Comparisons don’t work where Trump is concerned

Athought on historians who rate history and columnists who reach out to the past: Donald Trump is now being compared to James Buchanan for the “rock bottom” slot of deplorable leaders. Buchanan became president in 1856, having received a plurality of the vote against a Know-Nothing candidate, Millard Fillmore, and the first Republican candidate, John C. Fremont.

Unlike Trump, Buchanan promised continuity and stability, and also unlike Trump, Buchanan had a long career in government, having served in Congress, as minister to Russia and the United Kingdom, and as secretary of state. He also fought in the War of 1812 in defense of Maryland (no bone spurs).

Buchanan was one of the worst presidents, for many reasons. Notably like Franklin Pierce, Buchanan, too, was an immoral “dough-face” and failed in regard to the Southern states on the eve of his departure. There is a difference between inaction to calls to action, though. Buchanan’s inaction, however, at least became tepid action. To be sure, he staffed his Cabinet, with Senate approval, full of Southerners who joined the confederacy. He thought he could reason with them, because he had been able to do so for much of his career. Trump stands alone in that he acted to cause an event, rather than failed to exercise his authority to stop it.

I have been dismayed and saddened at the use of presidential comparisons since Trump’s term began, particularly to justify his behavior: Newt Gingrich compared Trump to Andrew Jackson. I suspect that Jackson would have remained a military man who sought combat with bone spurs, callouses and a lack of limbs, if given the chance. I see no such courage from the current occupant. And even this observation is superficial, because there are considerable substantive differences between the two men.

If there is a comparison to be made, it is a cross between Huey Long and Benjamin Ryan Tillman, two presidential aspirants who lied a lot and, in the second case, who sought to subjugate people to the maximum degree based on the color of their skin. I think that in our two-party system, there has been a long-standing game of Russian roulette, in that the system has been able to suppress third-party demagogues (George Wallace, Strom Thurmond, etc.) for a long time.

Aside from the difficulty in comparing one president to another, doing so takes away the more important question of how this happened. Trump’s ascension through the Republican Party was partly an overtaking by an anti-traditional conservative movement that possessed a few conservative values and a lot of immorality. But it was allowed by party leadership that had long tolerated bigotry in several of its leaders, and not just in the past such as Thurmond or

Trent Lott, but also the more recent, like Steve King. In other words, the party didn’t merely allow bigotry to ride the tiger, only to have the tiger swallow it. The party invited the tiger to dinner and gave it the head seat.

I believe it is still too early to dissect what occurred over the last five years, but in terms of character comparisons, I suggest we leave out past presidents, even the bad ones. It will end up justifying Trump’s conduct to too many people. Put another way, no president before has tried to emulate Mussolini’s march on Rome. Until now.