In his first try for the presidency in 1824, Jackson won the popular vote but did not win an Electoral College majority (the House placed opponent John Quincy Adams in the White House).įour years later Jackson won 56 percent of the vote and a decisive victory. Trump lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College. When Jackson won the White House in 1828, he had already served on the Tennessee Supreme Court and represented his native state in both the US House and Senate. Trump has never served in the military Jackson’s rise to fame began as a hero warrior and victor of the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812. Trump was born to a wealthy family Jackson pulled himself up by his bootstraps. Nor is the Trump/Jackson comparison completely apt. Jackson killed a man in a duel who he felt had insulted his wife. He was a slave owner and racist whose harsh treatment of Native American tribes was controversial even in his time. The dangers of invoking Jacksonīut invoking Jackson has its dangers. “Like Jackson’s populism, we’re going to build an entirely new political movement,” said Trump strategic adviser Steve Bannon in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter just after last November’s presidential election. It’s also due to the fact that Jackson was a transformational president who wrested the nation onto a new path of partisan parties and a passionate electorate. This is not just because of Jackson’s association with the rise of the (largely white) working class, his temper, and his rough charisma. Trump’s aides and associates have long pushed the notion that he’s a modern-day incarnation of Andrew Jackson, the first US president who was not a Virginia planter or a Massachusetts native named Adams. “It is definitely interesting the way they are using it,” says Rachel Stephens, an assistant professor of art history at the University of Alabama and author of the forthcoming book, “Selling Andrew Jackson: Ralph E. Trump and his aides hope a glimpse of the same image today will cause voters to associate a mercurial new president with Jackson’s fierce defense of ordinary citizens. Jackson wanted the United States to look at his bearing and see someone as dignified and statesmanlike as George Washington. Thus presidents down the centuries invoke the past to try and claim their spot in the American experience. Earl, a close friend of Jackson who churned out a stream of images aimed at convincing voters that the seventh president was a worthy member of America’s founding pantheon. The portrait itself – depicting a leonine Jackson, dignified in a dramatic cloak – was originally a bit of 19 thĬentury political PR. It’s also a comparison that may be apt in an unintended way. It’s meant as a visual comparison: Trump has embraced the idea that he’s a modern-day Old Hickory, a populist outsider and scourge of Washington elites. President Trump has hung a painting of Andrew Jackson in a prominent spot in the Oval Office, just behind his desk and off to the side.
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