Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson...
Apr. 8th, 2025 06:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatMother attempted to cheer me up over the phone by stating that someone named Nathan Brooks (no, it's David Brooks - mother gets names wrong all the time), was optimistic because our country already went through this type of nightmare with another President who tried to destroy the economy and went after the banking, and stock market.
Sigh. Here's the Atlantic article she's talking about
America may well enter a period of democratic decay and international isolation. It takes decades to develop strong alliances, and to build the structures and customs of democracy—and only weeks to decimate them, as we’ve now seen. And yet I find myself confident that America will survive this crisis. Many nations, including our own, have gone through worse and bloodier crises and recovered. In Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis, the historian and scientist Jared Diamond provides case studies—Japan in the late 19th century, Finland and Germany after World War II, Indonesia after the 1960s, Chile and Australia during and after the ’70s—of countries that came back stronger after crisis, collapse, or defeat. To these examples, I’d add Britain in the 1830s and ’40s, and the 1980s, and South Korea in the 1980s. Some of these countries (such as Japan) endured war; others (Chile) endured mass torture and “disappearances”; still others (Britain and Australia) endured social decay and national decline. All of them eventually healed and came back.
America itself has already been through numerous periods of rupture and repair. Some people think we’re living through a period of unprecedented tumult, but the Civil War and the Great Depression were much worse. So were the late 1960s—assassinations, riots, a failed war, surging crime rates, a society coming apart. From January 1969 until April 1970, there were 4,330 bombings in the U.S., or about nine a day. But by the 1980s and ’90s—after getting through Watergate, stagflation, and the Carter-era “malaise” of the ’70s—we had recovered. As brutal and disruptive as the tumult of the late 1960s was, it helped the country shake off some of its persistent racism and sexism, and made possible a freer and more individualistic ethos.
But the most salient historical parallel might be the America of the 1830s. Andrew Jackson is the American president who most resembles Trump—power-hungry, rash, narcissistic, driven by animosity. He was known by his opponents as “King Andrew” for his expansions of executive power. “The man we have made our President has made himself our despot, and the Constitution now lies a heap of ruins at his feet,” Senator Asher Robbins of Rhode Island said. “When the way to his object lies through the Constitution, the Constitution has not the strength of a cobweb to restrain him from breaking through it.” Jackson brazenly defied the Supreme Court on a ruling about Cherokee Nation territory (a defiance, it should be noted, that Vice President Vance has explicitly endorsed). “Though we live under the form of a republic,” Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story wrote, “we are in fact under the absolute rule of a single man.”
But Jackson made the classic mistake of the populist: He overreached. Fueled by personal hostility toward elites, he destroyed the Second Bank of the United States, an early precursor to the Federal Reserve System, and helped spark an economic depression that ruined the administration of his chosen successor, Martin Van Buren.
In response to Jackson, the Whig Party arose in the 1830s to create a new political and social order. Devoutly anti-authoritarian, the Whigs were a cultural, civic, and political force all at once. They emphasized both traditional morality and progressive improvements. They agitated for prison reform and for keeping the Sabbath, for more women’s participation in politics and for a strong military, for government-funded public schools and for pro-business government policies. They were opposed to Jackson’s monstrous Indian Removal Act, and to the Democratic Party’s reactionary, white-supremacist social vision. Whereas Jacksonian Democrats emphasized negative liberty—get your hands off me—the Whigs, who would turn into the early Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln, emphasized positive liberty, empowering Americans to live bigger, better lives with things such as expanded economic credit, free public education, and stronger legal protections including due process and property rights.
Though we’ve come to call the early-to-mid-19th century the Age of Jackson, the historian Daniel Walker Howe notes that it was not Jackson but the Whigs who created the America we know today. “As economic modernizers, as supporters of strong national government, and as humanitarians more receptive than their rivals to talent regardless of race and gender,” Howe writes, the Whigs “facilitated the transformation of the United States from a collection of parochial agricultural communities into a cosmopolitan nation integrated by commerce, industry, information, and voluntary associations as well as by political ties.” Looking back, Howe concludes, we can see that even though they were not the dominant party of their time, the Whigs “were the party of America’s future.” To begin its recovery from Trumpism, America needs its next Whig moment.
Yes, we have reached a point of traumatic rupture. A demagogue has come to power and is ripping everything down. But what’s likely to happen is that the demagogue will start making mistakes, because incompetence is built into the nihilistic project. Nihilists can only destroy, not build. Authoritarian nihilism is inherently stupid. I don’t mean that Trumpists have low IQs. I mean they do things that run directly against their own interests. They are pathologically self-destructive. When you create an administration in which one man has all the power and everybody else has to flatter his voracious ego, stupidity results. Authoritarians are also morally stupid. Humility, prudence, and honesty are not just nice virtues to have—they are practical tools that produce good outcomes. When you replace them with greed, lust, hypocrisy, and dishonesty, terrible things happen.
