Trump’s New Jacksonian Era

President Donald Trump’s electoral victory makes him an anomaly in the annals of U.S. history—not only for winning non-consecutive terms, which no one has accomplished since Grover Cleveland over a century ago, but also for surviving multiple assassination attempts and becoming the first elected president convicted of felony crimes.  

Whether or not the convictions are justified, prognosticators have rightly called his win one of the greatest comebacks ever in American politics—greater even than Richard Nixon’s rise from the ashes after losing to John F. Kennedy in 1960.  

Unlike in 2016, when he failed to clinch the popular vote but won the Electoral College, Trump outpaced Kamala Harris by nearly 2.5 million votes, making gains among racial, gender, age, and geographic demographics with whom Democrats typically have excelled, particularly blacks, Latinos, and blue-collar workers.  

His populist message on reducing inflation and protecting the Southern border undoubtedly resonated with Americans. It signals the next stage in an ongoing political realignment—against the legacy media, wokeism, bureaucratic and celebrity elitism and in favor of economic and national stability and law and order. In short, Americans want to achieve the American Dream—and, at least in this presidential election, they demonstrated they had enough of the Biden Administration’s progressive policies. Economic woes and safety concerns, vigorously aggravated by a massive influx of migrants, were the hallmarks of an administration that fixated on maximally polarizing cultural issues such as abortion, transgenderism, and the supposed fascism of half the country.

Ultimately, if U.S. history provides any lessons, the coming years may be marked as the 21st century’s Era of the Common Man. But only if the president-elect bestows the new coalition to his political successors.

Old Hickory, New Trump

Nearly 200 years ago, Andrew Jackson—famed general of the War of 1812—faced John Quincy Adams, the son of Founding Father John Adams and Secretary of State in the Monroe Administration, in the 1824 election. Unlike previous elections, barriers precluding non-property-owning white men had been removed. “Eighteen states were [allowed] to choose their presidential electors by popular vote while only six states still left the choice up to their state legislatures,” according to the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. The common man now could actively participate in selecting representatives, a process once reserved for the elite of U.S. society.

Jackson resonated with the growing electorate. Born to humble origins on the American frontier, the hero of the Battle of New Orleans became “a powerful metaphor for the self-reliance” of a new age. Previous political leaders had achieved the highest offices “through family background, landed wealth in the original thirteen colonies, and education,” as noted by the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Yet despite winning the popular vote, Jackson failed to secure a majority of the Electoral College in 1824. He campaigned against not only Adams but Henry Clay, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and William Crawford, the Secretary of the Treasury in the Monroe Administration. This triggered the 12th Amendment, in which responsibility for electing the sixth president fell to the U.S. House of Representatives. Ultimately, the House chose Adams; yet trouble brewed. In the aftermath, Jackson suspected foul play in the form of collusion between Adams and Clay after the latter, who was alleged to have whipped votes for Adams, was nominated as the new administration’s Secretary of State. 

To Jackson and his supporters, the election was stolen. In an eerily familiar turn of phrase, Jacksonians called Adams’s election a “corrupt bargain.”

Angered, the general immediately announced his candidacy for the 1828 election. His revenge was unquestionable: he won in a landslide after an acrimonious campaign. His victory came from the expanding electorate that dubbed him the “People’s President” and signaled outright antipathy to the elitist and out-of-touch government bureaucracy. Indeed, as John Bicknell writes in Law & Liberty, “Jackson’s supporters wanted him to be ‘a curative to the corrupt politics cankering Washington.’ In other words, he was sent there to drain the swamp.”

As president, Jackson “sought to act as the direct representative of the common man,” proving that his campaign persona was not merely a shtick to garner support but a deeply rooted political philosophy. In his first term, the former general “firmly established that presidents could be more than just mere executives enforcing laws,” notes Jackson’s Hermitage estate. He actively utilized his veto power and shaped domestic and foreign policy in his own image. But his opposition to rechartering the Second Bank of the United States, which he believed would “impoverish our people in time of peace,” was met with equal resistance from the establishment in the nation’s capital. Critics mockingly dubbed him “King Andrew the First.”

However, the common man agreed with Jackson. In the 1832 presidential election Jackson’s base grew, as he handily defeated rivals Henry Clay, John Floyd, and William Wirt. The remainder of his presidency “laid the framework for democracy, paid off the national debt, gained new lands for America, strengthened relationships with foreign nations globally and issued a new currency.” Jackson squashed a constitutional crisis when South Carolina attempted to nullify the Tariff Act of 1828, sending armed forces to Charleston before ultimately compromising to lower tariff rates while the state abandoned the concept of nullification.

