Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson (1767–1845), seventh President (1829–1837), founder of the Democratic Party and the archetype of American plebeian nationalism — "Old Hickory," the general of New Orleans who broke the British-backed Creek confederacy and crushed the Second Bank of the United States.
The Bank War
Jackson's veto of the Second Bank recharter (1832) and removal of federal deposits was the defining anti-finance action in American history: he framed it as the people versus the "monster" — a privileged paper-money oligarchy (Nicholas Biddle, foreign investors) feeding on the republic. His 1834 censure fight and the Specie Circular completed the assault. For Infrared this is the primal scene of American anti-usury politics — proof that the American people will back a leader who attacks finance by name.
Contradictions
- The Indian Removal Act (1830) and Trail of Tears — the dark side of settler democracy that Marxist readings cannot sanitize.
- The tariff crisis and Force Bill (1832-33): unionist against nullification, yet a Southern slaveholder whose coalition fractured on the slavery question within a generation.
Infrared usage
Haz invokes Jackson as evidence for the continuity of American populism: MAGA's base is Jacksonian America — nationalist, anti-bank, anti-elite, suspicious of cosmopolitan finance. Walter Russell Mead's "Jacksonian tradition" is frequently echoed: the martial, honor-culture, common-man nationalism that both parties' establishments fear (see MAGA Communism, Left-Conservatism).