American Lion or Lamb?

American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House
by John Meacham

When I was on vacation in Charleston, South Carolina, I saw a pair of paintings of presidents playing cards. One is of Republican presidents and the other Democratic presidents, and both feature the ostensible founder of the party - back to the painting - playing with the modern presidents in that party. So the Republican painting has Abraham Lincoln playing with Teddy Roosevelt, Nixon, Eisenhower, Ford, Reagan, and both Bushes. The Democrat painting has Andrew Jackson playing with Wilson, FDR, Truman, Kennedy, LBJ, Carter, and Clinton.

On first look, it poses what might be an interesting question: what would it be like if the modern presidents were able to talk with the founder of their party? But on thinking a little more, the real question is whether the current presidents have anything in common with their founder?


Andrew Jackson, the founder of the Democratic party, initiated the Native American removal policy - forcibly sending Native Americans west of the Mississippi - ended the Second Bank of the United States, prevented state nullification of federal laws but supported slavery and states rights generally. And he was ostensibly a war hero, having fought the battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812.

He was also a populist - the first frontiersman elected president - and very popular among the general population. He greatly expanded the presidency, exercising the veto much more often and setting an agenda independent of Congress.

John Meacham's book, American Lion, focuses on Jackson's White House years, and therefore only gives us the briefest overview of his early life and elections. We learn a little about his fights and duels, the battle of New Orleans, his wife and her passing, the failed election where John Quincy Adams won in the House of Representatives, and his election in 1828 and the creation of the Democratic Party.

Then we are taken through his presidency in some more detail. Meacham shows us the controversy over his Secretary of War John Eaton and his wife, which divides his supporters. And in fact, this one of the great weaknesses of this book (which inexplicably won the Pulitzer Prize). Meacham spends far more time on the gossip and familial / staff battles over Secretary Eaton than he does on other far more important topics. Having said that, he does seem to cover the issue fairly; neither side looks very good. Eaton's wife does come off as unpleasant but the others look uptight and elitist.

Meacham covers all of the major issues of the presidency: nullification and the tariff, Native American Removal, the ending of the Second Bank's charter, the dispute between America and France over war debt.  But in some cases he is too brief (Native American Removal and the tariff) but in all cases he spends less time on them than he does the Eaton affair.

But worse than that is the lack of objectivity in this book. Meacham spends countless paragraphs telling the reader that Jackson was a great leader and his men and the public generally loved him and trusted him to save them. The author would have benefited from more show and less tell.

And on the other side, he glosses over major areas of concern. He doesn't talk at all about the impact of the closing of the Second Bank of the United States. Once it is ended, it is of no importance to the author. There is only a quick sentence at the end of the book that some think its closing caused a major recession. The reader would have benefited from a discussion and analysis of the impact.

The same is true of Native American removal. He talks about why Jackson did it but is too fair. And then barely talks about the mass suffering and deaths from the actual implementation. He quickly blames it on Jackson's successor, Martin Van Buren who was president when it actually happened. Is it fair to blame it on Van Buren? Did Jackson have a safer plan that Van Buren didn't implement? Again, the reader would have benefited from more discussion of this.

The author might argue that the book is only about the White House years. But both of these things happened in the White House years and their longer-term impacts should be discussed.

Overall, the book is a pretty fast read. It might be fine for someone who just wants a quick overview of Jackson's presidency (which is what I was looking for). However, if you have a little more time, reading one of the other bios is probably worth it. I plan to read HW Brand's book sometime in the future to get a much better understanding of Andrew Jackson. 


So what would the 20th Century Democratic presidents think of their party's founder? Or what should liberals and progressives think of Andrew Jackson? Native American removal is a stain on our history. And Jackson was very wrong on the issue of slavery at a time when the abolition movement was growing. There isn't enough information to make any decision about the Second Bank of the US.

And yet he handled nullification in a way that avoided - or as we know only delayed - secession and civil war. And he expanded the president's powers in a way that makes perfect sense by making it co-equal with Congress. I think we can recognize the scale of his impact but say his policies were not progressive and therefore not positive. I think the modern Democratic presidents would agree. That doesn't mean it would be an unpleasant card game though.

Wisconsin Recall

I didn't like the California recall election in 2003, where Gray Davis was recalled and Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected. And I don't like the recall in Wisconsin. Short of illegal activity, elected officials should serve out their terms. If we had recall elections for every elected or executive official that is unpopular at some point in their term, officials would never be able to govern.

Fortunately, these things happen infrequently, and I hope it stays that way. And frankly, I am kind of glad Scott Walker won the recall because it will give other groups in other states pause before trying this. If Walker had lost, Republicans likely would have reacted by going after Democratic governors in every state they could.

While someone is governing, all energy should be going towards policy debates. We should save the politics for the elections. Recalls threaten to make everything about politics and elections never-ending.

The recall was also just bad strategy on the Democrat's part. They could have moderated Scott Walker with protests and other tactics to bring down his polling numbers. In fact, there was a time when Walker was at least talking about finding consensus and moderating a bit because of those tactics. He may not have been genuine, but he at least felt chastened and compelled to say those things.

But now that he won the recall decisively, he will feel no need to moderate and will only be more aggressive - more far-right. And worse, he is being discussed as a potential national candidate. Before the recall effort, he looked like a buffoon who went too far. Now the press is calling him a conservative hero. Granted, I think the press greatly exaggerates things, but the point is that wouldn't have been said 6 months ago.