Jackson defined the tone for the Era of the Common Man. For his bravado and quick temper, Old Hickory was certainly controversial in his own lifetime. In the centuries since, his reputation has further soured because he not only owned slaves, but also spearheaded the Indian Removal Act. The result was the forced eviction of Native Americans from their ancestral land, and thousands of deaths along the infamous “Trail of Tears.” Indeed, for this policy, Jackson may be replaced on the $20 bill in favor of abolitionist and Underground Railroad hero Harriet Tubman.

Trump has certainly been accused by his opponents of his share of controversies, though none rises to the level of the treatment of Native Americans under the Jackson Administration. (In fact, the president-elect received 65% of the Native American vote.) Nevertheless, Trump admired Jackson enough to hang a portrait of the seventh president in the Oval Office during his first term. There was—and may still be—a self-conscious affinity between the president-elect’s populist MAGA movement and the Jacksonian-Democracy of the early nineteenth century.

Trump too has been considered a fighter for the American people—one only needs to remember how, after being nearly assassinated in Butler, PA, on July 13, Trump roared at the crowd to “Fight, fight, fight.” Jackson also survived a would-be assassination attempt outside the U.S. Capitol on January 30, 1835. The gun misfired twice, while Jackson remained “defiant” and even charged at the assailant, brandishing his cane.

Lessons Learned?

History does not repeat, but it certainly rhymes—and it could rhyme again, nearly 200 years to the day. Trump, who has reshaped the Republican Party with a populist agenda, is poised to define an era over the next four years. His supporters are diverse, their ranks are growing, and they increasingly despise the collusion between college-educated coastal elites and the legacy media. Like Jackson, Trump has tapped into the concerns of the average, everyday American: safe borders, rising inflation, skyrocketing energy costs, new wars, cultural flashpoints, and more.

In his second term, Trump need only to adhere to his campaign platform to build a legacy evoking Jacksonian democracy, broadening his base of support. This is remarkable considering that, after January 6, Trump’s future political aspirations were effectively dead apart from his MAGA base.

What inhibited his first term, no doubt, were the Russian collusion investigations; public feuding with Cabinet members like Rex Tillerson, General Jim “Mad Dog” Mattis, John Kelly, Omarosa, etc.; and a crass, distracting presence on social media that hindered his ability to govern. There were even members of the former Republican establishment—and, indeed, the D.C. “swamp”—within his administration. They could not then or now be considered stewards for the MAGA agenda. 

This is not to say Trump has earned unchecked loyalty or can avoid differences of opinions. But containing those policy debates behind closed doors instead of constantly fighting them in the public square will show a united front to the American people, instead of them witnessing a maddening sideshow. Jackson, like Trump, depended on his loyalists and advisers, known as the “Kitchen Cabinet”—and he engaged in public feuds with Congress. Yet he proved to be an effective leader by “casting himself as the people’s tribune” and his “powerful personality,” according to the Miller Center.

However, this brash personality also “galvanized his opponents” to form the Whigs, who, after Democratic Martin Van Buren’s one term, secured the White House in 1841. Trump could fall into the same trap. 

In Trump’s first term, the Republican Party controlled both chambers of the U.S. Congress from 2017 to 2019. As fate would have it, he has been gifted the same luxury again. However, unlike his first term, which congressional leadership most likely did not anticipate, Trump and the 119th Congress must have a sense of urgency to enact their policies prior to the 2026 midterm elections. Yet Trump’s personality has often prevented more legislative accomplishments—and, indeed, was enough reason to give American voters cause to flip the House to Democrats in 2018.

Trump must be energetic like Jackson, but cannot, once again, allow himself to be his own worst enemy. It ignited support for Democrats, who not only claimed Congress but then the White House in 2020. To prolong the MAGA agenda, and make a lasting policy impact beyond his presidency, Trump must rise above the squabbling that hampered his first term and govern with the knowledge that the majority of Americans favor his vision—or, at least, oppose a progressive worldview for the time being.

If so, like Jackson before him, Trump could solidify his populist movement into a broader coalition for his political successors and inaugurate the 21st century’s new Era of the Common Man.

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