Trump's hardly the first to face dissent
DONALD Trump, the man who pulled off one of the biggest election upsets in American history, has a background unlike any of our previous 44 presidents: He had no experience in elective politics or in the military (though he had years of experience negotiating with politicians and city inspectors). His bluntness and insistence on saying what he thinks via tweets unnerves many of his critics, and his reality-TV résumé has created the image of a colorful anomaly in the Oval Office.
His critics call him “unprecedented,” but, in fact, he is following an honorable American tradition.
Andrew Jackson (pictured) had a pugnacious temper — and a readiness to use a gun — that makes the hyperactive Trump look like a choir boy. In 1828, opposition handbills accused Jackson of being a man “who carries a sword cane, and is willing to run it through the body of anyone who may presume to stand in his way.”
Not known for his etiquette was Lyndon Johnson, who had a habit of holding meetings while sitting on the john.
Trump’s salacious locker-room talk, inappropriate though it may be, is no match for Bill Clinton’s peccadillos, JFK’s many affairs or Warren Harding’s romps in the White House closet with mistress Nan Britton (she got pregnant and had a child out of wedlock).
Trump has the vanity of John Adams, who was highly sensitive to criticism, though Adams wanted to be called Emperor and outlaw a free press. This is not the case with Trump.
Trump has been known to publicly call out his foes — a lot like George Washington, who named his dog Cornwallis after the defeated British general. Washington took great pleasure in ordering the dog to do his bidding: “Come here, Cornwallis! Jump! Sit!”
Some of President Trump’s critics decry that, while winning the electoral vote, he lost the popular vote by almost 2.9 million. They incorrectly call him illegitimate.
It’s true we’d never seen a campaign like this, where the winner trailed his opponent throughout the campaign, was outspent 2-to-1, lacked the support of the national media and was shunned by much of his own political party. He insisted he was leading a movement, yet hardly anyone believed him.
Abraham Lincoln was another unusual winner. He even once admitted, “I do not think myself fit for the presidency.”
He had been a single-term congressman who had spent the next 11 years holding no public office, during which time he ran for the US Senate twice and lost.
He was a small-town lawyer of no particular distinction seeking the party nomination against the powerful senator from New York, William Seward. Lincoln ended up winning, only to have to face three candidates for the presidency. Lincoln won with less than 40 percent of the vote.
No one today would ever question the legitimacy of his presidency. So, America, we need to get some perspective. Trump’s rise to the White House, while shocking to some, is just one more remarkable story in the history of our great nation.