Andrew Jackson is maybe the most Trump-like past president. He was a badass, most importantly. He also was cheated out of winning an election at the highest level and started a counter movement (“Corrupt Bargain”), he heralded the onset of the American endless election campaign, his leadership was such an irritant to the establishment that it opened up a giant fissure in the administration and he arrived to a city incredibly hostile to him, was loyal to a fault, was the first populist president, the first distinctively different presidential or (not-so-traditionally presidential), he was incredibly charismatic, his wife was the subject of horrific smear campaigns, figure inspired and formed a political party (the Democrat party), the first real American hero since Washington, changed the power structure of Washington forever, was hell bent on getting the crooks out of Washington (“turn the rascals out” — the first election campaign theme), and was the first president re-elected in a landslide (just like 2020). His ideas also ruled America until the Civil War... Jackson was a president unafraid to wage war in his own people if it came to it.

And he did purge Washington, but just a bit too well. Jackson heedlessly destroyed the Second Bank of the United States simply because he had a distrust of centralized banks and despised the rich and lavish bankers controlling it. It caused nearly irreparable inflation, sent the country into a lasting depression, and plunged the country into debts that we still continue to this day.

Maybe not the best kind of “changed America forever”.

Andrew Jackson is maybe the most Trump-like past president. He was a badass, most importantly. He also was cheated out of winning an election at the highest level, was the first populist president, inspired and formed a political party (the Democrat party), and was hell bent on getting the crooks out of Washington.

And he did do that, but just a bit too well. Jackson heedlessly destroyed the Second Bank of the United States simply because he had a distrust of centralized banks and despised the rich and lavish bankers controlling it. It caused nearly irreparable inflation, sent the country into a lasting depression, and plunged the country into debts that we still continue to this day.