There is also evidence that many people voted for Scott Walker simply because they didn't agree with the recall effort. This means that his overwhelming victory is partly based on moderates disagreeing with Democrats' tactics and therefore exaggerating Walker's overall support. This makes Scott Walker stronger than he should be. Overall, this was really bad strategy.

So Timid

I really don't understand why Democrats are so timid and why Republicans are so brave. I am especially confused because Republican positions are mostly unpopular generally. And in many cases, Democrats could make a really strong argument if they had some courage.

Take the recent testimony before Congress by Ben Bernake. The summary is that Republicans pressed him for less action - less monetary stimulus - while Democrats did not press him to do more.

This is crazy. Republicans are saying the economy is in bad shape because of Obama, while opposing both fiscal and monetary policy - opposing everything that could actually help. And Democrats are doing nothing.

In a previous post, I had argued against someone who thought that the problem is that Democrats want fiscal stimulus and Republicans want no stimulus. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe it is only the liberal economists that want monetary stimulus, but liberal politicians want... nothing? fiscal stimulus? I don't know what they want because they are barely saying anything. 

I just continue to be amazed that Republicans are strongly arguing for far right policies. And all Democrats can muster are a few general populist messages but are too scared to articulate an approach from the left. Paul Ryan has a far right budget plan. Where is the plan from the left?

This is why Republicans can win in November: not because their ideas are more popular, but because Democrats lack the courage to have a real debate.

Great Minds

Great minds think alike, right? That saying is probably more often invoked by a lesser mind to associate with a great mind. That might be the case here.

A while ago, I wrote a post wondering if we would get out of the recession faster with a Republican as president because they would actually try stimulative policies so they could stay in power whereas Republicans oppose stimulus mostly to keep Obama from being successful.

Ezra Klein wonders the same thing, in a much more thorough and better written post.

Another Extreme Example

Ezra Klein linked to a post where Tyler Cowen posts the following comment from another site:

It’s incredibly frustrating. The political and policy world falls into two camps:

Those who believe no stimulus is necessary, everything is supply-side. Those who believe stimulus is necessary but only fiscal stimulus can or should supply it.

It’s like people completely forgot the existence of Milton Friedman, and decided to revert to the stupidest possible version of New Keynesianism, where interest rates are the only lever of monetary policy and the printing press is something that only functions when rates are above zero.

I feel like to both the centre left and the right, Milton Friedman is too heretical now — too right-wing for the left obviously and too left-wing for the right. Consequently, everything about monetarism has been stripped out of the public consciousness and we are left with vulgar Keynesianism and vulgar Austrianism.

We truly live in a Dark Age of economics.

This is silliness. Actually what is happening is that the Republican v. Democrat debate was over whether to use monetary or fiscal policy (respectively). Now the debate is whether to do anything. Milton Friedman is too liberal for the Republicans, which shows how far right they have gone. While Democrats are openly calling for more monetary policy.

Let that sink in. Republicans are opposing Milton Friedman policies. 

Too many people are trying to say the two sides are equally to blame. But this example makes it perfectly clear, contrary to the commenter, that the Republicans have gone off the reservation and won't even agree to Democrat suggestions that line up with old Republican positions - positions that used to be far to the right at the time.

Wishful Thinking as Usual

According to an article on Politico, President Obama thinks the Republican craziness will end after he wins reelection. He thinks that the craziness stems from trying to prevent him from being reelected. His wishful thinking and refusal to understand the current Republican thinking is distressing.

First, the Republicans want to prevent any accomplishments for him period. They don't want him to have a lasting record and don't want Democrats to have anything to campaign on.

But more importantly, the party itself has gone hard to the right. And there are only two things that will moderate the party.

One is big election losses that would make the party realize how unpopular their positions really are - from an insistence that all budget balancing come from program cuts to disbelieving global warming, and from immigration reform to opposing even civil unions.

The other thing that would moderate the party would be winning the upcoming elections and actually imposing their crazy agenda.

But a victory by Obama and a divided or Republican Congress will not moderate the party. Believing otherwise is naive. And I had hoped the president had learned his lesson after the debt ceiling debacle.

Bully Romney?

A story surfaced recently that Romney bullied someone in high school and possibly chose one person because he was gay. I don't think whether Romney bullied means anything about whether he would be a good president. But how he has responded does say something about how he will be as president.

The reason I don't think it matters whether he bullied is because lots of kids bully. I was pretty mean at times. Kids don't really get how much they hurt other people and so without proper supervision and instruction, kids will be mean and kids will bully. It doesn't necessarily mean that a kid that bullies will be a mean person as an adult. 

But it does matter how Romney handles it - and he didn't handle it well. He was a little bit contrite and apologetic, which is nice, but at the same time a bit dismissive. He says he was involved in "pranks and hijinks". That shows that Romney doesn't really take it seriously and hasn't learned anything.

What he should have learned is that kids bully but they shouldn't and we should try to prevent it. Good work is being done here in NYC (see Respect for All) thanks to leadership from the NY City Council. We do it by educating teachers and students about what is acceptable and how it affects people.

A Romney that takes it seriously and that learned from his youth would say that he is deeply sorry for any hurt he caused and he wishes he could go back in time and talk to that young Romney. And as importantly, he would say that he is committed to having or promoting programs that deal with this issue to prevent bullying in schools. He did apologize but he definitely didn't talk about this issue more broadly.

No one should be bullied and we should work and aspire to preventing it. Romney is not up to the challenge and I wonder if he even thinks it is a problem.