Steve Bannon Pushed Trump to Go Full Andrew Jackson

When Steve Bannon looks at President Donald Trump, he sees the original populist president. Only taller. With better hair.

ASAWIN SUEBSAENG

03.17.17 12:00 AM ET

When President Donald J. Trump tweeted a photo of himself solemnly saluting Andrew Jackson at the deceased president’s Nashville tomb, it was all part of Stephen K. Bannon’s populist plan.

On Wednesday, Trump honored the birthday of Jackson, the seventh American president and founder of the Democratic Party, in his remarks outside the Hermitage, Jackson’s former estate in Nashville, Tennessee. Trump, a Republican, self-promoted himself as the modern-day heir to Jackson’s legacy.

“It was during the revolution that Jackson first confronted and defied an arrogant elite. Does that sound familiar?” Trump said ahead of a rally in Nashville on Wednesday. The president, who noted that his visit to the Hermitage was “inspirational” and that he is big Jackson “fan,” also sang Jackson’s praises earlier that day during an unrelated speech in Detroit, Michigan.

But President Trump’s love affair with the ghost of Andrew Jackson is a relatively newfound one. His only other tweet about Jackson came in July 2013, when he wrote: “Interesting…the last time a Democrat succeeded a two-term Democratic pres. was in 1836 when Martin Van Buren succeeded Andrew Jackson.” (Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton would have succeeded two-term president Barack Obama but was of course defeated by Trump in the 2016 election.)

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