Jackson and Trump have a lot in common. Pictured: President Andrew Jackson.
On a new podcast found in most streaming sources, The Free Press has produced Breaking History as an antidote to the conventional presentation of current events. While the legacy media happily reports news through an antiquated lens, Breaking News (BN) attempts to put present-day events through a prism that includes background, interpretation, and application. The producers at BN show less interest in repeated bromides like President Donald Trump is a fascist than they do in figuring out why Trump behaves the way he does or why he has been able to win the presidency on two separate occasions. BN creates a context and provides the listener with more than a quick clip. The podcast aims to help people understand an issue and approach it with greater intelligence, fulsome information, and proper understanding. I appreciate the worthy effort it makes to logically explain the rise of Trump in a recent edition and why so many have come to support him.
On the Jan. 22 publication, host Eli Lake made the astute observation that Trump’s populism is as American as apple pie. Populists have been present in American politics for most of its history, from Sam Adams dumping tea in the Boston Harbour to Ross Perot running for President in 1992 to give voice to the common man. As Lake says, “Populism is neither left nor right, donkey or elephant. It is a feral defiance that can burst anywhere on the ideological spectrum. Populists comprise the early founders of the Congress of Industrialized Organizations (CIO).” Throughout American history populism has reared up to shake the foundations of the government, to remind the leaders that “we, the people…” rule, and to stick a middle finger at the ruling elites who often think they know better and are better than the average citizen. On rare occasions, populism will reach the White House. America’s seventh president, Andrew Jackson, provided Trump with the template for confronting the establishment and overturning the long-held order.
Lake contends that populism adheres less to ideology and more to a mood. In other words, the rise of Trump coincides with other American populists like George Wallace, Huey Long, or the first populist to win the presidency, Andrew Jackson of Tennessee (born in South Carolina).
Unlike Trump, Jackson rose from nothing to become a great general. His troops admired him and nicknamed him Old Hickory, while his detractors called him a bigamist and a tyrant, words that have been associated with Trump to some degree.
To understand 2025 better, understanding Jackson’s rise to power would probably be the best guide to a Trump second term. Lake reminds us that both came to power “insisting that the previous election had been stolen from them.” They both survived assassination attempts, characterized themselves as outsiders, and interpreted their elections as an excuse to replace the old order.
During Trump’s first term, a portrait of Jackson hung in the Oval Office but was removed when former president Joe Biden moved there in 2021. The painting is back on the wall and Trump will spend the next four years working to upend the regular way of doing business in Washington. To better appreciate how Trump approaches this undertaking Lake uncovered Jackson’s long-forgotten governing principles.
At Jackson’s Inaugural on March 4, 1829, change first appeared. In his speech at the East Portico, Jackson told his supporters that “he had a mandate to reform a republic tainted by what he called incompetent and unfaithful hands.” He was the first president from a western state after six powerful easterners. Following the carriage that took Jackson to the White House, the Jacksonians descended on the food and drink including ice cream, kegs of lemonade and whiskey spiked with orange punch. There were also cakes and pies, but disinterested in order or manners the mob broke glasses and destroyed furniture. The bedlam confirmed the worst fears of the Washington establishment. As Lake observed, “Trump’s first term ended in a riot. Andrew Jackson’s started with one.”
What elicited such huge support from average Americans? He promised to destroy the Second National Bank of the United States which many thought was a tool of Eastern businessmen to increase their wealth and to conquer Native American lands. These twin pillars were enough to promise average white voters power and land.
But Jackson came with heavy baggage. He fought merciless wars against the Seminole, the Creek, and the Cherokee and he enslaved over a hundred people. Unlike George Washington, he did not free them after his death. He also commanded the post office not to deliver abolitionist literature. Still, he was one of the most consequential figures in American history. He can be found on the twenty-dollar bill nearly 180 years after his death because he bested the Redcoats at New Orleans in the concluding battle of the War of 1812 as much as for his presidency. He was also as tough as a night in jail. He survived an assassin’s bullet, was the only prisoner of war to serve as president, and murdered a man in a duel. Beyond everything else the seventh president, as Lake intones, “was a populist.”
Fighting to defend the forgotten men and women from the powerful and arrogant elite of his day, Jackson, like Trump, sought to upend the status quo, create chaos, and then a new order that would bend to his ways. Despite differences that have been documented between their upbringing and outlook on money, Jackson was the Trump of his day. Alexis de Tocqueville said Jackson was the “spokesman of provincial jealousies.” In the second part of this mini-series on populism, provincial jealousies, a powerful force in American elections will be examined.
Dave Redekop is a retired elementary resource teacher who now works part-time at the St. Catharines Courthouse as a Registrar. He has worked on political campaigns since high school and attended university in South Carolina for five years, where he earned a Master’s in American History with a specialization in Civil Rights. Dave loves reading biographies.