***
Power without prudence and humility invariably fails. Nations, like people, change not when times are good but in response to pain. At a moment when Trumpism seems to be devouring everything, the temptation is to believe that this time is different.
But history doesn’t stop moving. Even now, as I travel around the country, I see the forces of repair gathering in neighborhoods and communities. If you’re part of an organization that builds trust across class, you’re fighting Trumpism. If you’re a Democrat jettisoning insular faculty-lounge progressivism in favor of a Whig-like working-class abundance agenda, you’re fighting Trumpism. If you are standing up for a moral code of tolerance and pluralism that can hold America together, you’re fighting Trumpism.
Over time, changes in values lead to changes in relationships, which lead to changes in civic life, which eventually lead to changes in policy and then in the general trajectory of the nation. It starts slow, but as the Book of Job says, the sparks will fly upward."
Sigh, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson.
Who was he? In case you didn't make it through the above excerpt? A populist president in the 1800s who tried to become King.
"Andrew Jackson was the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before his presidency, he rose to fame as a general in the U.S. Army (War of 1812 (the last time the US attempted to snag Canada, spoiler alert? US lost, Britain kept it) and the Native American Wars or American Indian Wars - which resulted in genocide, and Tribal Reservations, it was a horrific time in our history) and served in both houses of the U.S. Congress (at least he had a little civic background?). His political philosophy became the basis for the Democratic Party. Jackson's legacy is controversial. He has been praised as an advocate for working Americans and preserving the union of states, and criticized for his racist policies, particularly towards Native Americans. "
He was in all actuality? A walking nightmare. Among other things? Including but not limited to the genocide of various Native American Tribes and the Trail of Tears. He crushed the National Bank, we had to rebuild it, and thrust the US into a Depression. His policies lead eventually to the Civil War. And yes, the Democratic Party up until around the time of Roosevelt, was pretty much the asshole party. Both parties have had their periods in the asshole seat.
Someone on FB wondered if the Fall of Rome was as painful as what we are going through now? And I thought, does no one study history any longer?
Or even read the Bible for that matter? It was a hundred times worse.
Oh well, at least somebody is optimistic about this working out in the end. I know it will. I just don't know if I have the physical, mental and emotional stamina to fight my way through it? Maybe I need to go off all sugar and do more yoga.
Sigh. Here's the Atlantic article she's talking about
America may well enter a period of democratic decay and international isolation. It takes decades to develop strong alliances, and to build the structures and customs of democracy—and only weeks to decimate them, as we’ve now seen. And yet I find myself confident that America will survive this crisis. Many nations, including our own, have gone through worse and bloodier crises and recovered. In Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis, the historian and scientist Jared Diamond provides case studies—Japan in the late 19th century, Finland and Germany after World War II, Indonesia after the 1960s, Chile and Australia during and after the ’70s—of countries that came back stronger after crisis, collapse, or defeat. To these examples, I’d add Britain in the 1830s and ’40s, and the 1980s, and South Korea in the 1980s. Some of these countries (such as Japan) endured war; others (Chile) endured mass torture and “disappearances”; still others (Britain and Australia) endured social decay and national decline. All of them eventually healed and came back.
America itself has already been through numerous periods of rupture and repair. Some people think we’re living through a period of unprecedented tumult, but the Civil War and the Great Depression were much worse. So were the late 1960s—assassinations, riots, a failed war, surging crime rates, a society coming apart. From January 1969 until April 1970, there were 4,330 bombings in the U.S., or about nine a day. But by the 1980s and ’90s—after getting through Watergate, stagflation, and the Carter-era “malaise” of the ’70s—we had recovered. As brutal and disruptive as the tumult of the late 1960s was, it helped the country shake off some of its persistent racism and sexism, and made possible a freer and more individualistic ethos.
But the most salient historical parallel might be the America of the 1830s. Andrew Jackson is the American president who most resembles Trump—power-hungry, rash, narcissistic, driven by animosity. He was known by his opponents as “King Andrew” for his expansions of executive power. “The man we have made our President has made himself our despot, and the Constitution now lies a heap of ruins at his feet,” Senator Asher Robbins of Rhode Island said. “When the way to his object lies through the Constitution, the Constitution has not the strength of a cobweb to restrain him from breaking through it.” Jackson brazenly defied the Supreme Court on a ruling about Cherokee Nation territory (a defiance, it should be noted, that Vice President Vance has explicitly endorsed). “Though we live under the form of a republic,” Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story wrote, “we are in fact under the absolute rule of a single man.”
