Donald Trump loves to throw shade at other presidents. That’s why

WASHINGTON – Back in 2016, the mercurial businessman and TV star. Donald Trump built a political career attacking recent US presidents, Republicans as well as Democrats.

Eight years later, former President Donald Trump attempt to retake the White House doing the same – and expanding the list of your goals, casting a shadow on luminaries such as Abraham Lincoln And George Washington.

During a forum on the issues in Pennsylvania last week, Trump repeated a frequent story that claimed unnamed border officials said they supported him for a second term because he was “the greatest overall president we’ve ever had.” “

“I said, ‘Does this include Abe Lincoln?'” Trump told supporters. “Does this include George Washington?” … yes! … I said, “That’s good.”

Political analysts and historians – none of them put Trump at the top of the rankings. presidential ratings – said he is driven to criticize and doubt others due to a combination of ego, arrogance and self-esteem issues.

“He thinks he’s better than any of them,” said Jack Pitney, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College and a former Republican who has studied conservative politics for decades. “That’s the short answer. He doesn’t know much about history and doesn’t care. His arrogance is surpassed only by his ignorance.”

Trump and previous presidents

Previously, presidents rarely spoke ill of each other, at least publicly. Trump was never a member the so-called “President’s Club”. changed the rules in his campaign against Vice President Kamala Harris (and before her the current president President Joe Biden).

Some former presidents do stand up to Trump’s scrutiny.

Over the years, he has praised and praised his Republican predecessors. Ronald Reagan And Dwight Eisenhowerwith a recent focus on the immigration policies of the Eisenhower administration. “He was a very big deporter,” Trump said during a forum in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania.

As for Reagan, Trump named his political movement after the Gipper’s slogan: “Let’s make America great again.” At MAGA rallies in recent days, Trump begins with a question that Reagan made famous during his successful 1980 presidential campaign: Are you better off now than you were four years ago?

Of course, Trump also praised Lincoln, although he occasionally made unflattering comments about Dear 16th Presidentregarding the Civil War.

During an interview with Fox & Friends this month, Trump repeated that he doesn’t understand why Lincoln didn’t “settle” the dispute with the Confederate states before the war began. The Fox host noted that the Southern states had seceded before Lincoln’s inauguration in March 1861.

“Lincoln was probably a great president – although I always said why wasn’t it resolved, you know?” – said Trump. “It doesn’t make sense when we had a civil war.”

On Joe Rogan Podcast Last week, Trump contrasted Lincoln with a historical figure he has often praised, Confederate military leader Robert E. Lee, citing Lee’s successes on the battlefield.

“Lincoln squealed…as the golfers would say,” Trump said. “He had a phobia about Robert E. Lee.”

Trump also praised George Washington but equated him to Lincoln in a 2021 interview with the book’s authors. “I alone can fix this”: Donald Trump’s disastrous final year.”

“I think it would be difficult if George Washington came back from the dead and chose Abraham Lincoln as his vice president,” Trump said of his pre-COVID presidency. “I think it would be very difficult for them to hit me.”

Historian Sidney Blumenthal, who wrote a five-volume biography of Lincoln, said Trump’s “malignant narcissism drives him” to act like he is better than everyone else.

“Good luck competing with Lincoln,” said Blumenthal, a former senior White House aide to President Bill Clinton.

Trump likes presidents based on their problems

Trump does tend to praise his predecessors for advancing his own agenda.

For example, the former 45th chief executive of the country praised President William McKinley over high tariffs he established during his presidency, which began around the end of the 19th century and ended with his assassination in the early 20th century.

President Andrew Jacksonnation seventh president from 1829 to 1837won Trump’s admiration for his populist style of politics.

Trump, the only president who will impeached twice and also brought to criminal liability in four separate casesalso praised Jackson for being the country’s most politically attacked chief executive – with one exception. “Nobody has been treated as badly as Trump,” Trump told Newsmax in March.

Of course, less popular past presidents such as Republican Richard Nixon – do not get support from Trump.

During a recent rally in Duluth, Georgia, Trump said that sometimes he wants to tape every conversation he has, but “the problem is that then I start thinking, ‘Richard Nixon did it… Let’s do without the tape.’ “

President Jimmy Carter also a frequent target for Trump, who has taken shots at the Georgia Democrat which recently turned 100 years old as a way to attack Biden and Harris.

“Their administration is making the Jimmy Carter administration look absolutely brilliant,” Trump said Wednesday in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

One President Trump rarely, if ever, mentioned: Grover Clevelandthe only president in US history to lose his bid for re-election and then come back four years later, in 1892, to win the White House again.

Trump and current presidents

Trump’s attacks on recent presidents relate to current politics.

When Trump sought the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, he criticized Republican President George W. Bush due to the Iraq War and the 2007-08 financial crisis. It was also a way to reach one of his primary Republican opponents: former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, brother of George W. Bush and son of the former Florida governor. President George H. W. Bush.

In the 2016 general election, Trump pursued President Barack Obama as a way to challenge heiress and Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton. Trump is still attacking Obama – a “real asshole” – while his predecessor campaigns for Harris across the country.

Of course, Trump hit Biden because he ran against him before the incumbent left in July; he’s still attacking Biden while trying to get to Harris.

Although George W. Bush did not publicly respond to Trump’s taunts, other living presidents were happy to do so.

Biden regularly describes Trump as a threat to democracy, citing its role in the attempted insurrection on January 6, 2021, and efforts to undermine the electoral system in general.

“He’s lost his mind,” Biden said during an October campaign event. Harris.

Obama has ridiculed Trump at every turn on the campaign trail, from his obsession with crowd size to his tweets.

“Here is a man, a 78-year-old billionaire who hasn’t stopped whining about his problems since he rode the golden escalator nine years ago,” Obama told Democratic supporters Monday in Philadelphia.

Former President Bill Clintonmarried to Hillary Clinton, also mocked Trump at a recent rally in Durham, North Carolina, over his threats to harass political opponents. Clinton joked that he would rather be locked up in Guantanamo Bay prison in warm Cuba than in the Super Max prison in cold Colorado.

“Because when you’re 78 years old, you’re much more worried about being too cold than you are about being too hot,” Clinton said.

Political scientist Lara Brown, author of “The Amateur’s Hour: Presidential Character and the Question of Leadership,” said most scholars consider Trump to be perhaps the worst president in history.

His attempt to rise above the Lincolns and Washingtons of the world is partly an attempt to change public opinion of him. They are also very typical of Trump, who bills himself as an expert on everything from business deals to foreign diplomacy and often says, “I was right about everything.

“He never stops talking about his perceived abilities and past successes,” Brown said. “We should not be surprised that he is trying to do this with historical figures whose reputations as great leaders and brilliant statesmen far exceed his.”