President-elect Donald Trump boasted that his election was an even bigger populist movement than that of President Andrew Jackson during a dinner in honor of Vice President-elect Mike Pence on Wednesday night, The New York Times reports.
The comparison might raise some eyebrows: "Today, Andrew Jackson is no longer very popular, and many of his values are no longer ours," The Smithsonian has noted. "Jackson's populism was … a Trojan horse for pro-slavery, pro-states-rights interests. He was a wealthy slaveholder himself, with no qualms about African-American bondage and deep hostility to abolitionism. He ignored the early movement for women's rights, and his infamous policy of Indian removal partly stemmed from demands by his 'base' for plentiful free land."
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