But Jackson made the classic mistake of the populist: He overreached. Fueled by personal hostility toward elites, he destroyed the Second Bank of the United States, an early precursor to the Federal Reserve System, and helped spark an economic depression that ruined the administration of his chosen successor, Martin Van Buren.
In response to Jackson, the Whig Party arose in the 1830s to create a new political and social order. Devoutly anti-authoritarian, the Whigs were a cultural, civic, and political force all at once. They emphasized both traditional morality and progressive improvements. They agitated for prison reform and for keeping the Sabbath, for more women’s participation in politics and for a strong military, for government-funded public schools and for pro-business government policies. They were opposed to Jackson’s monstrous Indian Removal Act, and to the Democratic Party’s reactionary, white-supremacist social vision. Whereas Jacksonian Democrats emphasized negative liberty—get your hands off me—the Whigs, who would turn into the early Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln, emphasized positive liberty, empowering Americans to live bigger, better lives with things such as expanded economic credit, free public education, and stronger legal protections including due process and property rights.
Though we’ve come to call the early-to-mid-19th century the Age of Jackson, the historian Daniel Walker Howe notes that it was not Jackson but the Whigs who created the America we know today. “As economic modernizers, as supporters of strong national government, and as humanitarians more receptive than their rivals to talent regardless of race and gender,” Howe writes, the Whigs “facilitated the transformation of the United States from a collection of parochial agricultural communities into a cosmopolitan nation integrated by commerce, industry, information, and voluntary associations as well as by political ties.” Looking back, Howe concludes, we can see that even though they were not the dominant party of their time, the Whigs “were the party of America’s future.” To begin its recovery from Trumpism, America needs its next Whig moment.
Yes, we have reached a point of traumatic rupture. A demagogue has come to power and is ripping everything down. But what’s likely to happen is that the demagogue will start making mistakes, because incompetence is built into the nihilistic project. Nihilists can only destroy, not build. Authoritarian nihilism is inherently stupid. I don’t mean that Trumpists have low IQs. I mean they do things that run directly against their own interests. They are pathologically self-destructive. When you create an administration in which one man has all the power and everybody else has to flatter his voracious ego, stupidity results. Authoritarians are also morally stupid. Humility, prudence, and honesty are not just nice virtues to have—they are practical tools that produce good outcomes. When you replace them with greed, lust, hypocrisy, and dishonesty, terrible things happen.
***
Power without prudence and humility invariably fails. Nations, like people, change not when times are good but in response to pain. At a moment when Trumpism seems to be devouring everything, the temptation is to believe that this time is different.
But history doesn’t stop moving. Even now, as I travel around the country, I see the forces of repair gathering in neighborhoods and communities. If you’re part of an organization that builds trust across class, you’re fighting Trumpism. If you’re a Democrat jettisoning insular faculty-lounge progressivism in favor of a Whig-like working-class abundance agenda, you’re fighting Trumpism. If you are standing up for a moral code of tolerance and pluralism that can hold America together, you’re fighting Trumpism.
Over time, changes in values lead to changes in relationships, which lead to changes in civic life, which eventually lead to changes in policy and then in the general trajectory of the nation. It starts slow, but as the Book of Job says, the sparks will fly upward."
Sigh, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson.
Who was he? In case you didn't make it through the above excerpt? A populist president in the 1800s who tried to become King.
"Andrew Jackson was the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before his presidency, he rose to fame as a general in the U.S. Army (War of 1812 (the last time the US attempted to snag Canada, spoiler alert? US lost, Britain kept it) and the Native American Wars or American Indian Wars - which resulted in genocide, and Tribal Reservations, it was a horrific time in our history) and served in both houses of the U.S. Congress (at least he had a little civic background?). His political philosophy became the basis for the Democratic Party. Jackson's legacy is controversial. He has been praised as an advocate for working Americans and preserving the union of states, and criticized for his racist policies, particularly towards Native Americans. "
He was in all actuality? A walking nightmare. Among other things? Including but not limited to the genocide of various Native American Tribes and the Trail of Tears. He crushed the National Bank, we had to rebuild it, and thrust the US into a Depression. His policies lead eventually to the Civil War. And yes, the Democratic Party up until around the time of Roosevelt, was pretty much the asshole party. Both parties have had their periods in the asshole seat.
Someone on FB wondered if the Fall of Rome was as painful as what we are going through now? And I thought, does no one study history any longer?
Or even read the Bible for that matter? It was a hundred times worse.
Oh well, at least somebody is optimistic about this working out in the end. I know it will. I just don't know if I have the physical, mental and emotional stamina to fight my way through it? Maybe I need to go off all sugar and do more yoga.
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Date: 2025-04-09 12:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-09 12:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-09 04:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-09 12:04 pm (UTC)Our educational system is crap.