Trump as a Hamiltonian

American Thinker.com ^ | December 20, 2019 | Bill Croke

[Kaslin]

Using the framework of the U.S. Constitution, Alexander Hamilton was instrumental in inventing the America that we live in today. With that liberty providing guidance, he fashioned the nascent American economy and its multifaceted engines from Wall St. to Main St. that interacted with the world of international trade and finance beyond. George Washington’s Secretary of the Treasury’s singular legacy in the realms of the banking system, taxes, tariffs and trade treaties is beyond doubt.

Today, the White House is occupied by a president who seems to be in tune with Hamilton’s vision of economic nationalism. In a never-ending series of tired leftwing clichés -- culminating in the current impeachment orgy -- Donald Trump has been compared to such modern historical monsters as Hitler and Mussolini, when in fact the more apt comparison would be to a fictional character, Ayn Rand’s John Galt, the uber-capitalist protagonist of her novel Atlas Shrugged.

In Rand’s “Objectivist” worldview the individual reigned supreme, as the “collective” stifled human liberty and economic prosperity, and it was only the absence of the state from the machinery of commerce that the individual was able to live a free and meaningful life. Ironically, Rand parted company with Hamilton’s view that a strong central government was necessary to accomplish these ends.

[Jacquerie]

He was a remarkable man. If for nothing else, we are in debt to him for his many Federalist Papers.

In Praise of Alexander Hamilton, Part I of V.

[Rockingham]

Reading Hamilton, the logic of his argument is always evident, even when subsidiary points are introduced and explored. He seems to have had the rare capacity to write long, complicated essays in a single take.

[Still Thinking]

Maybe not caring what anyone thinks leads to both doing the right (not the popular) thing and being rough around the edges, and that’s why you see those traits together often.

[foreverfree]

Bump

[Impy]

That’s nonsense, partisanship is a natural feature of having elections. Bad guys will organize so good guys must also organize.

Non-partisan government is a fantasy. If would only possible if you shoot all the socialists and dickheads first.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Yup. Unless everyone agrees with each other, there’s going to be factions. We don’t all agree with each other on FR, for heaven’s sake !

[SunkenCiv]

We don’t all agree with each other on FR, for heaven’s sake !

Whaaat?!? You're *absolutely wrong* about that!!! /s

Thanks fieldmarshaldj.

[SunkenCiv]

The General picked great people, Hamilton was his best pick.

There's a lot of incoherent, inchoate animus directed at Hamilton, and not just here in the warm, welcoming pages of FR.

I used to know a guy who wondered if I could break a twenty, and I had two tens. He balked, because Hamilton's on the tens, then gave me this long spiel about how he was himself descended (illegitimately) from Aaron Burr, and claimed to have all the documentation and inside information about everything that had gone on between Hamilton and Burr, but that an aunt who had the documentation had lost it when the Andrea Doria went down.

Y'know, that may be the wildest story I've ever told, and every word true. I'd just never written it down before, and it really looks crazy in print. Which, of course, was to be the point anyway -- incoherent, inchoate animus.

[SunkenCiv]

Well put!

[Openurmind]

I appreciate you sharing that, I am probably one of the few who read your personal nuggets and find them fascinating, and sometimes argumentative. lol

What? Was he doubting that two Hamiltons were worth one Jackson? Or even four Lincolns were worth a Jackson? Bet he wasn’t going to get even one Eagle in that exchange... :)

[mass55th]

"Our current president is sometimes criticized for his “offensive” tweets and whatnot."

I've learned over the past four years, that President Trump doesn't say anything there isn't an explanation for. And he doesn't say things, unless he already knows it's true. I was visiting old friends on Thursday, and the subject of President Trump's comment about John Dingell came up. My friends are Trump supporters, but were Democrats for most of their lives, and said they will never vote for another Democrat as long as they live. They're not avid readers of the news on the internet, and although I've steered the wife to Free Republic, and The Liberty Daily, I know she doesn't view them. We're all in our 70's, but let's just say that I'm more politically savvy than they are.

The husband asked me why Trump would say something like that. I told him that there's always a reason why President Trump says things. I told him I would check it out when I got home, and let him know. On my return home I checked FR, plus I did a search for Dingell, and found his tweet from October, 2016 telling DJT to "take two running jumps and go to hell." I also read that he had been throwing many barbs at Trump during the campaign. I read a bit of his biography, and how he'd been in Congress for decades, and that his wife succeeded him when he retired, thus creating a dynasty for themselves. I read how President Trump had approved special services, etc. for Dingell's funeral in February, and how his wife had thanked President Trump profusely for helping out. Then she voted for impeachment. I immediately called my friends up, and told them why Trump had said what he said, and they clearly understood because they hadn't seen or heard anything about Dingell's original comment, and had no idea the guy's wife had voted to impeach the President.

[Paine in the Neck]

Hamilton was the original Swamp Creature.

[Pelham]

Hamilton? Okay.

But more than that Trump is the second coming of Andrew Jackson, the first populist President to outrage the elites of his day.

[Pelham]

👍GMTA

[Pelham]

“And to think the neo-Confederates have the unmitigated gall to claim Washington as their own!”

Virginian. Plantation owner. Slave holder. Rebel.

I’m guessing that the neo-Confederates hiding under your bed can probably make a better argument than whatever you have rattling around your head.

[Pelham]

“Hamiltonism - governmental consolidation, the elimination of true federalism, dominant executive power, and mercantilist economic policies - amounted to a betrayal of the principles for which Americans fought in the Revolution.”

A small & weak central government without taxing power is what we had for 8 years under the Articles of Confederation.

By 1787 few believed that the country could survive operating that way. That’s why the Philadelphia convention of 1787 decided that we had to replace the Articles and the Constitution was the result.

Those who supported replacing the Articles with the Constitution were known as Federalists. Washington and Hamilton were federalists. George Mason and Patrick Henry were Anti-Federalists.

[Pelham]

cowboyusa means “the debt”. Not “the deficit”.

Paying off the debt isn’t the economic panacea that people imagine it to be. If it was there would not have been the “Panic of 1837”, an economic depression that ran until 1843.

[Pelham]

You should have informed Burr’s illegitimate descendant that his illustrious progenitor was tried for treason during Jefferson’s presidency. Not that TJ could have been holding a grudge or anything. Burr’s sorry butt was saved by Jefferson’s cousin & political rival John Marshall.

[gleeaikin]

I just finished reading a book about the warfare in the 1500s between the Christian and the Muslim countries (especially Turks) to control the Mediterranean Sea. At any rate I now know why Andrea Doria was famous. During his decades he was the greatest Christian seafarer who fought the Muslims to a standstill. Aaron Burr got into a lot of trouble as he tried to gain power in parts of our western south independent from being a part of the United States. A wild and crazy story that which I am too tired to Google for details.

[gleeaikin]

And like Jackson’s “trail of tears” removing the Cherokees, Trump is creating a border of tears as he keeps the mostly Amerindians from Central America out of our country.