Trump claims populist mantel, but he’s no Andrew Jackson

In recent years, Andrew Jackson’s historical star has fallen in the liberal sky. Prominently on display during the dust-up over replacing Alexander Hamilton on the ten dollar bill, Jackson was frequently offered up as the statesman who most deserved to be booted.

As Matthew Yglesias explained, “the process by which American liberals came to clamor for the replacement of Jackson — but not Hamilton — with (Harriet) Tubman is, essentially, the entire political history of the United States since its founding.”

{mosads}So, of course, it makes perfect sense that President Donald Trump’s optics guardians and vocal supporters (from Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani to Steve Bannon) are embracing former President Andrew Jackson. Everything old is new, and purportedly, “great” again.

Except it doesn’t make sense. And I’m not talking about the backwards logic of why Trump might want to identify with the president who signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830.

I’m talking about the fact that Trump’s biography looks nothing like Old Hickory’s.

Former President Andrew Jackson, as biographer Jon Meacham has commented, had far more political experience than Donald Trump. He was also a war hero and a self-made man.

Jackson’s father died before he was born. His mother and two brothers died during the Revolutionary War, leaving Jackson an orphan at fourteen. After a few years of scraping by, he became as a lawyer and made his way to Nashville, where his political career and economic fortunes flourished. He held the offices of attorney general, judge, delegate, congressman, and senator long before he ever contemplated running for president.

Serving in the Tennessee militia, Jackson went on to orchestrate several successful engagements in the Creek War. He became a major general in the U.S. Army during the War of 1812. His victory at the Battle of New Orleans not only made Jackson a household name, but also sparked the comparisons of him to another universally-admired American general: George Washington.

Trump, the son of a rich father who managed five deferments during Vietnam, has neither Jackson’s hardscrabble beginnings nor Old Hickory’s impressive achievements. If anything, Trump is more like Thomas Jefferson, the son of a well-to-do Virginia planter who abandoned the governor’s office and fled Virginia during the Revolutionary War.

And while both Trump and Jackson campaigned as tribunes of the people, it should not be overlooked that Jackson’s Inaugural Address fully acknowledged the constitutional limits of the presidency and argued that the benefit of a small federal government was liberty.

In 1829, Jackson stated:

“In administering the laws of Congress I shall keep steadily in view the limitations as well as the extent of the Executive power, trusting thereby to discharge the functions of my office without transcending its authority.”

With regard to “the management of the public revenue,” Jackson sought, “the extinguishment of the national debt” because it is “incompatible with real independence.” Further, he said:

“Considering standing armies as dangerous to free governments in time of peace, I shall not seek to enlarge our present establishment, nor disregard that salutary lesson of political experience which teaches that the military should be held subordinate to the civil power.”

Jackson’s promises may echo through some of today’s Republican philosophy, but they are a far cry from those found in Trump’s speech. Said another way, Jackson’s vision was more Barry Goldwater’s than Franklin Roosevelt’s. And yet Trump imagines an even larger scope of both presidential authority and governmental action than even Roosevelt.

Throughout his Inaugural, Trump used “we,” but it was clear that he meant “him and his administration” and that he expected Congress to follow his lead as president, rather than act as a co-equal branch of the federal government. He imagines himself as the country’s C.E.O., and not the executor of the laws decided upon by the people’s branch: the Congress.

Trump has also turned Ronald Reagan’s Inaugural philosophy (“government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem“) on its head, as he promised that his government will “bring back jobs…borders…our wealth…our dreams…build new roads and highways and bridges and airports and tunnels and railways all across our wonderful nation.”

He went on to argue that, “There should be no fear. We are protected, and we will always be protected.” Not once did Trump mention that the ends of government are liberty and justice. To him, there is only “protection” and “service” (“a nation exists to serve its citizens”). In short, Trump plans to do more with government than he plans to cut from it.

Again, this is not only a significant departure from Goldwater and Reagan, but also from his claimed presidential exemplar, Andrew Jackson. As historian H.W. Brands put it, Jackson “trusted the people because he was one of them.”

Trump is neither a man of the people, nor does he trust the people to govern themselves. He is no Andrew Jackson.

Lara M. Brown, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University.

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