Steve Bannon (4:42)

Zero.

Eli Lake (4:43)

As I said, American populism is not really an ideology. It's more of a mood. It's the desire to fire the bosses, to crash the country club and ask the snobs, sincerely, you think you're better than me. So as unique as the presidential inauguration of 2025 seems, we have in fact seen populists like Donald Trump before there was Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot.

Steve Bannon (5:07)

Here's a common message. Don't you understand that ordinary people can't organize them? They can't get this done. Very difficult, very tedious. Well, you show.

Eli Lake (5:21)

There was Alabama Governor George Wallace.

Steve Bannon (5:24)

So they got to say, we are bigots. They got to say we are hate mongers. They got to say we are fascists. Well, of course I'm not a bigot, not a fascist, nor a hate monger. And I'm not a warmonger. I'm one who believes in the right of local people to determine some things for themselves.

Eli Lake (5:41)

And there was legendary Louisiana Governor Huey Long.

Steve Bannon (5:45)

How many men ever went to a barbecue and would let one man take off the table what's intended for 9/10 of the people to eat? The only way you'll ever be able to feed the battles to the people is to make that man come back and bring back some of that grub he ain't got no business with.

Eli Lake (6:03)

There have been populous senators, governors, newspaper editors, and radio broadcasters. But, and this is important, while American history is littered with them, very rarely has a populist ever climbed as high as President Trump. In fact, it's only happened once before. The last populace to win the presidency was born before the American Revolution. He rose from nothing to become a great general. He was the first man to represent the state of Tennessee in Congress. His adoring troops called him Old Hickory, and his enemies derided him as a bigamist and a tyrant in waiting. His name was Andrew Jackson, the guy who's still on the $20 bill. If it feels like 2025 is uncharted waters, perhaps Andrew Jackson's path to the White House would be the best guide to what Trump's second term might look like. Because there are eerie parallels. Both presidents came to power insisting that the previous election had been stolen from them. Both were driven by their enmities. Both survived assassination attempts. Both Andrew Jackson and Donald Trump were outsiders who believed their elections were a mandate to vanquish the old establishment. And the establishments they railed against would really rather both of them just disappear.

David Brown (7:21)

Tonight, a new look for the world's most iconic office. Items identified with President Trump now gone.

Eli Lake (7:26)

The portrait of former President Andrew Jackson. In 2021, President Biden removed a portrait of Jackson from the Oval Office, and, well, this is what Steve Bannon, Donald Trump's chief strategist for his first run at the White House in 2016, told me he thinks the new president should do about that.

Steve Bannon (7:42)

Well, I hope. I hope that we put back in that great painting of General Jackson right there to the president's left, so you could get it in all the shots. I would hope that would go back up.

Eli Lake (7:54)

