Donald Trump’s campaign boasts a full roster of half-baked, racially tone-deaf and just plain bad surrogates.
In an interview with the New York Times, Newt Gingrich added himself to the latter list, offering a very lukewarm response when asked whether Trump is sane enough to govern.
According to the Times’ partial transcript of the exchange, reporter Michael Barbaro asked, “Does he have the mental fitness, the kind of psychological suitability to the office of the presidency?”
After a pause, the former House speaker replied, “Yeah, and my answer would be, sure.”
“Sure?” Barbaro asked.
“Sure,” Gingrich soldiered on. “I mean, he is at least as reliable as Andrew Jackson, who was one of the most decisive presidents in American history.”
After the reporter offered another opening to “be more forceful than ‘sure,'” Gingrich paused again before deflecting.
He went on to praise Trump’s “self-confidence” to take on the establishment, saying the right person to challenge the status quo “will by definition not be normal.”
Jackson, Gingrich’s metric for presidential reliability, was a slaveholder and trader who engineered the genocide of thousands of Native Americans during his tenure. Before he was elected President, Jackson killed a man he accused of insulting his wife in a duel.
Jackson, Gingrich’s metric for presidential reliability, was a slaveholder and trader who engineered the genocide of thousands of Native Americans during his tenure.
Well, Gingrich the Newt is one of the most weak-minded politicians in history, so he’s being consistent at least.
Usually if you’re in a duel all your attention is focused on winning the duel, not so much on insulting the opponent’s wife.
Because the 2016 electorate is yearning for a slaveholder who engineers genocides and kills men in duels.
Andrew Jackson is the president who passed the Indian Removal Act that resulted in the near-genocide of Native Americans via the Trail of Tears.
Decisive, yes. But probably not what we’re looking for.
Why yes…and he has the temperament of Millard Fillmore, the intelligence of John Tyler, and the appetite of William Taft.
This whole exercise is not to endorse Trump, but to showcase Newt’s intelligence. I don’t think his base knows or cares who Andrew Jackson was.
Though, I believe, he is known as the father of the modern Democratic Party.