usmbguest5318
Gold Member
Note to the "peanut gallery": Trump's remarks about Andrew Jackson are not the point of this post or thread. They are merely an example.
Donald Trump remarked that Andrew Jackson "was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War." That remark is merely among the most recent Trump has made and that show his penchant not only for revisionist history (alternative facts?) -- modern and long ago -- and/or his abject ignorance of yet another subject, American history.
No small number of people have noted salient facts about Andrew Jackson:
Quite simply, one either was supportive/acquiescent of slavery or one was not, and the extent which one was either drove one's position on its political impact. Similarly, one had a 50/50 shot of being right, no matter one's thoughts about whether slavery would sunder the nation. So it is with all things binary.
Trump's dearth of knowledge about Jackson and his age's U.S. history, though bizarre for a man who has succeeded Jackson, is minor. Far more troubling is "The Donald's" ardently pathological refusal to keep mum about things he doesn't know well. Even worse, however, is the toddler-like obdurate truculence he manifests in avouching the verity of his thus uttered hogwash.
Why the hell Trump doesn't just "own" his mistakes and gaffes is anyone's guess, but regardless of the reason, there is no good one. That Trump simply won't "be a man about it" when he's wrong and noted as such is the problem. It's a big problem because it's a character flaw that has impact on everything he's wrong about.
When he's wrong about an academic fact of history such as his misstatements/misunderstanding about Andrew Jackson, the Jackson presidency, and the corresponding times, well, that's no big deal. Trump makes it a big deal by "doubling down" on his mistake, which were he to not do, the matter of his error would wane as rapidly as it waxed. But what is come when Trump is wrong about matters of current events -- their occurrence, their import, their causes, etc? The answer is quite clear. Trump's intransigence will "take over" and errant and ill fated policy will result. One, we, in the aftermath must then pray that bad policy be the limit of the outcome.
Everyone -- even geniuses, which Trump is not -- is wrong about things. There's nothing particularly troubling about one's being mistaken. It happens. On the other hand, there is something very wrong about being mistaken and not being at least bright enough to know it, most especially so when the nature and extent one's error has been soundly explained and one refuses to simply admit one's mistake so all can move on to other things. Doing that is most necessary when the error itself and it's topic relevance pertains to something that, like so many of Trump's mistakes of which the "Jackson" one is but a recent one, has no real impact on current or future significant decisions. When it Trump going to "grow up" and realize that nobody expects infallibility of him, merely integrity and reason?
Donald Trump remarked that Andrew Jackson "was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War." That remark is merely among the most recent Trump has made and that show his penchant not only for revisionist history (alternative facts?) -- modern and long ago -- and/or his abject ignorance of yet another subject, American history.
No small number of people have noted salient facts about Andrew Jackson:
- He died some 15 years before the Civil War.
- He was POTUS some 30 years before the Civil War.
- He owned ~150 slaves, enough that (1) we can safely say he didn't take great exception with the "peculiar institution, and (2) he, in person, may not actually have known or met each of them.
Quite simply, one either was supportive/acquiescent of slavery or one was not, and the extent which one was either drove one's position on its political impact. Similarly, one had a 50/50 shot of being right, no matter one's thoughts about whether slavery would sunder the nation. So it is with all things binary.
Trump's dearth of knowledge about Jackson and his age's U.S. history, though bizarre for a man who has succeeded Jackson, is minor. Far more troubling is "The Donald's" ardently pathological refusal to keep mum about things he doesn't know well. Even worse, however, is the toddler-like obdurate truculence he manifests in avouching the verity of his thus uttered hogwash.
Why the hell Trump doesn't just "own" his mistakes and gaffes is anyone's guess, but regardless of the reason, there is no good one. That Trump simply won't "be a man about it" when he's wrong and noted as such is the problem. It's a big problem because it's a character flaw that has impact on everything he's wrong about.
When he's wrong about an academic fact of history such as his misstatements/misunderstanding about Andrew Jackson, the Jackson presidency, and the corresponding times, well, that's no big deal. Trump makes it a big deal by "doubling down" on his mistake, which were he to not do, the matter of his error would wane as rapidly as it waxed. But what is come when Trump is wrong about matters of current events -- their occurrence, their import, their causes, etc? The answer is quite clear. Trump's intransigence will "take over" and errant and ill fated policy will result. One, we, in the aftermath must then pray that bad policy be the limit of the outcome.
Everyone -- even geniuses, which Trump is not -- is wrong about things. There's nothing particularly troubling about one's being mistaken. It happens. On the other hand, there is something very wrong about being mistaken and not being at least bright enough to know it, most especially so when the nature and extent one's error has been soundly explained and one refuses to simply admit one's mistake so all can move on to other things. Doing that is most necessary when the error itself and it's topic relevance pertains to something that, like so many of Trump's mistakes of which the "Jackson" one is but a recent one, has no real impact on current or future significant decisions. When it Trump going to "grow up" and realize that nobody expects infallibility of him, merely integrity and reason?