Steve Bannon got his wish. Jackson has returned to the Oval Office. I'm Eli Lake, and from the Free Press. This is breaking history. Today we look at the first time the elites got their butts kicked in a presidential election. What Andrew Jackson can tell us about Donald Trump and our populist moment after the break. Stay with us. Belated, the bargain we hated has now been dissolved. If you've been following my work or tuning into honestly, you know that at the Free Press, we're interested in how history shapes the world around us. Understanding today's headlines means looking at how the past informs our present. But too often, that context is distorted by bias or reduced to oversimplified narratives. That's why I'm excited to partner with Ground News, an independent app and website that prioritizes showing the Full spectrum of perspectives With Ground News, you get a quick summary of the story shaping our world alongside every news source covering it from across the spectrum, whether that's corporate media or independent voices like the Free Press, for example. You can use the Ground News app to swipe to see how some outlets frame Trump's tariffs as a crucial step to safeguard American interests, echoing Jackson's advocacy for the common man, while others see it as a policy that disrupts global trade and alienates our allies. Both perspectives bring value to the conversations which shape our public opinion and foreign policy. That's why I find Ground News Blind Spot Feed indispensable. It surfaces important stories and angles the left and the right aren't talking about. So go to groundnews.com breakinghistory to save 40% on the unlimited Access Vantage plan we use, knocking the price down to just $5 a month. It's an investment in your ability to think critically and stay informed while also supporting platforms like ours. It was March 4, 1829, and just as winter was giving way to spring in the nation's capital, President Andrew Jackson was being inaugurated after an electoral landslide. At his speech at the East Portico of the Capitol, he told his adoring supporters that he had a mandate to reform a republic tainted by what he called incompetent and unfaithful hands. For his fans who came to see this political outsider's historic inauguration, it was confirmation of their arrival on the grandest stage. Here was the first president to come from a western state, Tennessee. Before him, all of our presidents hailed from the prosperous and powerful East. With Jackson's victory, the United States government no longer resembled a locked box. But any solemnity of this momentous event didn't last long. As Jackson's carriage made its way to the White House for a public reception, the throngs of Jacksonians trailed him, and bedlam soon followed. The mob descended on the free Fleet and drink at the White House. There were freezers of ice cream, barrels of lemonade and pails of whiskey, spiked orange punch, along with towers of cakes and pies. In the rush for the good eats, the crowd began breaking glasses and destroying the furniture. It soon became too perilous for the new president. Jackson's staff locked arms and formed a cordon around him and rushed him out of the White House back to the hotel where he was staying. For the Washington aristocracy, the scene confirmed their worst suspicions. What a scene we did witness. The majesty of the people disappeared and a rabble, a mob was scrambling, fighting, romping cut glass and China to the amount of several thousand dollars was broken in the struggle to get the punch. Supreme Court Justice Joseph Storey, who attended the reception, surmised that the party was the reign of King Mob. Sound familiar? We need to hold the doors of the Capitol.

Donald Trump (12:10)

I need court support.

Eli Lake (12:12)

Trump's first term may have ended in a riot. Andrew Jackson's started with one what was it about this politician that inspired so many average Americans to his cause? Well, Jackson cared primarily about two destroying the Second national bank of the United States, which he considered a tool for east coast plutocrats to further concentrate their wealth and the conquest of Native American tribal lands. As a governing philosophy, this did not amount to all that much, but as a populist platform, it promised the average white American voter at least both power and land. So we should get this out of the way. Andrew Jackson was a monster. Yes, even beyond the merciless wars he fought against the Seminole, the Creek and the Cherokee, by the end of his life, he had enslaved more than 100 people. And unlike George Washington, he did not grant them freedom. After he died, he even instructed the post office not to carry abolitionist literature. All true, and at the same time, he was one of the most consequential figures in American history. At the Battle of New Orleans, Jackson's cunning won the day, and it salvaged the otherwise disastrous war of 1812. For the young republic, it was entirely possible that had Old Hickory not bested the redcoats in Sin City, New Orleans would have remained under the English crown. In 1818, he invaded West Florida and drove the Spanish out. He prevented a secession crisis in South Carolina and ushered in a new era of partisan politics. Andrew Jackson was also a tough son of a bitch. He was the first president to survive an assassination attempt. Separately, he survived a bullet to the ribcage and lung. And he is the only prisoner of war to serve in the Oval Office and the only president who ever actually murdered someone. More on that later. One story sums up the sort of guy he was. At the age of 14, after being captured by the British in the Revolutionary War, he refused an officer's order to shine his shoes. When the officer swung his sword at the adolescent Jackson, the kid parried the blow with his forearm. After his mother purchased his freedom, he walked 45 miles through the rain, mud and snow and his bare feet back to safety. The Brits had stolen his shoes. But beyond all that, our seventh president was first and foremost a populist. He came to power as the voting franchise expanded from the landed gentry to include landless white men. And he was loved by this new electorate, the immigrant strivers in the east coast cities and the poor white farmers on the frontier.

Donald Trump (14:55)

Jackson was an American hero, first as a brilliant general whose crushing defeat of the British at New Orleans saved our independence in the War of 1812, and later as the seventh president of the United States, when he fought to defend the forgotten men and women from the arrogant elite of his day. Does it sound familiar?

