Trump’s evening out
Trump’s rally in Nashville tonight – how I hope it’s ruined for him by the ruling on his travel ban – is a chance for him to learn a little about Andrew Jackson. One could wish he’d done some of that learning before he decided to run for president.
Trump is coming to town to celebrate the 250th birthday of Andrew Jackson, the controversial seventh president who embraced populism and has been compared to the current president.
The Hermitage — as Jackson’s mansion is called — has shut down for the day and canceled plans for an event that was expected to attract thousands of visitors. Trump plans to visit late in the afternoon, lay a wreath on Jackson’s tomb, take a tour and learn more about Jackson.
I think he should learn more before laying any wreath, not after. He should learn more and realize Jackson doesn’t merit any wreaths.
Although a portrait of Jackson now hangs in the Oval Office, Trump’s comments on the former president have been vague at best. During a town hall in April, Trump said that “Andrew Jackson had a great history.” While giving the hosts of “Fox & Friends” a tour of the Oval Office late last month, Trump explained why he selected the portrait of Jackson: “They say that his campaign and his whole thing was most like mine. That was interesting. … That’s the great Andrew Jackson, who actually was a great general, and he was a great president — but a controversial president.”
Martin Luther King was a great guy who did wonderful things, and so was Jackson. Give this man an A for the course.
Jackson, the son of Irish immigrants, was considered “the people’s president,” and he approached the presidency in a dramatically different way than presidents before him, acting on his own beliefs and using the full power of the office to take swift action. He cracked down on corruption, replaced many federal officials and paid off the national debt. Jackson also forced Native American nations to move west of the Mississippi River, a ruthless relocation that became known as the “Trail of Tears.” For this reason, along with Jackson’s support of slavery, the administration of former president Barack Obama called for Jackson to be removed from the $20 bill, a decision that Trump at the time called “pure political correctness.”
Yeah right. How dare we not want to honor a guy like that.
If that’s his criteria, I wonder where the Hitler portrait hangs?
The relocation was actually called the Trail of Death, but it came to be known euphemistically because teaching little white school children the truth might hurt their feelings.
Seth, I was taught that it was the Trail of Tears, but there was very little euphemism from there on. My education was graphic about the effects of the relocation, and didn’t mince words. I suspect that might have been the initial motivation, but in the past half century, that is sort of understood that way because, well, we were all taught that name. But little white school children are, at least some of them, taught the very brutal truth.
And I went to school in Oklahoma.
Yeah, I was taught it was the Trail of Tears too, but I remember it as being the opposite of euphemistic. It was a striking name that grabbed the attention of children, and stuck.