Trump first? What would Lincoln say to that

The US presidential election in November has many speaking of a “fateful year” for American democracy. Georg Schild, Professor of North American History, has written biographies about Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy and has extensively dealt with election campaigns in the USA. He sees parallels to another fateful year in the country’s history.

The election campaign in the USA has begun. Will we witness an ugly political competition like we have never seen before?
Georg Schild: The election campaign is the precursor to power, and in the USA, the battle has always been fought with hard blows, not just since Donald Trump. President Andrew Jackson was often caricatured as “King Andrew” in the 1830s. Even worse, Abraham Lincoln was frequently depicted as an ape in 1860, playing on his name “Abe”. Trump revives this tradition of denigrating the opponent when he calls Hillary Clinton “Crooked Hillary”, Joe Biden “Sleepy Joe”, and his intra-party rival Nikki Haley “Tricky Nikki”.

What does Trump stand for in terms of his campaign?'
GS: Trump makes vague and contradictory statements about what he intends to do if re-elected. He declares that he will secure the border with Mexico, immediately end the war in Ukraine and the Middle East conflict. And he questions NATO. But he has no domestic and foreign policy concept. His statements should be viewed from a psychological perspective. He declares himself to be the savior who can achieve everything, and the masses cheer him on. This indicates a deeper problem within American society.

Which one?
GS: Europeans often portray Trump as a potential dictator. This is an odd comparison because government programs do not serve as a basis for legitimacy in the USA as in Europe. Trump does not want to extend the influence of the government. He is more like presidents Herbert Hoover and Ronald Reagan, who sought to weaken the government’s role in the life of the people. Trump announced that he wants to cut taxes, lay off government employees, dissolve ministries, end assistance programs for minority groups, and repeal the health insurance system introduced under Barack Obama.

But why do people cheer him on?
GS: Many of the people at Trump’s campaign rallies come from the white lower-middle class. They work hard and believe that the government restricts their freedom through taxes and the regulation of gun ownership. And, very importantly, they believe that the government gives preferential treatment to other groups and minorities, especially Blacks. The descendants of the white, Protestant, English settlers who cheer for Trump see themselves as the “true” Americans. A president like Barack Obama and a vice president like Kamala Harris do not fit into this worldview. This is where Trump’s criticism of the government comes into play: In a populist manner, he promises to restore old power structures by rolling back the regulating state – and thus allowing whites to act as freely as they could in a mythically idealized early period of the country. This is the “again” in “Make America great again”.

This looks like a deliberate division of society.
GS: Indeed, Trump deliberately fosters a societal division that can endanger the democratic constitutional order. It’s almost like 1860 all over again…

What do you mean by that?
GS: In 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected president with votes only from the North. Lincoln was considered an abolitionist, an opponent of slavery. Southerners feared for the future of their plantation system based on slave labor. They did not accept the election result and instead seceded from the Union. There are conservative Republicans who express similarly critical views about democracy today. Utah Senator Mike Lee, for example, writes on his website: “Democracy itself is not the goal.”

You have written a biography about Abraham Lincoln. What would Lincoln think of Donald Trump?
GS: Lincoln wanted to hold the country together; Trump does the opposite. He is working towards creating a division that would serve as a basis for his rule. He stokes conflict between white, Protestant Americans and descendants of later waves of immigrants with attacks on immigrants. He does not even stop at religion. When he had himself photographed in 2020 following the death of George Floyd with a Bible in hand in front of a church near the White House, he implied that the Black Lives Matter  demonstrators (his opponents) were not Christians. Lincoln and Trump would be bitter political rivals.

The Democratic Party was once the party of slaveholders in the South. The Republican Party was founded with the goal of abolishing slavery.
GS: The shift occurred in the 1960s. John F. Kennedy campaigned for civil rights in 1960; his successor Lyndon B. Johnson continued this policy. The Democratic Party had responded to the plight of impoverished whites during the New Deal. Now the focus was on Black Americans. White Southerners immediately switched to the Republican camp bringing the party enormous electoral successes. Of the seven presidents from 1969 to 2009, five were Republicans and only two were Democrats. And these two, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, were conservative Southerners. This structural majority of the Republican Party was only challenged by the election of Barack Obama in 2008. He was believed to be capable of forging a long-term coalition of minority groups that could give America’s politics a direction towards social inclusion and larger social programs. The healthcare reform “Obamacare” is evidence of the strength of this idea.

But then came Trump ...
GS: I believe we can only understand Trump’s electoral success in 2016 against the backdrop of Obama’s presidency. Many whites wanted a return to political “normality”, and Trump did not disappoint them. The publicist Ta-Nehisi Coates therefore calls him the “first white president” because he sought to undo everything Obama stood for.

Can you give examples?
GS: Trump made Obamacare less attractive through changes in the tax code, tightened immigration regulations especially against Muslims, criticized NATO, and instead approached Putin. He announced the withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, abandoned international free trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership Program, and instead imposed protective tariffs. The list could go on.

Why is immigration policy so important to Republicans?
GS: It’s because of the number and composition of immigrants. They come from countries with different social and cultural values and norms. This supposedly threatens the unity of the country. However, this discourse is essentially as old as the country itself: In the late 18th century, Benjamin Franklin lamented the high number of German immigrants in Pennsylvania; in the 19th century, Irish immigration was criticized.

What happens if Trump manages to defeat Joe Biden on November 5th?
GS: From the perspective of spring 2024, a Trump victory is quite conceivable. In this case, Europe should prepare for a reorientation of America’s economic and security policy. Since we are talking about the state of American democracy, I would like to add that a potential defeat of Trump also carries uncertainties. Although we are far from a civil war, the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, has shown that Trump’s supporters are no more willing to accept an election defeat today than the Southern aristocracy in 1860/61 was willing to accept a Northerner as president.

Text: Tilman Wörtz