Eli Lake (15:20)

In some ways, it's strange that Trump would see in Jackson a kindred spirit. Jackson was born into poverty and grew into a rail thin and serious man. He forged his discipline through war, in which he excelled and came to office having served as a judge, a general, a member of Congress and a senator. The rotund Trump was born into privilege and came to office in his first term as a political amateur. Nevertheless, there is a connection, I think.

David Brown (15:48)

That Jackson, you know, if he were around, he would recognize in some of Trump's rhetoric a kind of a class consciousness that spoke to him.

Eli Lake (15:58)

This is historian David Brown, author of the first the Defiant Life of Andrew Jackson.

David Brown (16:04)

Of course, this is ironic because Jackson was a frontier aristocrat and Donald Trump is a billionaire. I think that where Jackson would really differ from Trump is, you know, we think of the bank war. Jackson did not believe that money made the man. Jackson thought that leadership, a character made the man. So when Donald Trump said, I think it was in 2015, 2016, when he was asked, you know, why run for the presidency? What equips you? And he said, well, you know, I've got a lot of money, I'm a billionaire, I'm really good with numbers, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. That's the kind of economic self interest or privilege that Jackson was very much against.

Eli Lake (16:41)

Despite these differences, Andrew Jackson was the Donald Trump of his day. Both men built political movements that sought to upend the complacent elite. Alexis de Tocqueville called Jackson the spokesman of provincial jealousies. Slap that phrase under Trump's mugshot and you've got yourself a strangely articulate MAGA T shirt. Provincial jealousies, you see, are a powerful force in American elections. After the break, the story of how the populist Andrew Jackson took on the establishment of his day and how the establishment fought back.

Donald Trump (17:22)

We did great in 2016. A lot of people don't know we did much better in 2020. We won. We won.

Eli Lake (17:29)

We did win.

Donald Trump (17:30)

It was a rigged election.

Eli Lake (17:32)

That was Donald Trump in 2024 sounding a lot like Andrew Jackson 200 years earlier. Trump supporters called their doomed Movement to block the certification of the election. Stop the steal. Jacksonians railed against what they called the corrupt bargain. 1824, the tenth election of the American experiment is underway. Four candidates emerged. Essentially, they were all from the same party. But this period of consensus rule in American politics was fraying. To make a long story short, Andrew Jackson won the most electoral votes that year. But because he failed to win a majority of the Electoral College, the election was thrown to the House of Representatives. Those are the rules. It's all There in the 12th Amendment to the Constitution. But Jackson still believed that as a matter of principle, the popular vote should have secured him the victory. Well, the speaker of the House at the time, Henry Clay, who was also a presidential candidate, thought otherwise, and he arranged to throw his votes behind John Quincy Adams, who ended up as our sixth president. After the inauguration, the other shoe dropped. Clay was named Secretary of State in the new Adams administration. Jackson cried foul. His supporters felt robbed. They accused Clay of selling out the country for personal ambition. And that unsettled grudge fueled Jackson's campaign four years later, much as Trump supporters convinced themselves without evidence, that they too had been cheated, fueling a righteous indignation that swept him back to power.

Steve Bannon (19:09)

It's providential. We lost.

Eli Lake (19:11)

This is Steve Bannon again.

Steve Bannon (19:12)

That burning, burning, burning in the grain of our soul that it was stolen, and we could not let this happen to Republic. And everything we saw that built up the greatest comeback in the history of this country.

Eli Lake (19:24)

When the 1828 election rolled around, John Quincy Adams and his supporters knew Jackson would be really hard to beat. But they had something in their back pocket. Jackson's wife, Rachel, was technically married to another man for the first three years of her union with Andrew Jackson. Jackson would say it was a bad rap. Her husband, Louis Robarts, had petitioned for divorce in 1790, and Rachel and Andrew wed in 1791. However, Rachel's first marriage was not actually dissolved until 1793, forcing the new couple to marry again. To many, this was considered a scandal.

David Brown (20:01)

And when Jackson runs for the presidency, Easterners say that this is sort of beyond the pale.

Eli Lake (20:07)

Again, this is David Brown.

