Today i’m going to talk about another candidate in American political history that i think exemplifies what i’m going to call ‘trump-like’ characteristics. Because Donald Trump isn’t a unicorn or a thunderbolt out of the clear blue sky. Trump is part of a cycle, not an exception.

Barack Obama ran as an outsider in 2008 because people were not at all pleased with the status quo. 8 years on the numbers have become dramatically worse. None of us have a right to be surprised and light our hair on fire that the voters chose an outsider. There was an opening in the political discourse and spectrum you could land a metaphorical 747 in. The only surprising thing to me is that Trump was able to stage a hostile takeover of the Republican party and use it as a vehicle for his outsider, anti-establishment message. But once again, this is not totally without precedent. With that in mind, let us turn to Andrew Jackson and the elections of 1824 and 1828.

Old Hickory, as Jackson was affectionately known first by his troops and then by others, came a long at an interesting time in the history of the young American republic. As i have alluded to before, the American system was originally designed not to be a democracy in the terms we would think about it today. The founders conceived of it largely as a republic run and directed by elites periodically seeking the consent of those they governed for. The ‘Mob’ was something very much to be guarded against, just as much as oligarchic concentrations of uncountable elite authority. Campaigning was taboo. One should not seek the presidency but be offered it and, like Cincinnatus, consent to enter the service of the people.

Of course this was nonsense. Candidates went to extraordinary lengths to try and become President. They just tried to ensure that it didn’t look like they were doing so.

Another important part of this equation is the political consensus that reigned at the time. The initial fears of Washington and others that the fledgling United States would be riven apart by factions and the polarization of party politics had given way to the ‘era of good feeling’. This was essentially one party democracy. The Federalists had fallen apart, leaving only the Democratic Republican party (Democratic Republican?! Don’t ask. Just go with it. We’ll get there another time, i promise) as a major national political force. Victory in war and a growing consensus on policy meant James Monroe ran essentially unopposed for the presidency.

But all was not well. There had been a huge market-crash based on land speculation, breaking the faith of many in the efficacy of the establishment. The calm political exterior belied the  forces moving beneath the surface. Because the Revolutionary generation who had shepherded the nation through the war and into existence was dying off. And the one-party structure allowed patronage and corruption to reach previously unheard of heights, at least in the opinion of the electors.

The ‘Wyoming Letters’ give a sense of this mood.

look to the city of Washington, and let the virtuous patriots of the country weep at the spectacle. There corruption is springing into existence, and fast flourishing. Gentlemen, candidates for the first office in the gift of a free people, are found electioneering and intriguing, to worm themselves into the confidence of the members of congress, who in support of their particular favourites, are bye and bye to go forth and dictate to the people what is right.

If that sentiment sounds familiar, it should. Washington, people believed, was no longer filled with public minded patriots but self serving office-seekers prostituting the peoples interests to their own. A corrupt political class controlled the levers of power and operated them for their own benefit. And so some began calling for someone outside of the political establishment, a man in touch with the real lived experience and interests of the common citizen. And more than that, a man who would batter the corrupt and the dissolute into oblivion and once more cast the money-changers out of the peoples temple.

Jackson was a war hero, having defeated the British in the battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812. Moreover, he had served as a boy in the Revolutionary war. He seemed to promise a return to the old values of the heroes of that conflict, of leadership and duty rather than technocratic managerial skill. When it comes down to it,  he promised to make America great again.

He was also a violent departure from the norm for persons considered suitable for the office of the Chief Magistracy. He was violent, bellicose, loud and crudely educated to the eyes of the elites. His visage was scarred, his body riddled with bullets from duels and battles that would hemorrhage and require draining. He was, and cultivate the image of, a rough frontier type and the very antithesis of the elite intellectual.

Needless to say the aforementioned elites were aghast. This man had suspended habeas corpus, ignored courts, issues summary orders for execution and in a variety of other ways behaved as more of a dictator than a democrat. Thomas Jefferson wrote the following of Jackson

“I am much alarmed at the prospect of seeing General Jackson become President.  He is one of the most unfit men I know of for such a place.  He has very little respect for laws or Constitutions.”

Hardly a ringing endorsement from the nations third president. But there is more.

“When I was President of the Senate he was a Senator; and he could never speak on account of the rashness of his feelings.  I have seen him attempt it repeatedly, and as often choke with rage.  His passions are no doubt cooler now…but he is a dangerous man.”

Jefferson echoed the sentiments of many. As i often hear said of Trump now, Jackson was considered an aberration and a danger to the Republic. But as is so often the case with these sort of claims, what they really mean is that you are a danger to my Republic. The one i want, the one consistent with my values.

Which isn’t to say that is a bad thing. Everyone has their ideas about how we should organize ourselves and live together. And a lot of them are mutually exclusive. But the Republic has weathered the storm. And i firmly believe if it can survive the extra-judicial, racialized populism of Jackson then the bungling of the hypothetical Trump administration will be a walk in the park.

There are important differences. Jackson had more political and relevant executive experience (if you count the Military, which people back then were loath to do, fearing the advent of some kind of usurping american Ceasar) and a much greater connection to the Party establishment than Trump has ever had.

The point of this exercise on my part is not to tell you that Andrew Jackson and Donald Trump are interchangeable. In fact, they are different. But the differences are the point. The differences show us how the system has changed, evolved and matured. By the same token though, the similarities tell us what is persistent and analogous.

And so, next time someone says to you ‘How could they nominate a man like Trump?’ you can tell them the truth. That men ‘like’ Trump are a normal feature of the American political milieu. That, like a old forest, sometimes a wildfire needs to come through to purge the dead wood and re-invigorate growth. The challenge is to know what to sacrifice to the flames and what to preserve.