Boldly combining the investigative techniques of David McCullough and Maury Povich, New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait has done a little historical paternity testing and determined that Andrew Jackson “is, clearly, the father of the modern Republican Party.”
Chait argued that Jackson’s status as “the progenitor of the Democratic Party” is based on “a myth.” On the other hand, Jackson “believed the Constitution prevented the government from taking an active role in managing economic affairs” and “was instinctively aggressive, poorly educated, anti-intellectual, and suspicious of bureaucrats,” all of which correspond to right-wing GOP behaviors and attitudes of today.
“This combination of views on the Constitution, race, activist government, intellectual elites, and foreign policy all clump together geographically and ideologically,” asserted Chait. “They also share a certain personality style — Jackson’s visceral style anticipates figures like George W. Bush and Sarah Palin.”
From Chait’s Sunday piece (bolding added):
The [Democratic] party of Obama, and now the party of [Hillary] Clinton, is not a usurpation of a long American tradition but its fulfillment. Indeed, the premise that there is a philosophical tradition connecting Jackson to such figures as Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson — the cherished foundation of generations of Democratic Party thought — should be seen for what it is: a myth…
…[Jackson’s] reputation as a populist, and therefore, as the progenitor of the Democratic Party, rests largely upon his successful fight to destroy the Bank of the United States, which was an early version of the Federal Reserve. “The rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes,” he wrote in his veto message…
…Arthur Schlesinger Jr….created a kind of official party history, in which Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson led inevitably to the triumph of the dominant figure of Schlesinger’s day, Franklin Roosevelt.
The actual Jackson bears virtually no resemblance to the myth...Even by the standards of his day, Jackson displayed a notable passion for the institution of slavery…His administration’s central policy aim was the ethnic cleansing of large segments of the American South, driving out their native inhabitants for white settlement...
…That the party of Andrew Jackson developed into the champion of civil rights and a strong centralized government looks like a bizarre accident that was bound to collapse. That even a few decades ago, avowed white supremacists and civil-rights activists shared a party now beggars belief. The political map of 21st-century America looks almost nothing like the 20th-century map. Instead it resembles the 19th-century map, with the party names simply reversed.
Jackson is, clearly, the father of the modern Republican Party…[His] aggressive policy of Indian-fighting shaped the political landscape of the era. A humanitarian protest movement sprung up to oppose Jackson’s savage aggression…
Jackson was a populist, but he directed his populism not at the local elites (of which he was one) but at the federal government…He believed the Constitution prevented the government from taking an active role in managing economic affairs. He was instinctively aggressive, poorly educated, anti-intellectual, and suspicious of bureaucrats…
The qualities of the right-wing opposition during the Obama era has made the historic reversal all the more clear. Republicans have revived what they call “Constitutional conservatism,” which reprises the Jacksonian belief that the Constitution prevents economic intervention by the government. Tea-party activists in particular have sounded deeply Jacksonian themes…
This combination of views on the Constitution, race, activist government, intellectual elites, and foreign policy all clump together geographically and ideologically. They also share a certain personality style — Jackson’s visceral style anticipates figures like George W. Bush and Sarah Palin. As the political fault lines of Rooseveltian America have grown increasingly distant in recent years, those of Jacksonian America have grown more recognizable. American history is returning full circle.
