Political Science Capstone Research Papers
Document Type
Article
Program of Study
Political Science
Presentation Date
4-25-2019
Keywords
Trump, Jackson, Populism, Jacksonianism, Comparison, Similarities, Political, Cultural, Economic
Abstract
Since the election of Donald J. Trump to the U.S. Presidency in 2016, many political scientists have been searching for a complete and holistic understanding of how Mr. Trump was able to accomplish what seemed to be an impossible feat. There is no question that Trump utilized a wave of populism for his 2016 victory, but what kind of populism did Trump use in his campaign? After researching and reviewing what other scholars have written, Trump utilized the Jacksonian tradition of populism in 2016. However, this raised the follow-up question: how was he able to utilize Jacksonianism? Some contemporary historians and political scientists have drawn parallels between Donald Trump and Andrew Jackson, which led to the idea that Trump was able to utilize Jacksonianism because he was like Jackson. Through a “historical event research” approach which included a historical overview of Andrew Jackson, a study on Jackson’s ideology, and contemporary comparisons between the two, it was determined that Trump indeed was like Jackson. Trump was able to utilize Jacksonian populism because he was able to authentically “market” himself as Jackson because the two share similar cultural, economic, and political standings in their own respective time periods. Trump saw Jackson’s appeal to the people from 1828 and was able to authentically recreate it in 2016.
Advisor
Dr. Thomas Mach
Recommended Citation
Fair, Kevin Elijah, "Donald J. Trump: The Second Coming of Andrew Jackson?" (2019). Political Science Capstone Research Papers. 3.
https://digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/political_science_capstones/3
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
