Michael Savage went off on Trump standing beneath a portrait of Andrew "Action" Jackson - who paid off the national debt and killed the bank - when he was at a ceremony with Navajo code talkers was a bad move because, and I quote, "Andrew Jackson is to Native Americans what Adolf Hitler is to Jews." He then gave the story of the "trail of tears" and had exclusively Cherokee listeners call in and agree with him (he likes to do that). One even said that Jackson is "Worse than Hitler."
That's absolute bullshit, from start to finish.
First off, 16,000 Indians tops (maybe as low as 10,000) died during the entire relocation, not 30,000 that Savage says. That's at worst 1% of the number of people Hitler killed.
Second, there was no plan to exterminate anyone for existing, like Hitler did. The whole idea was to remove people from land to get the gold that was in the mountains. At worst this was ethnic cleansing, not genocide.
Third, why should the Navajo, who lived 2,000 miles away from any of the tribes who were removed, and didn't have any contact with any of the removed tribes (or even know they existed) until the 20th century, care what happened to any of the removed tribes? Why should people in the highlands of New Guinea care what happened during the Holocaust? It's totally irrelevant to them.
Third and a half, why didn't Savage have any Navajo callers, only Cherokee?
Fourth, the "trail of tears" - the actual removal of tribes from their land - was enforced by Martin Van Buren, not Jackson. Jackson got the law passed to pay the tribes in exchange for their lands, Van Buren enforced it by sending the US Army in to evict everyone all at once. Van Buren could have used his pen and his stool to nullify the law, or at least choose not to enforce it. Any blood stains Van Buren's hands, not Jackson.
Fifth, there's no such thing as a single, monolithic group called "Native Americans." First off, that's a bullshit political correct phrase, and you can tell it's a bullshit political correct phrase because EVERYONE who is born in America is, by definition, a native American, just as anyone born in France is native French. It's bullshit. If there was ever this monolithic entity "Native Americans" then why the hell did they spend thousands of years in a state of constant endemic warfare with one another? Why did tribes attack each other, massacre and rape the innocent, and drive each other off of land that they wanted and steal resources that they wanted? Why should tribes who were at each other's throats all of a sudden get along and agree on something because mighty whitey appeared? That never happened until the 20th century when these tribes started to use the US government for welfare.
Andrew Jackson is the only President who paid off the national debt.
He killed the privately owned central bank.
He greatly improved veterans pensions.
He removed corrupt officials from Washington.
He fought against abuse of eminent domain for projects that were not in the national interest but instead were to bolster political insiders.
He got France to pay their debt to the US AND negotiated trade relations with Britain - the country he had fought against in the War of 1812.
He recognised the independence of the Republic of Texas.
He financed scientific expeditions around the world.
He was a slave owner and he stole some land for gold, but he's hardly Hitler, and he was actually one of the better US Presidents. He was a human being, not the bogey man, and anyone who thinks otherwise is guilty of magical thinking.
Whether or not Trump should have stood beside a picture of Andrew Jackson, or whether or not he should have joked about Elizabeth Warren (who spent her entire life mocking the Cherokee by lying about her identity to get free handouts), is irrelevant to the issue of transforming Andrew Jackson into a fictional character who haunts naughty children when they misbehave.
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