whig.”
Andrew Jackson, like Donald Trump, was a political force to be reckoned with. Largely unschooled in the inner-workings of the federal government, Jackson was seen by many as a political outsider. Even setting aside the profound similarities in their personalities, Jackson openly maligned the political and economic systems in place in the United States as controlled by elites, solicited much of his policy advice from a group of his friends who were government outsiders that came to be known as his “Kitchen Cabinet,” and pledged to return power to “the people.” Much like Trump, Jackson upended the political coalitions that had been in place for decades. He cemented a political realignment centered around white males who felt they were being taken advantage of by the system and the elites that controlled it. Jackson’s coalition believed they were the true inheritors of the American political promise of the founding, that coastal elites and financial institutions conspired to keep them down and limit their own power and influence.
Jackson pushed for significant changes to American society and political economy. He wanted to abolish the Bank of the United States that helped to regulate currency, credit, and national monetary policy. He supported, even by illegal means if necessary, the relocation of Native American tribes from the East further West, culminating in atrocities like the Trail of Tears. Jackson argued strongly for the expansion of American territory that would increase the political influence of his coalition and constituents– an expansion that would preserve the political power of slave states and the primacy of their cultural views for decades to come. At the risk of over-exaggerating this comparison between the incoming 47th president and the 7th, Jackson ushered in a politics of white grievance that set up racial and cultural conflicts between his supporters and African and Native Americans, as well as the economic and political elites who had historically controlled many of the levers of power. Sound familiar?
However, while the policy similarities between Jackson and Trump may be uncannily familiar, the more important lesson for progressives and Democrats in 2025 is what came next. Over the next 31 years, Jackson’s Democratic Party dominated national politics. Between 1828 and 1856, the Democrats won six of eight presidential elections. They controlled the House of Representatives in 12 of 16 Congresses up to 1860, and the Senate in 13 (although senators were not popularly elected at this time, but instead chosen by their respective state legislatures). And of course, the Supreme Court was staffed with justices appointed by those Democratic presidents and confirmed by those Democratic Senates.
Many scholars divide American political history into what are known as Party Systems. While the exact number and dates of these Party Systems varies depending on the researcher, they are generally understood to be periods of time, usually several decades, where national politics was dominated by two major political parties comprised of specific coalitions of constituents that coalesced around a set of political, cultural, and economic values that shaped their respective parties’ responses to the issues of the day. When those coalitions and core values shift, the parties realign and a new Party System forms based on the new political coalitions. The election of Andrew Jackson is widely seen to have ushered in a new Party System in the United States that lasted until the Civil War.
The problem for the Whigs of the 1830’s, ‘40’s, and ‘50’s, is that many of their leaders did not seem to understand there had been a realignment in the core coalition that formed the base of their party. They failed to recognize that this meant a reorientation of the core values and rhetoric they used to campaign and speak to their constituents, and that this new political environment required them to reframe what it meant to be a Whig. In short, the Whigs continued to operate by the old set of conditions, the ones present before Jackson’s rise to power. They did not have a firm understanding of who their core constituencies were and how they needed to relate to these groups. And because of this, the Whigs allowed the Democrats to set the terms of the debate.
While hindsight lets us see the results of the disastrous policies of the Jacksonian Democrats during this period (dismantling the Bank of the United States brought on the economic Panic of 1837; Indian Removal caused the untold suffering of tens of thousands; and the expansion of slave territories led to two major wars and the deaths of hundreds of thousands), the Democrats spoke to Americans of their day in terms of Universal Manhood Suffrage, Manifest Destiny, and the Tyranny of the Bank. The Whigs for their part, continued to operate by the political playbook of old. To be sure, they won several national elections during this period, but they did so largely due to the immediate failure of the Democrats on specific issues such as their 1840 presidential victory during the economic downturn experienced in the late-1830’s.
The so-called “Age of Jackson” however, was shaped by the political vision of the Democrats, and the Whigs never developed a cohesive answer to it. It was not until the Republican Party emerged from disaffected Whigs and other disparate political groups in the late- 1850’s, creating new national political coalitions, under the banner of a new vision of America, “Free Labor, Free Soil, Free Men,” that a viable alternative to the Democrats’ vision emerged. The Republicans brought together a new coalition around these values, one that directly challenged that of the Democrats, and thus, a new Party System formed. From 1860 to 1932, the Republicans would go on to win fourteen of eighteen presidential elections.
Where does this leave the modern Democratic Party of 2025? Like it or not, Trump has brought together a new coalition of voters under a new vision for America that seems to speak to them. He has ushered in a new Party System. Until the Democrats understand this, the terms of the national political debate will be dominated and controlled by the Republican Party. Sure, the Democrats may win an election here or there, possibly even in 2028 if Trump’s disastrous tariff policies tank the economy and accelerate inflation. But working class voters have gravitated to the Republicans in droves, and many union members have left the Democratic Party. Until the Democrats recognize that the core message of the Republicans resonates with these groups, and that they need to reorient their vision for America, they will continue to play catch-up.
Democrats and progressives need to change the terms of the debate. This does not mean they need to change their core values, but they cannot continue to frame their policies in terms of identity group politics. Poll after poll recently has shown that many people who fit into the traditional mold of a Democratic Party voter feel like the party is not looking out for them, does not speak to their needs. The political left needs to speak to Americans more broadly, in a way they feel it is once again looking out for them. Instead of using the term “abortion” to talk about abortion rights, they need to talk about “keeping the government out of my doctor’s office.” Instead of talking about trans rights, they need to fight for the “rights of everyone to make their own decisions about their lives, to be who they want to be, and to keep the government away from their personal decisions.” And they need to talk about gay marriage and rights from the standpoint of “keeping the government out of the bedroom.” Perhaps Tim Walz was on to something when he said on the 2024 campaign trail “Mind your own damn business.” This is a message that many Trump voters may be able to get behind.
To bring together a new winning political coalition, the Democrats need to recognize their old coalition and messaging built around identity politics, labor and civil rights is no more, and that they need a new message with a new salience. There has been a party realignment whether we like it or not, and If the modern Democratic Party does not recognize this, and cannot make this shift, they may spend the next few decades as the Whigs did during the Age of Jackson: on the outside looking in as their country is torn apart and good people suffer.
-Peter Porcupine
