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| Jackson in 1844 or 1845, via Wikimedia Commons. He'd have been 93 at the outset of the Civil War. |
I want to add, to yesterday's poem, that Trump's rewrite of history isn't just silly ignorance. Who introduced Trump to the history of the Jackson presidency, as Peter Baker reminds us in today's Times, is Stephen Bannon, and as Baker fails to remind us, it's a pretty sinister, white supremacist story. Trump himself doesn't tell it right, so, in brief:
President Andrew Jackson, who died 16 years before the Civil War started, saw it coming and was angry. Would never have let it happen!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 2, 2017
Donald doubles down. This isn't just pulled out of his ass, though he doesn't understand it very well or at all. Maybe from #PresidentBannon https://t.co/RHyhxRB29m— Yastreblyansky (@Yastreblyansky) May 2, 2017
It's about the theory that slavery had nothing to do with the origins of the Civil War. It was all about that mean federal government!— Yastreblyansky (@Yastreblyansky) May 2, 2017
What Jackson was "angry" about in 1832 was the Nullification Crisis. South Carolina demanded right to ignore US tax law.— Yastreblyansky (@Yastreblyansky) May 2, 2017
It wasn't about slavery, but about import taxes; a tariff protecting northeastern industry disfavored Southern agriculture.— Yastreblyansky (@Yastreblyansky) May 2, 2017
Jackson sympathized on the tariff issue, but couldn't accept South Carolina threatening to secede.— Yastreblyansky (@Yastreblyansky) May 2, 2017
The racist story of the Civil War is that it was just a continuation of the 1832 struggle. Nothing to do with slavery!— Yastreblyansky (@Yastreblyansky) May 2, 2017
And Jackson is a hero who wanted the Union to continue but wanted the southerners to have their desires.— Yastreblyansky (@Yastreblyansky) May 2, 2017
If Jackson had been president in 1860, Trump is saying, he would have convinced the South to stay in the Union.— Yastreblyansky (@Yastreblyansky) May 2, 2017
And what he doesn't say is 4 million humans would have continued to be property of plantation owners.— Yastreblyansky (@Yastreblyansky) May 2, 2017
And if you don't believe me...Thus @realDonaldTrump repeating puppetmaster Bannon's lesson claims that Jackson had a solution in mind 28 years before the Civil War.— Yastreblyansky (@Yastreblyansky) May 2, 2017
White Nationalists And Neo-Nazis Applaud Trump’s Civil War Remarks https://t.co/EGVg7VW5Ak— #TheResistance (@SocialPowerOne1) May 2, 2017
...maybe you'll believe them.
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