David Brown (20:09)

It did not cost him votes, though in the west, probably parts of the east as well, like much of upstate New York or Pennsylvania. I think that these communities, they recognize that in the west, customs were different, that amenities were different. And Jackson and Rachel, they did what they did because that's how people in the west lived, which is not knowingly bigamy. So you can look at this in a number of different ways. This is Just, you know, a relationship, a marriage, where this is also a kind of an east versus west tension.

Eli Lake (20:45)

For Jackson, questioning his marriage was akin to questioning his wife's honor. And in Tennessee, they knew how to deal with a jackass who did that. A duel. Jackson, ever the tough guy, loved to duel. A bizarre tradition brought over from Europe, where men would settle their feuds in a refereed gunfight. And he challenged Charles Dickinson, the young dandy behind the accusation, to pistols at dawn.

David Brown (21:14)

Jackson believed that he was really being called out, that Dickinson had made comments about Jackson's marriage. And Jackson, I think, also had the feeling that Dickinson was trying to make or extend his own reputation at Jackson's expense.

Eli Lake (21:33)

Dickinson shot first and grazed Jackson's ribcage and lung. And then Jackson squeezed the trigger and fired straight at Dickinson's heart. He didn't miss. Hours later, Jackson got word that young Dickinson would not make it through surgery. Upon hearing the news, the general sent over a bottle of wine his opponent would never have a chance to enjoy. Brutal. Needless to say, the east coast establishment was not impressed by Jackson filling a rival full of lead. But the electorate felt differently. They didn't care about dueling and bigamy. They voted to send a message to Washington that things were about to change. Jackson's victory should have been his apex, but it was bittersweet. On a trip to Nashville at the end of the campaign, his beloved Rachel picked up a pamphlet accusing her of adultery. She would later write, the enemies of the general have dipped their arrows in wormwood and gall and sped them at me. On December 22, 1828, Rachel Jackson suffered a heart attack. She died before Christmas Eve. Andrew Jackson was devastated. He blamed her death on John Quincy Adams and his allies. He wanted vengeance. He saw himself as his era's Hercules, clearing the Augdean stables of government. And he went to war with the bureaucracy. It's a standard move for populists to target distant, unseen powers like the government, the banks, or in Donald Trump's case, the media and the deep state. James Parton, one of Jackson's first biographers, writes that he fired 919 civil servants in his first term, a massive number considering the limited size of the government at the time. And doesn't that also sound like someone we know first?

Donald Trump (23:15)

I will immediately reissue my 2020 executive order restoring the President's authority to remove rogue bureaucrats, and I will wield that power very aggressively.

Eli Lake (23:26)

Trump has Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy's Department of Government Efficiency, or Doge Andrew Jackson had Martin Van Buren, who would serve as Jackson's secretary of state, ambassador to England, and vice president in his second term. It was Van Buren who would succeed Jackson in the White House in 1837. Known as the little magician, Van Buren was in charge of divvying up the spoils of government jobs to the victors in the president's new coalition. And it absolutely terrified the postmasters, clerks, and land surveyors who were on the chopping block. In his biography of Andrew Jackson, American lion John Meacham relays a great story of how Solomon van Rensselaer, the postmaster general of Albany, New York, pleaded with Andrew Jackson to please not sack him. Quote, van Rensselaer went to the White House and waited for Jackson to finish with his guest at a reception. General Jackson. I have come here to talk to you about my office. Van Rensselaer said once he had the president alone. The politicians want to take it away from me, and they know I have nothing else to live upon. Accustomed to such pleas and committed to his course, Jackson said nothing. Desperate, Van Rensselaer moved to strip off his own clothes. What in heaven's name are you going to do? Jackson said. Why did you take off your coat here? Well, sir, I'm going to show you my wounds which I received fighting for my country against the English. Put it on at once, sir. Jackson said. I'm surprised that a man of your age would make such an exhibition of himself, I should say. Jackson ended up letting Van Rensselaer keep his post. But this philosophy of replacing the old guard with one's loyalists now seems like an American political traditional. But it was the populist Jackson who started it. He believed his voters gave him a mandate to reform, and he didn't have to be polite about it.

