Andrew Jackson and Donald Trump-The Uncomfortable Similarities
POPULISM, HATRED OF “ELITES”, LOST-CAUSE/“STATES RIGHTS” ARGUMENTS, MARGINALIZATION OF NON-WHITE MINORITIES would seem to be the themes of Donald Trump’s campaign, yet hold-on, these themes have been used before (quite successfully in fact), by President Andrew Jackson (who served two terms, from 1828 to 1836). At best, an “expansion of Democracy”, and at worst letting the inmates run the asylum, while burying non-whites.
Andrew Jackson, a Short History: Most of us are familiar with Donald J. Trump’s background. Here is an Andrew Jackson refresher course:
1) Jackson was born in the Carolinas in 1767, the son of Scots-Irish immigrants from Ulster, and died at the Hermitage (near Nashville, TN) in 1845. He and his brother were taken prisoner by the British during the Revolution in 1781. Jackson famously had his face slashed by a British officer’s sword, for refusing to clean the officer’s boots. Jackson’s father died a few weeks before his birth, his brother didn’t survive British captivity, and another brother died in battle. His mother became a nurse to American prisoners held in British ships (in Charleston harbor), but soon died of cholera, leaving Andrew an orphan at age 14. His mother instilled in him a deep hatred of the British, and the privilege/aristocracy that accompanied them.
