Steve Inskeep: Trump Isn’t Andrew Jackson

Dennis Sanders

Dennis is the pastor of a small Protestant congregation outside St. Paul, MN and also a part-time communications consultant. A native of Michigan, you can check out his writings over on Medium and subscribe to his Substack newsletter on religion and politics called Polite Company.  Dennis lives in Minneapolis with his husband Daniel.

Related Post Roulette

12 Responses

  1. Mike Dwyer says:

    Wondering how important the 2018 midterms will be. The GOP is about to get an unprecedented period of dominance in the United States. What they do with it will tell us a lot.Report

    • Gabriel Conroy in reply to Mike Dwyer says:

      I wonder, too. I don’t find the dominance so extensive or unprecedented, however. I’m too lazy to google it, but didn’t the GOP control both houses in 2005-2007? The SCOTUS will likely be GOP-appointee dominated, but it’s a lagging indicator. It takes a while for cases and controversies to get that far. (As for the lower courts, there might be more GOP domination now. ETA: which suggests there may be a strong GOP impact in the judicial branch, stronger than if we just looked at SCOTUS.) While the GOP seems to be stepping into line for now behind Trump, it’s unclear to me whether and how they’ll actually get along.

      I’m afraid to make predictions about 2018. I can see it going several ways and being spun in several more ways. You’re right, though, it will be interesting and tell us a lot.Report

  2. Gabriel Conroy says:

    The point is well-taken, but it’s worth remembering that the Jacksonian era was accompanied by limiting the right to vote against property owning free men, in at least some states. (See the abstract about North Carolina disfranchisement in 1835here: I read only the abstract and not the whole thing.) Also, women to the best of my knowledge were completely excluded. New Jersey had allowed propertied women to vote until 1807.

    I say all that just to point out that this widening of appeal was based on a narrow electorate.

    On a final note, it’s nice to see you (Dennis) posting again.Report

  3. Stillwater says:

    “Steve Inskeep is part of the reality-based community, people who believe that solutions emerge from the judicious study of discernible reality. Trump’s an empire now, and when he acts, he creates his own reality. And while Steve’s studying that reality — judiciously, as he will — Trump will act again, creating other new realities, which he can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. Trump is history’s actor . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what he does.”Report

  4. Michael Cain says:

    Some of that tripling was a change in procedures — NY actually having a popular vote in 1828 versus not in 1824 came close to doubling the popular vote total all by itself.Report

    • Gabriel Conroy in reply to Michael Cain says:

      I hadn’t thought about that.Report

    • PD Shaw in reply to Michael Cain says:

      Yeah, four states started using the popular vote in 1828. There were other issues: it was one of the most negative campaigns in U.S. history with the fate of everything hanging in the balance. In contrast to the 1824 election, there was a clear choice between two candidates. In 1824, there were four regional candidates, none of whom were on the ballot in all states. Jackson was not even on the ballot in Kentucky which threw the election to Adams.Report

  5. Also, they want to exile disjoint sets of dark-skinned people.Report

  6. PD Shaw says:

    “Jackson’s greatest political achievement was the widening of democratic space.”

    No, his greatest political achievement was squashing the secessionist movement. After reading the link, I still think Trump is a later-day Andrew Jackson, electoral analogies are strained. Somewhere in this piece there appears to be an assumption that if Jackson won in 1824, he would be a different person than the Jackson who won in 1828. A Jacksonian type is never defined by process matters.Report