Essay Sample on Trump v Jackson: Comparing Two Populist Presidents

The presidential campaign in 2016 has compelled many scholars to make numerous comparisons between Donald Trump, who is the Republican candidate, and Andrew Jackson in 1824 and 1828. Thus, many pundits argue that President Andrew Jackson and Donald Trump share the same psychological characteristics: shades of narcissism, social dominance, and populist authoritarian appeal. Through many comparisons, just like Jackson, Trump was a candidate using a populist slogan to gain voters' trust (Lomazoff, 2017). Thus, "Make America Great Again" is a campaign slogan that has appeared in some of the American campaigns.

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This slogan was used and popularized by Trump during his presidential campaign, which culminated in his victory against Hillary Clinton. Therefore, the argument is that the populace was in pursuit of winning against "the Establishment" as a way of demonstrating their support for a great America.

Arguably, Trump's ideology of winning the interests of the populace is related to President Jackson. Undoubtedly, Andrew Jackson got considered as the representative of the Americans. The slogan reaffirmed Trump's pursuit of protecting the interests of the working class, who believed that Obama's reign contributed to the economic turmoil. Jackson also experienced the same circumstance because it was during the industrial revolution, and there was a need for financial stability (Bilger, 2017). In this sense, both Jackson and Andrew's policies focused on solving challenges attributed to economic upheavals. After Trump's victory, the Trump-Jackson comparisons have gained moment, thus influencing American politics. Undoubtedly, this situation has made many scholars wonder about the sudden rise of Trump, culminating in his victory.

Trump's inner circle considered both Jackson and Trump as populist leaders who were motivated, particularly by their desire to help the Americans. The victory of both Trump and Jackson in 1828 is associated with the Americans' efforts in unraveling the "establishment." This approach that Trump posited during his campaign demonstrated how the American people were rising against a government they perceived to be dysfunctional. Thus, like Andrew's populism, Trump was going to establish a new political movement in the United States.

Moreover, the "Make America Great Again" slogan emphasizes the principles that Jackson believed to be of the founding fathers. In this regard, Andrew's unwavering support for political equality is also hinted by Trump mainly to make America great again. Besides, Trump managed to appeal to the white working-class for assistance through the slogan. Similarly, Andrew Jackson effortlessly worked with the majority rule, thus contributed to the winning of the popular votes. Arguably, Trump was interested in policies that favored the white working class's interests and adopted race democracy.

However, the historical comparisons can be misleading at some point as they can be enlightening. At this point, reasons are illustrating why the two leaders do not share the same political landscape. Most of the similarities presented tend to be superficial, as argued by other scholars. Unlike Jackson, who won popular votes, Trump lost to Hillary Clinton by almost 3,000,000 votes. As opposed to popular opinion, his move did not pave the way for democracy but instead marked by a large number of white male suffrages. Most of the white male voters did not get influenced by the state of the nation but were instead were rallied by Jackson to his standard (Lomazoff, 2017). Because there is a lack of data, it is not easy to know the factors which motivated the average voters. Just like in 2016, scholars argued that elections were shaped by economic, racial, ethnocultural, and geographic issues but not because of anger toward President Adam's administration.

Contrastingly, the current political landscape is different from that of the 1820s. As a result, current presidential candidates are significantly more corporate and polished than the previous ones. Also, the United States has experienced the reduction of African-American slavery characterized by the civil rights movement. As a result, it has become more multicultural. Therefore, African Americans' and immigrants' treatment remains an area of interest, leaving many questions answered, but this period is different from Jackson's era. There are significant changes in American politics to the national cultural norms and what the presidential candidates expect. For instance, Trump did not address the racism issue but instead resorted to building a wall to keep away immigrants, mainly from Mexico. Based on this evidence, it is possible to argue that this makes Trump different from Jackson.

Conclusion

Making comparisons without sufficient evidence between political cultures that got entirely separated by many decades makes it quite impossible to show similarities between Jackson and Trump. It is noteworthy, therefore, to argue that there are no exact similarities between the political cultures of the past and the present. The evidence got based on the approaches used by scholars to portray Trump as a 21stcentury Andrew Jackson. Consequently, these comparisons fail to adequately justify the similarities because Trump's political landscape is different from traditional American political culture (McAdams, 2016). Unlike Jackson, Trump became the American president without the political experience, thus not capable of demonstrating a considerable interest for both Americans and the nation's future.

References

Bilger, R. (2017). Donald Trump, Andrew Jackson, and the Civil War: A CWI Fellow’s Response.

Lomazoff, E. (2017). Why Donald Trump Is Not Andrew Jackson (and Why That Matters for American Constitutional Democracy). Md. L. Rev., 77, 280.

McAdams, D. P. (2016). The mind of Donald Trump. The Atlantic, 5.