Dear Editor:
Kudos to PBS for its recent timely broadcast of the biography of Andrew Jackson – as narrated by another great progressive, actor Martin Sheen – and I hope Democratic strategists and politicians were taking notes.
Though his record on slavery and Indian rights and woman’s rights obviously left a lot to be desired, Jackson’s legacy as the great defender of the common man against aritistocratic, moneyed elites is as relevant today as it ever was. Contrast Jackson’s boisterously egalitarian Inaugural party, where country bumpkins trod mud onto the White House carpet with their work boots – derided as a riotous mob by the highbrow Washington establishment – with the royal, “millionaire’s club” Reagan Inaugural of 1980. You get a good sense of the radical difference between the core values of these two presidents.
Strategically speaking, I believe it’s instructive for Democrats – at this moment in history – to make a quick analysis of Reagan and Jackson based on their foreign and domestic policies. As I mentioned earlier, for all of Jackson’s overreaching on foreign policy (in particular his poor treatment of the Indians), because of his strong military leadership, Americans felt secure in Old Hickory’s ability to keep us safe. In a similar way Reagan, on the heels of the foreign policy weakness and blundering of Jimmy Carter, may have been elected more on the basis of his perceived strength against our enemies than for his reverse Robin Hood, soak the poor to make the already-rich super-rich economic policy. In other words, if Reagan faced a strong, Jacksonian Democrat instead of a vacillating Carter in 1980, the ruthless war against the poor and middle-class that has been successfully waged by the aristocratic Henry Clay’s of our day might have been prevented.
Also instructive at a time when powerful banks have just engineered the meltdown of the American economy – referred to by Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, in a blurb for Danny Schechtor’s new film Plunder: the Crime of our Time as the “greatest non-violent crime against humanity in our history” – is the fact that Andrew Jackson saw the danger inherent in a hegemonic banking system 170 years ago. In his move to abolish the National Bank, Jackson wound up firing two Treasury Secretaries who disagreed with him. Compare this courageous, ethical strength of Jackson to the wishy-washy Obama and his effete, hand-picked Treasury Secretary: Wall Street’s own Timothy Geithner.
Aside from his distrust of the banks, Jackson was also mightily suspicious of a brand new shadowy entity that had just emerged – known as corporations – because of their potential danger to concentrate wealth at the top and wreak havoc on the common man. Earlier this year, our Supreme Court, in a decision known as Citizens United, made Jackson’s worst nightmare come true by giving corporations unlimited freedom to spend money on political campaigns.
As the mid-term elections approach, the Democrats might do well to brush up on their Andrew Jackson. Reactions to this letter are welcome at jfbredin@hotmail.com.
John Bredin