President Trump is a dufus on American history.
If citizens want to get a leg up on Presidential knowledge, read my book, How to Select an American President by James A. George with James A. Rodger (c) 2017 Archway Publishing.
"President Trump won an election based on a promise about the past: "Make America great again," he proclaimed, conjuring up the mythic "good old days" while railing about the supposed disaster and mess of the present.
But the funny thing about Trump's nostalgia is that the president has proved, time and again, that he doesn't know much about the past after all.
That was obvious on Monday after Trump was interviewed on radio by the Washington Examiner in which he extolled President Andrew Jackson and suggested Jackson could have prevented the Civil War from taking place.
Here's the full excerpt of what Trump said:
I mean, had Andrew Jackson been a little later, you wouldn't have had the Civil War. He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart. And he was really angry that — he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War. He said, “There's no reason for this.” People don't realize, you know, the Civil War — if you think about it, why? People don't ask that question, but why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?
As we wrote earlier, the White House has overtly embraced Jackson's proto-populist legacy. Trump showed off a Jackson biography on his desk at the Oval Office and paid a visit to Jackson's grave in Tennessee in March. His advisers grandiosely described Trump as a "Jacksonian" president. But there are so many dubious claims in just a few sentences here that they cast doubt on Trump's basic grasp of his own branding, let alone American history."
The Washington Post World View email
Trump can't curb his ignorance
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