Andrew Jackson in the Oval Office

Four days after the inauguration of Trump, on January 24th, 2017 he put a picture of Andrew Jackson beside his desk. With this painting, controversy sparked. In both of their campaigns, they tried to appeal to the “common man”. Andrew Jackson being against John Quincy Adams which was born into a political lifestyle. John Quincy Adams dad being John Adams the second president of the United States, knew how to read or write, was the Secretary Of State and, was Minister to many countries like Russia and Portugal.

Nearly the same event happened to Trump when he was running against Hillary Clinton. Hilary Clinton is the wife of Bill Clinton, the 42nd president of the United States was also a New York senator, 67th Secretary of State and finally, the First Lady of the United States. Trump and Jackson were not born by a family already in Politics but coming from other backgrounds. Jackson leading military expeditions and being the Colonel of Tennessee state and Trump coming from a real estate company. Although Trump may not be as qualified as Jackson, he may still relate to the same triumphs Jackson had, therefore, putting his painting in the Oval Office.

As well as Jackson and Trump being put against people born into politics, they had the same values about non-native people living in America. Jackson created the Trail of Tears, which was the forced relocation of Native American tribes like the Cherokee to the west from land they considered sacred. This caused many deaths in these Native American tribes as many of them were not prepared for it. Families were separated due to the many deaths caused by the Trail of Tears causing families to lose loved ones or each other completely. This is currently happening today in Trumps presidency with the Child Separation Policy on the Mexico-United States border. With the Child Separation Policy in place, parents are being ripped away from their children on the border causing major distress recklessly. There are much better ways to prevent people from entering illegally from the United States and causing emotional harm to children as they witness their parents being taken away from them is cruel. This is comparative to when the Native American tribes are being pushed away from their sacred land because they are completely defenseless about the things ahead. Although Jackson’s Trail of Tears was cruel, he shouldn’t be shown as a bad president because the time during Jackson’s presidency is different from Trump’s presidency. During Jackson’s presidency, no one really cared for the Native Americans and Jackson was supported by the entire United States by it. Without Jackson, we would have very little compared to what we have now. But, for Trump, it’s a different story because he isn’t being defended by the entire United States. Instead, he is being pinned again the majority of the United States. Immigrants who may not have time to go through the process and seek asylum for their children and themselves desperately need a better place to go. In other presidencies, there was no problem and supported helping immigrants from coming to the United States.

With the Trail of Tears, Jackson and Trump imposed taxes meant to benefit the United States. Jackson imposed taxes on all imported goods so more Americans would buy American made goods. This greatly benefited the North and Western states while hurting the south. All things come with a cost regardless of the number of benefits from it. With Jackson mainly being supported by the people of the United States with these tariffs, it greatly helped the majority of the country and kept businesses alive. Trump also imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum. Originally meant to save jobs in the steel and aluminum industries it caused major problems. After the tariff was put into place, every one job saved caused the loss of five jobs with a total of 146,000 jobs lost. With the tariffs created to help the economy greatly harmed our economy and caused the loss of a lot of jobs.
Jackson won many wars and without him, the United States would never exist. Although his ideas were meant to help the United States the execution of them were not done well. He still deserves to be honored for what he has done for the country and doesn’t deserve to be affected by the ideas of Trump. I personally think that with Trump putting the picture up is what really sparks the controversy. Trump is one of the most hated presidents and anyone would try to find anything to put against him. If a different president were to put up Jackson, the conflict wouldn’t be as big or may just not happen.

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