History never really repeats itself, neither as tragedy nor as farce nor as something else entirely. Donald Trump is both a narcissistic and megalomanical fool and a tragedy for the U.S. and the planet. Yet, although there are certainly some alarming resemblances with Trump, he is not a reborn Mussolini or Hitler or some other fascistic demagogue from 1920s Europe. Trump comes out of a very American background of anti-intellectualism, racism, sexism, and xenophobia. Andrew Jackson, a president with those attributes and a faux claim to support the interests of the “little man” is an apt model for Trump. That said, one compelling reason to study what happened in the past is to see if there...
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