Donald Trump is Andrew Jackson, part II

The clever Edward Luce at the Financial Times in London has called this the most important race in America since 1860.

That was the election that brought Abraham Lincoln to the presidency. It was the most important election then because there was no question that a vote for Lincoln was a vote for war.

{mosads}And that war brought the most definitive change in how we would see ourselves, what we would become. A singular political philosophy would rise and dominate America — through military conquest — and it would bring us from then to now.

Possibly it ends today.

This race could do the same, as this race has hit a primal chord. But this was not a race between lofty ideals: slavery vs. freedom, Alexander Hamilton’s vision of a centralized America vs. Thomas Jefferson’s of decentralization; a land of yeoman farmers vs. enlightened common men.

This might instead be seen to as a race between the more ephemeral, soaring spirit of Lady Gaga on the one hand, and the magnificent, organizational instincts and intuitive power of Tom Brady on the other. And that may not be a good thing or a bad thing — possibly it was always like this — but that is how we live today and that is how we came to this.

And there may be danger in that, and that is to be watched.

Luce saw the American race from his foreign perch as suggesting danger ahead — for them, for us, for the world: “Imagine two kinds of threat: one where a bear breaks into your cabin, the other where termites eat it from within. Mr Trump is the bear.”

This is not the first time we have sensed a bear coming into our parlor. First came Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee — the Grizzly Mama — who shook the world as Trump did and first sent the aggregate press here and throughout the world to the fainting couch. Rightfully so, for as we know as of this morning, it was she who first raised this cry from the American forest and heartland, and Trump followed.

And today the bears have won. Both of them.

If we look at this change as a break from the past, it might help us to see what specifically has passed.

First off, the Sixties are over. Both parties now have shed their skin and will both slither forth new again if they both survive.

The Republicans had done the right thing to rid themselves of the old families, specifically those named Bush, and the Democrats are free now to begin again.

For the Clintons and their generation, it is finished, but Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I), who harks back to an even earlier world — even to an archaic vision which was largely repudiated until he brought it back — is no place to start.

“Jeffersonian liberals” Gary Johnson and William Weld of the Libertarian team offer a better and more relevant new beginning.

The Democrats must now start from nothing.

The Republicans as well, but they have the advantage. They won.

In this election, it might be seen that the “Kennedy half-century” — Larry Sabato’s excellent title for his book — has ended.

President Obama might be seen as the last Kennedy. He successfully completes the Kennedy historic half-century and likewise completes the last unfulfilled goal of Abraham Lincoln when Lincoln rose to the Oval Office: the integration of the races in America.

And historians might note that when an era ends, it usually ends abruptly, as is so vividly illustrated in the “Downton Abbey” series.

But in my opinion, this race brought to mind, most of all, the race which brought Andrew Jackson to the Oval Office in 1829.

For if Trump is the bear, Jackson, the rustic frontiersman — “Old Hickory” — was the coyote, the candidate who gave rise to a rustic and renegade anti-Washington, anti-big bank, anti-Eastern Establishment, anti-city-slicker ethic, riding it from the hills of Tennessee to Washington. It found its creation moment at the Alamo and wasn’t put into remission until the Civil War.

Or was it? The Tea Party is said to have been born in our time at The Alamo on April 15, 2009, when Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) chanted “States’ rights, states’ rights, states’ rights!” to a rising crowd of rural renegades.

It was the pure spirit of Jackson rising again, an American spirit perhaps indefatigable, unbreakable and probably, like the coyote, immortal.

Today, Jackson rides again. And that which was born in Jackson’s time is born again and rises again to the White House.

It was inevitable that it would come to this — if not now, then soon. Demographics have brought us here.

Since the end of World War II, population and wealth have moved West, to a West that was a mostly empty plains before Jim Bowie and his crew arrived to take it.

In its way, Texas has won and since Jackson’s time and The Alamo’s first moment, a Texas vs. New York situation entered into play and the great question raised by Humpty Dumpty applied: “The question is … which is to be master — that’s all.”

Texas was won this time in a race which will begin to define the millennium, and the East/West world will swirl around it.

Oddly enough, this time around, it was won by a New Yorker.

Quigley is a prize-winning writer who has worked more than 35 years as a book and magazine editor, political commentator and reviewer. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife and four children. Contact him at quigley1985@gmail.com.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.