Steve Bannon (25:15)

You have to seize the institutions. You have to seize them. You have to control them. Number one is just for expertise. Remember, a populist movement is a grassroots movement.

Eli Lake (25:26)

This is Steve Bannon again.

Steve Bannon (25:27)

General Jackson's term in office is a great example where he wanted to take down the central bank. And he had all kind of problems, just even staffing out and getting things done. He accomplished a lot. But populism's restrictions is always the ruling class or the established order. They just don't. They're not going to give it up. And they think they can wait you out because history shows they can wait you out. They control the institutions, they control the education, they control the money centers. This is just about in every populist revolution.

Eli Lake (25:54)

As his second term begins, Donald Trump will wage War against what he calls the deep state, the media, and who knows, maybe even Canada. Andrew Jackson's populist crusade was against the second national bank of the United States. The debate over a national bank goes back to the founding of the Republic. Alexander Hamilton argued that it was necessary to build the economy with a national bank. Thomas Jefferson, his rival, argued that states should have their own banks to prevent the consolidation of wealth in one central institution. Andrew Jackson mistrusted the national bank and didn't really understand infrastructure, finance. His adversaries in Washington tested Jackson's mettle. Congress passed legislation to extend the charter of the bank that Jackson hated. And when the President vetoed the bill, they thought it would cost him his reelection. They could not have been more wrong. The American voters were with Andrew Jackson.

Yuval Levin (26:46)

Jackson was right that the vision they had was not well aligned with the priorities of most of the American public. And somehow that bridge had to be built.

Eli Lake (26:59)

This is Yuval Levin, the director of social, Cultural and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

Yuval Levin (27:05)

And so, you know, in a sense, Jackson's critique was a way of saying, look, the world these Hamiltonians want is not the world the American people want.

Eli Lake (27:14)

In 1832, Jackson vetoed a bill to extend the bank's authority with a declaration of pure populist fire. I'm going to read from it here. It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes. Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government. Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth cannot be produced by human institutions. But when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages, artificial distinctions, gratuities and exclusive privileges to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society, the farmers, mechanics and laborers who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their government. End quote. In other words, we see you plutocrats and your time is up. This wasn't the only fight Jackson waged against the status quo. The Founding Fathers had intended the Supreme Court to be the only source of authority for interpreting the Constitution. Jackson openly disputed this. Not only was that legally dubious, it also gave his opponents an opening. The opposition party, which called themselves at this point the Whigs, began to call him King Andrew because he was asserting an authority that was not rightly his. And this was not just spin. In 1831, the Supreme Court ruled that the state of Georgia could not enforce state law over the Cherokee Nation. Jackson ignored that ruling and ordered the removal of the Cherokees anyway. It was the gravest threat to the Constitution in the young republic's history. This was a populist leader crashing up against the American system of government with all of its checks and balances. Eventually, Jackson was shamed into issuing a proclamation that stated the Supreme Court was the final arbiter of the Constitution. One sees an echo of this threat in Donald Trump's refusal to accept the rulings of the courts after he lost the 2020 election. Populist indignation can lead presidents to ignore the constitutional restraints on their power. All in all, Jackson had a successful two term presidency. His vice president, Hartne Van Buren, won the 1836 election and continued his policies of Indian removal and his opposition to the Second National Bank. As such, Jackson's moral and political legacy is at best mixed. But his legacy as a populist leader is unquestionable. He attacked institutions, he battled with the Supreme Court, he represented average Joes against the elites. And today the real question is, what will happen to the man 200 years later who is taking on Jackson's mantle as the populist president?

Donald Trump (30:02)

The politicians. They've had me to their homes, they've introduced me to their children, I've become their best friends in many instances, they've asked for my endorsement and they always wanted my money and even called me really a dear, dear friend, but then suddenly decided when I ran for president as a Republican that I've always been a no good, rotten, disgusting scoundrel and they totally forgot about me.

