You see, today Sirius XM satellite radio posted an audio of an interview with Trump in which Trump defended Andrew Jackson, one of the worst, most abusive presidents the United States has ever had. But that's not new. Trump had praised Jackson before. What stands out from the interview is the fact that Trump claimed Andrew Jackson had a negative opinion about the Civil War.
Except Jackson died 16 years before the Civil War started and he was a slave owner.
Here's the verbatim transcript from that interview on Trump comparing his presidential campaign to Andrew Jackson's and then calling him a "swashbuckler":
TRUMP: They said my campaign is most like, my campaign and win was most like Andrew Jackson with his campaign. And I said, 'when was Andrew Jackson?' It was 1828. That's a long time ago. That's Andrew Jackson. And he had a very, very mean and nasty campaign. Because they said this was the meanest and the nastiest. And unfortunately it continues.
REPORTER: His wife died.
TRUMP: His wife died. They destroyed his wife and she died. And, you know, he was a swashbuckler.
Then, a few seconds later, Trump said this:
TRUMP: I mean, had Andrew Jackson been a little bit later, you wouldn't have had the Civil War. he was a very tough person, but he had a big heart and he was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War. He said, 'there's no reason for this.' People don't realize, you know, the Civil War, you think about it, why? People don't ask that question. But why was the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?
Take a couple of minutes to put your hand on your face and shake your head. It's only fair.
So Trump claims that Andrew Jackson SAW what was happenig with the Civil War and SAID there's "not reason for this" even though Jackson died 16 years before the Civil War and he was a slave owner.
Which means Trump doesn't know about the history of the United States AND specfically about one of the most important events in the history of the United States after the war of independence.
But perhaps what's even more offensive is the fact that Trump suggests he doesn't know the reason for the Civil War. That reason, in case you're just as ignorant as Trump is, is slavery. The Civil War started in 1861, when 11 southern states seceded from the Union as a response to Abraham Lincoln's position against slavery. Lincoln was due to take office in 1861 and the 11 southern states seceeded before he took office because they did not want to abolish slavery. As a result, the Federal government, under Abraham Lincoln went to war against the southern states. Officially "to preserve the Union." In reality, to abolish slavery.
What makes this even worse is the fact that Trump is supposed to be the president of the United State and he's supposed to know about this. But he doesn't. And that brings serious questions regarding his ability to be in office.
Now, back to the issue of Andrew Jackson, the extreme-right has used Jackson to compare him with Donald Trump with because of its "toughness." In reality Jackson would have been labeled a genocidal monster by today's standards, particulary because of what he did to the Native American population in 1830, when he signed into law the Indian Removal Act, which ordered the relocation of Native Americans from their ancestral homelands in the southeastern US. This forced removal was known as The Trial of Tears and it cost the lives of thousands of Native Americans because of disease, starvation and harassment by White people.
Imagine being forced to march on foot over the span of Florida to the west of the Mississippi river without enough food or medicines, and with racists attacking you all the time, while you watch your family and friends dying along the way. That was the Trial of Tears.
And why? Because White people in the southestern states didn't want the Native Americans near them.
That's the guy Trump says he had a "big heart."
Here's by the way, the clip from that Trump interview:
"Had Andrew Jackson been a little bit later, you wouldn’t have had the Civil War" @realDonaldTrump told @SalenaZito. Full intv at 2pE, Ch124 pic.twitter.com/d7PuRRm7Md— SiriusXMPolitics (@SXMPolitics) May 1, 2017
UPDATE: After it was clear he made an ass of himself with his nonsense about Andrew Jackson, Trump went on Twitter to double down on the same lie about Jackson:
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
That is false. Andrew Jackson had no issue against slavery, which was the core issue of the Civil War. Why? Because he was a slave owner and traded salves and he hunted slaves when they escaped. In fact, according to NPR, as president, Jackson did censored the mail to stop any anti-slavery materials going into the South:
But as president, his governing coalition, which became the Democratic Party, included Southern slave interests, and Jackson never messed with them. He even allowed Southerners to censor the U.S. mail to keep "dangerous" antislavery publications from reaching slave states.
Thus, if Jackson would've done something to stop the Civil War from happening, that would've been to protect slavery, not to abolish it.
Thus, saying Jackson would've stopped the civil war, or even be or angry because of the drive to abolish slavery, which was the reason why the South seceded, makes Donald Trump either a moron or racist. Or both.
Oh, and by the way: in that same Sirus interview Trump claims Andrew Jackson's 1828 campaign was like his. Not according to a historian Steve Inskeep, who wrote a book about Andrew Jackson and had this to say about Trump's claim:
2016 was actually more like 1824. In that year, the political world was divided and nobody knew which way it would go.
Andrew Jackson was one of four candidates who divided the popular and electoral votes. Jackson got the most popular votes - but when the election was thrown to the House of Representatives, the House chose the popular vote loser, John Quincy Adams. It was a perfectly legal result, but one that Jackson branded as unfair and undemocratic.
So if Trump wanted to honor Jackson, he would've declined the Electoral College vote and, like Jackson, sided with the winner of the popular vote: Hillary Clinton. He didn't. So much for his claim of being like Andrew Jackson.
There's more. Here's from an article published by The Nation the say the SiriusXM interview was posted, showing Jackson was NOT "angry" about slavery states wanted to secede from the Union, which is the literal cause of the Civil War:
[Jackson] even opposed those who sought compromise, like Henry Clay—who challenged Jackson in the election of 1832. Clay also ran against Jackson’s protégé, President James K. Polk, a slaveholder widely condemned for seeking in the late 1840s to expand the influence of slaveholders and the amount of territory where slavery was allowed.
The Nation also point out to something VERY disturbing in Trump's claim:
Trump’s unsettling notion that the differences that led to the Civil War might “have been worked out” imagines what should be unimaginable: cutting deals with regard to slavery.
It adds:
Jackson was a slaveholder who placed ads promising rewards for the return of a runaway “Mulatto Man Slave” that viciously promised “ten dollars extra, for every hundred lashes any person will give him, to the amount of three hundred.” Jackson argued that the Constitution had settled the slave debate, and he attacked the anti-slavery movement as a threat to public order. As the president, Jackson referred to religiously motivated abolitionists as “monsters” and he decried the anti-slavery movement as “the wicked design of demagogues.”
In other words, if Jackson was angry against something it was against abolitionsim, not against slavery. And the only way Jackson would've prevented the Civil War, it would've been by allowing slavery to continue.
That's what Trump is applauding.
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