Anybody with a third-grade grasp of American history was dumbfounded when Donald Trump showcased his sheer ignorance for all to see regarding the Civil War. This time, he invoked Andrew Jackson and claimed Jackson was upset about the Civil War, when he died 16 years before the war even began. Of course, everyone and their mom jumped on him for that, with the exception of a few.
One of those people was Jack Kingston, a Republican Congressman from Georgia. First Kingston said:
“I think that, if you look at history, Andrew Jackson actually intervened when South Carolina tried to secede, and he kept the Union. So I think it was an accurate historical reference.”
Yes, Jackson threatened to send federal troops to South Carolina to stop them from seceding. But there are a squillion events that led up to the Civil War – South Carolina’s eventual secession was the result of all of that. Furthermore, Jackson himself was a slave owner. When Anderson Cooper pointed that out, Kingston said that doesn’t mean he couldn’t have prevented the war. At that point, panelist Tara Setmayer lost it with him.
“Okay, honestly, this is a nice try. I’ve been watching Trump supporters trying to candy-coat this, and it was an asinine thing for Donald Trump to say. I don’t know why he was wading into this and going there with Andrew Jackson. I understand he has a fascination because people compared his campaign to Andrew Jackson’s.”
She gave him a brief history lesson, but Kingston wasn’t having it. He chose that moment to say something that was just flat-out absurd: “I think that is a lot of feigned indignation by Trump critics.” Setmayer got even angrier, and Kingston found himself on the receiving end of a very sharp, but well-deserved, tongue-lashing. Watch below:
For reference, this is literally what Trump said about Jackson and the Civil War:
“He was really angry that he saw with regard to the Civil War, he said, ‘There’s no reason for this…’
The Civil War, if you think about it, why? People don’t ask the question but why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?”
Not only did Jackson die 16 years before the Civil War even started, but historians have been asking and debating what caused the Civil War since…well…the Civil War. Trump didn’t just make a complete idiot of himself, he minimized and glossed over the role that slavery played in the events leading up to the war, and glorified a slave owner to a country in which many people still feel slavery’s pain.
Featured image via screen capture from embedded video
