Revolutionary Corruption: Andrew Jackson and Donald Trump

Presidents Andrew Jackson and Donald Trump were/are not just changemakers or disruptors but revolutionaries who campaigned to overthrow the established political apparatus (see The Return of a Demagogic Populist President after 200 Years ).

In their eyes, Jackson and Trump were/are leading a working-class movement to gain more power by dismantling government institutions. For Jackson, it was eliminating the institution of the National Bank, but Trump goes further, eliminating many federal agencies and departments.

As president-elect Trump selects his new cabinet and advisors, it is evident that he was truthful in promising to destroy what he considers the deep state (see How Trump Would Destroy the Deep State). If approved by the Senate, Russell T. Vought will return as Trump’s first-term Director of the Office of Management and Budget. After Trump lost the election, Vought shaped Project 2025, a detailed guideline for deconstructing federal government services.

Unlike in President Andrew Jackson’s administration, Trump has a consortium of conservative intelligentsia that drafted instructions on where his revolution must go to obtain political power. He will employ three main Jacksonian strategies to achieve that power: energize his voter base by beating up a weak enemy; use physical force to enforce his objectives; and hire a significant core of government officials who are more personally loyal to him than to the institutions they will lead. 

Some principles:

Define who is Non-American, Then Deport Them. Jackson dealt with Native Americans hindering white farmers and frontiersmen from acquiring farmland by forcibly removing nearly 125,000 of them from millions of acres of their cultivated land in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, and Florida. The federal government forced them to walk hundreds of miles to a specially designated “Indian Territory” across the Mississippi River. This march was afterward known as the Trail of Tears.

Trump’s solution to increase wages is not to raise the $7.50 federal minimum wage but instead to promise to deport millions of unauthorized immigrants. He argues that they are getting jobs that should go to “real” citizens. This is similar to how Jackson saw that taking Native American homelands would open up vacant land to farmers and frontier families.  

Both immigrants and Native Americans lived in peaceful communities, but when any one individual among them committed a violent act, the entire community was characterized as evil. This allowed the use of force to remove them as a danger to U.S. citizens.

Use the U.S. Military to enforce Executive Decisions. Jackson did not illegally use the military domestically, but he did use it with the acquiescence of Congress. Trump is depending on such a response from Congress.

When South Carolina would not enforce federal tariffs, Jackson had Congress approve his use of the Army to enforce the law with the state. South Carolina avoided bloodshed and relented. 

Most famously, Jackson had the military forcibly remove Native American tribes from their lands in the southeastern United States. It was a legal action since Congress passed the Force Bill authorizing military action, which initiated a “Trail of Tears.”

Trump will follow the same strategy. He will threaten and then obtain Congressional approval to engage the military in domestic efforts. He will avoid confrontations with the military command as long as his defense secretary can keep them in line. 

Given that Trump controls the Republican Party and they control both houses of Congress, Congress would likely approve his deployment of the Army.  However, Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution requires that federal intervention to address domestic violence in a state. Using federal troops domestically must come at the request of the state legislature or governor. This restriction could prevent Trump from using the military in the Blue States, where Democratic governors and legislatures rule.

Nevertheless, Trump could ignore American tradition and democratic norms to override a state’s objections by defining a situation as an extreme circumstance. This approach allows him to declare a national emergency without a congressional vote and deploy troops in a state without their request. Although Congress could end it with a majority vote, that likelihood is narrow if the Republicans support their Republican president.

Trump’s first effort to deport millions of immigrants could require soldiers to either work with state or local police, or to directly apprehend illegal immigrants. Knowing who is an illegal immigrant just by sight could result in stopping U.S. citizens to ask them for their papers showing they are not illegal immigrants. 

It is easy to see a MAGA Republican Party pushing for a national I.D. card issued to all legal citizens to carry with them to avoid being needlessly stopped by the authorities looking for illegal citizens. Congress may also see some Republican Party in-fighting if it pushes for government budget cuts while expanding government oversight of citizens’ movements by requiring a national identification card. 

Appoint Federal Jobs Based on Party Loyalty, Not Qualifications. Both Jackson and Trump campaigned to reduce the size of government by firing federal employees. However, they framed their efforts differently.  

Jackson created the “spoils system” of government patronage, which instilled discipline within party ranks by appointing supporters to fill jobs. He cleverly called it a practice of instituting a “rotation in office” philosophy. Removing governmental officials would be a way of preventing nepotism. In that manner, he removed about 10 percent of all government postings. 

Similarly, Trump appointed fellow billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to run a Department of Government Efficiency to carry out “large-scale firings.” Creating an advisory body but calling it a department exalts its influence and puts it under the direct control of the Executive Office, not subject to Congressional meddling.  Musk and Ramaswamy have called for ending remote work for federal employees, which could result in 10% of the federal workforce being pushed out of service. These workers currently hold remote positions and are expected to work in person only occasionally.

As outlined by Project 2025, Trump will appoint MAGA loyalists to newly opened federal positions. This is a new spoils system of creating patronage within a civil service designed to stop politicians from filling federal jobs based on their loyalty to the candidate.

Americans enter the Trump Revolutionary Era. Trump is appointing MAGA loyalists committed to tearing down the established federal departments that promote the principles of equality and justice, which his supporters consider “woke” culture. But rather than overturning our federal institutions as a cultural objective, Trump and his conservative intellectuals describe their effort as freeing the nation from the grips of federal agencies who have taken away our freedoms.  

And what do those agencies do that is so horrible? They regulate the largest corporations in the world. According to these intellectuals, our economy will prosper by freeing them from the government’s egregious regulations. These regulations stop pollutants from being dumped into our rivers and streams, test our agricultural products for bacteria infections, stop the production of defective transportation equipment, and so on. 

Trump’s appointed agency directors may not know how to manage huge departments, but they are committed to a philosophy that frees capital investments from restrictions regardless of their environmental or health impact. President Trump’s ability to alter government far exceeds Jackson’s attempts because Jackson’s administration did not control the other two government branches.