A Different Kind Of Republican

The most succinct comment on Trump's first week was from Greg Gutfeld, who said Trump shows the difference between a "real president and a cardboard prop". Yesterday I called him a Republican president with industrialist, federalist, reconstructionist, even partly Catholic leanings, thinking in particular of Lincoln, Grant, McKinley, and Roosevelt. Although comparisons of Trump with Theodore Roosevelt are easy, before this past week, I thought more of Grant. Via Wikipedia,

In 1885, impoverished and dying of throat cancer, Grant wrote his memoirs, covering his life through the Civil War, which were posthumously published and became a major critical and financial success. At his death, Grant was the most popular American and was memorialized as a symbol of national unity. Due to the pseudohistorical and negationist mythology of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy spread by Confederate sympathizers around the turn of the 20th century, historical assessments and rankings of Grant's presidency suffered considerably before they began recovering in the 21st century. Grant's critics take a negative view of his economic mismanagement and the corruption within his administration, while his admirers emphasize his policy towards Native Americans, vigorous enforcement of civil and voting rights for African Americans, and securing North and South as a single nation within the Union.

I'm also interested in Trump's expansionism, reflected in his interest in acquiring Greenland and restoring control over the Panama Canal. McKinley and Roosevelt figure here. Again, Wikipedia:

The American annexation of Hawaii in 1898 was stimulated in part by fear that Japan would dominate or seize the Hawaiian Republic. Similarly, Germany was the alternative to American takeover of the Philippines in 1900, and Tokyo strongly preferred the U.S. to take over. As the U.S. became a naval world power, it needed to find a way to avoid a military confrontation in the Pacific with Japan.

In the 1890s, Roosevelt had been an ardent imperialist and vigorously defended the permanent acquisition of the Philippines in the 1900 campaign. After the local insurrection ended in 1902, Roosevelt wished to have a strong U.S. presence in the region as a symbol of democratic values, but he did not envision any new acquisitions.

. . . The Great White Fleet of American battleships visited Japan in 1908. Roosevelt intended to emphasize the superiority of the American fleet over the smaller Japanese navy, but instead of resentment, the visitors arrived to a joyous welcome. This goodwill facilitated the Root–Takahira Agreement of November 1908 which reaffirmed the status quo of Japanese control of Korea and American control of the Philippines

We're only starting to get a glimpse of what Trump 2.0 is going to be like. Ferdinand Lundberg, by the way, discounts Roosevelt's "malefactors of great wealth" remarks:

Presidents McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, Taft, Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover and Eisenhower were deep in the confidence of the finpols and, despite harsh words at times purely for public consumption, got along very well with them. Theodore Roosevelt demagogically referred to them as "malefactors of great wealth." But the finpols, always, despite harsh public language, managed to get their way, sooner or later. Corporate concentration for example, continues apace despite the hullabaloo of antitrust.

This is pretty clearly what's going on in the current rapprochement between Trump and the tech billionaires. Beyond that, there's not much else to say for now, other than it's easy to understand why the Bushes hate the guy.