Eli Lake (30:40)

That was Donald Trump more than eight years ago at the Al Smith Charity Dinner in New York. I think that clip captures the populist contempt that Trump and his movement has for all of the bigwigs in that room on that evening back in 2016. These events are supposed to be pageants of bipartisanship. The Republican and Democratic candidates make self deprecating jokes and tuxedos and evening gowns for Catholic charity. But Trump chose instead to drop the mask and tell it like it is. He was once in their club, but now he's the barbarian at the gate. And this says something about populism, because as effective as Jackson and Trump were as campaigners, they were better at destroying an old order their voters despise than building something in its place. Part of this is because populists distrust large institutions. Part of this is because populists are prone to conspiracy theories. Jackson couldn't understand the importance of a central bank to building roads and canals, so he assumed the bank was a tool of plutocracy Trump was so contemptuous and distrustful of the FBI that he was willing to obstruct their investigation into his personal papers he shipped from the White House to Mar A Lago. These are the negative sides of populism.

Michael Kazin (31:49)

Well, the dangerous side is pretty obvious.

Eli Lake (31:51)

Perhaps, as historian Michael Kazin explains, it.

Michael Kazin (31:55)

Can be used by authoritarians, both on the right and the left, to evoke their, quote, people against an elite they think is dangerous to the country and to their rule, and justify, legitimize authoritarianism, legitimize cracking down on that elite in the name of the people. But the opportunity, I think, for people who talk a populist language is that it evokes the gap between the ideals of the society, which are usually wonderful ideals, freedom, equality, that people should rule in democratic societies anyway.

Eli Lake (32:27)

In this sense, populism can be necessary by keeping the parties that actually know how to govern in touch with the people.

Yuval Levin (32:33)

I think generally in American history, when populism has been successful in changing our politics, it's been successful by forcing one or both of the two major parties that we've almost always had to integrate its core critique into their vision of American politics.

Eli Lake (32:52)

This is Yval Levin again.

Yuval Levin (32:54)

And so the parties are good at governing. Populism arises as a challenge to the parties, and then the parties respond to that challenge by grasping something about what the public wants that the populists understood better than they did and turning that into a governing vision. I think that's the story of progressivism, where it happened in both parties. I think it's the story of the Jacksonian era where the Democrats were able to do this. It's the story of the 1970s where Republicans ultimately were able to translate populist energy into a governing vision. We saw this somewhat in the 90s, where in Ross Perot, after winning an amazing portion of the popular vote in the presidential election, was then kind of integrated again into both parties. And both Clinton and Gingrich understood something new because of the Perot phenomenon, and the parties were able to integrate it into their governing visions.

Eli Lake (33:53)

So you could say populism is a little bit like poison. Its toxicity is determined by the dose. Some popular exasperation at the political elites can be a healthy corrective to the inevitable corruption of bureaucracies and oligarchies. Too much can lead to a constitutional crisis, as seen in Jackson's defiance of the Supreme Court in the Cherokee Nation decision. For all the unrest it inspires, populism has ironically helped preserve our union. Our system has survived nearly 250 years, despite a civil war, presidential assassinations, the Great Depression, two world wars, and a host of other catastrophes great and small. And that is remarkable considering that our nation was founded in revolution. In this respect, American populism has been an escape valve for the boiling rage of voters when the system has failed them. Our republic has endured because it can accommodate movements and leaders that seek to overturn elites. Donald Trump and Andrew Jackson are as much a part of our national story as as its heroes. Jackson's legacy is not as pristine as Abraham Lincoln's or Martin Luther King's, but he helped forge our nation nonetheless by reflecting who we were, even if parts of that image are grotesque. Donald Trump's legacy has not yet been written. He has a second administration in front of him. But it's worth remembering that even Andrew Jackson's insurgents eventually became their own establishment. And in the election of 1840, the Jacksonians lost the White House to the Whigs, a party comprised of the old elite politicians that Jackson once defeated. The voters had had enough of populism and wanted a change. Thanks for listening to Breaking History. If you learned something, if you agree with something, if you disagreed with something, please share it with your friends. And if you like more of this kind of journalism, there's only one way to get it. Thefp.com See you in two weeks.