Trump Doesn’t Understand History # I’ve Lost Track

Happy Monday, May Day! This week gets a pop-up extra post because of the headline above.

The 45th President not understand history. He just does not get it. Yahoo! has brought us this lovely gem on May Day. Not only is Trump an Andrew Jackson fanboy, but he thinks the Civil War could have been prevented and Jackson could have prevented the war if he had lived longer.

Ho boy. This is so wrong on multiple levels. First some clarifications. The Civil War was fought because the northern and western parts of the country were becoming more and more abolitionist and the southern part was completely entrenched and dependent upon slavery. The South framed their argument to keep slavery around states rights and the federal government overreaching its authority to dictate whether slavery should be abolished or expanded and continued. Andrew Jackson was a slave owning, Supreme Court defying, former soldier from the War of 1812, who gained infamy with the mass relocation of First Peoples via the Trail of Tears. Jackson died in 1845. He was not a “swashbuckler.”

Could the Civil War have been avoided? No. Compromise after compromise about allowing people to be owned as property took place for decades from the founding of our country. The South was completely opposed to abolishing slavery. It took a 5 year bloody reckoning and amending the Constitution to free our black and brown brothers and sisters from centuries of horrors. People of Color are STILL fighting for justice, equality, and to be seen as human.

Andrew Jackson was not a hero outside of the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812 also known as the War of Miscommunications because the British and the French had both agreed to the United States terms to stop forcing service of American merchant sailors on their ships and the Battle of New Orleans took place after the peace treaty had been signed.