Posted on 08/29/2015 10:42:54 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Is Donald Trump truly one of a kind—a sui generis sensation in U.S. politics? As Americans try to make sense of the businessman-turned-Republican presidential frontrunner and how he’s come to dominate the polls and the airwaves in the 2016 cycle, Politico Magazine decided to consult the archives: Is there a historical figure the Donald resembles—a model who can help explain his rise? We asked some of the smartest historians we know to name the closest antecedent to Trump from the annals of American history. Some maintained that he is a unique product of the era of reality TV, social media and the 1 percent. But others saw similarities to politicians, personalities and tycoons past, from Italy’s former bunga-bunga prime minister Silvio Berlusconi to the last billionaire to disrupt presidential politics, Ross Perot, to segregationist populists like George Wallace. If history repeats itself, consider this a preview of where Trump’s candidacy could go from here...
George Wallace
Garry Wills, professor of history emeritus at Northwestern University, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and contributor to the New York Review of Books
Donald Trump has elements of different demagogues from the past. But I am reminded, again and again, of the times when I followed George Wallace around both before and after he was shot during the 1972 presidential race. His campaign slogan was “Send them a message.” The “them” was capacious. Demagogues are all voices for the aggrieved. Some of these are just resenters, but others are denouncers. Wallace, like Trump, loved a fight and went on the attack with insults. (Wallace mocked the pointy-heads who did not even know how to park their bicycles on campus.) When I asked Joe Azbell, who invented the slogan, what it meant, he told me, “People are fed up with government and want to be left alone.”(continued)
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
God used many types of people to get work done, never know what he might have planned for Mr. Trump.
Liberals have to explain things to themselves, translated into Marxian.
Politico, nuff said
So, they went searching into the “annals of American history” for a Trump antecedent and returned in triumph bearing ... Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi?
They are for the most part making unflattering comparisons including using fictional characters. What they are missing is that the political and corporate elites have lost touch with the American people who are being betrayed by their leaders. Both parties have abandoned the American worker.
Wow!
Proves the first thing media have to learn is that they’ve done, and are doing, a terrible job.
Without that realization they won’t understand Trump any better than they understand anything else.
Huh? Liberal Propaganda at its finest. I'm just surprised that "Charles Manson" or the like wasn't also used.
Liberals just cant understand why anyone would be the least bit angry at anything Obama has done while in office.
(yawn)
Trump is “historical”! Woot! Americans love making “history” all of the time.
The one thing I like about Trump ... a lot ... is he is driving the GOPe crazy and really screwing with the paradigm.
“Historians”? They are about history as I am about flying myself to the moon. They are nothing but liberal propagandists.
Trumpian precedents?
My first thought was Andrew Jackson. If I am right, we are in for one hell of a ride the next eight years.
That, plus any article with Trump in the headline drives traffic miles farther than any other story.
Wankers, all. The only one worth considering was the last guy, who said basicially that he didn’t know.
One interesting thing a few of them touch on is that Trump is the product of a lot of folks being fed up with the way things are. It’s too bad that enough people didn’t get fed up to this extent a long time ago. Where the commmenters miss the point is in their belief that being fed up has no real justification. It’s all nativism and racism.
Teddy Roosevelt.....
I would have used Huey Long and his Run agin FDR—He’s the guy who said he would give a chicken in every pot. Fremont and his Run in 1856 would have been good—a platform made up of Anti-Mormonism (really anti-Poligamy) and Anti-Slavery and Free Homesteads. His Motto: Free Soil, Freemen and Fremont! Another would be Reagans 1976 run and failure.
My closest analogy is John Hancock. Richest man in the colonies and of a suspect background. Revolution would not have happened without his financial support of Sam Adams. He saw himself as the ulimate leader, was a bragadocio, and self described as “very smart” as frequently as anyone would listen. He jockeyed to be commander of Continental Army.
Sam backstabbed him and nominated George, the traitorous loser from VA....and we all know how that turned out.
The Donald could be either John or George in the next American revolution.....or neither.
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