During his first term in power, Donald Trump’s Oval Office was prominently adorned with a portrait of Andrew Jackson, the seventh US President. It was a clear political statement. Not only had Jackson’s policy of westward expansion been justified as a means of giving the ‘common man’ greater opportunity to participate in national affairs, but his controversial racial legacy had led the Obama administration to seek the removal of his image from the $20 bill. The Jacksonian association was promoted by Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief political strategist. Whether Trump himself knew who Jackson was or what he stood for is questionable.
A former US Army general with a slew of heroic victories against the Native Americans and British to his name, Jackson first ran for President in 1824. Although he won the popular and electoral vote, he failed to secure a majority and was outmanoeuvred by John Quincy Adams in a contingent election. Jackson railed against what he saw as corrupt dealings by institutionalised politicians, his supporters rallying behind him to create the Democratic Party. When he ran against Adams again in 1828, an election typified by unprecedented personal attacks by each candidate, Jackson won.
Jackson’s second campaign had an even more populist bent than his first stab at high office, castigating career politicians and trumpeting the cause of the ‘common man’. After winning a landslide, he wasted little time in fighting the cause of his supporters. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 effectively displaced thousands of Native Americans from their ancestral homes, in a process some have suggested amounts to ethnic cleansing. He attacked the ‘corruption’ of the Second Bank of the United States, forcing its dismantling. He expanded executive powers and removed bureaucrats who failed to carry out his bidding with more compliant appointees. Federal money was siphoned into local banks friendly to the policies of the Jackson administration.
For some, Jackson’s legacy of stabilising the American economy, paying off the national debt, securing further territorial expansion and avoiding embroilment in foreign wars, is positive. For others, his demagogic tendencies, refusal to compromise and harsh treatment of native peoples is a warning of how democracy can be eroded from within.
Donald Trump has the potential to be a super-charged Jackson. A convicted felon, one well into his eighth decade, he seemingly has nothing to lose as he goes all guns blazing at Joe Biden this November. Trump, with his MAGA (Make America Great Again) mantra still touted as being the country’s saviour, likes to portray himself as the representative of the ‘common man’. This despite his privileged upbringing and relentlessly flashy lifestyle (Jackson at least was born into backwoods poverty in the 18th century). Who Trump and his supporters view as the common man, however, is not the generic poor or downtrodden. It is White, Christian, men.
The corruption of the political class has been a primary target of Trump since his original inception as a presidential candidate. No matter his own dodgy dealings, it is the Washington bureaucrats that have failed his White brethren. A so-called ‘deep state’ has hindered the progress of Trump and his acolytes, initiating the ‘big steal’ of 2020 and setting in motion a plethora of criminal cases in a bid to prevent his rightful return to the summit. As Jon D. Michaels has terrifyingly outlined in a recent Foreign Affairs article, it is Trump and his followers that are seeking to create a deep state, not dismantle one.
What is scariest of all is that Trump may not be in charge. Rather, he may just be a vessel through which nefarious, right-wing, racist forces hijack the presidency and rig the rules of the game to prevent their overthrow. This in the richest, most powerful country in the world.
Jackson was an authoritarian, a racist, slave-holding one at that. But he was a President who allowed himself to be confined by democratic limits, however much it may have pained him on occasion. He sought to preserve the Constitution and allowed for a peaceful transfer of power at the end of his second term.
If Trump wins in November – and there is every chance that he will after the Democrats foolishly allowed Joe Biden to seek a second term unchallenged – there is no telling the damage that will be caused to American politics and society. If you are not one of Trump’s chosen people, his ‘common’ White, Christian people, it may be time to abandon ship.
History's Shadow 