Liberty & Power: The Populous Rise of Presidents Jackson & Trump

His picture hangs in the Oval Office, but why? President Andrew Jackson's picture & a smaller statuette of President #7 is displayed among #45's chosen trinkets.

Dr. Harry Watson, Professor of History at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in his book: Liberty & Power presents an analysis of the populism that swept President Jackson into the White House, and admittedly, many of the comparisons of the two ring similar. From the "spoils system" of firing elites and experts in Washington and replacing them with the friends of Mr. Jackson to the infamous populous support of both Presidents against "elitism." These two share some common descriptors. However, as a member of the 1% Mr. Trump himself was a member of the elitist class.

A deeper analysis of the specifics of both Presidents' electoral campaigns, time in office and departure from office yields an uncanny deja vu that harkens back to Mark Twain's famous quote "history doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes."

From one type of electoral college failure that propelled Jackson's predecessor into office to another type of electoral college failure propelling Trump into office, it would seem the most salient long term lesson for our times may be a "concreting" of worst of what can happen when either populism or elitism has full control.