The Wild West (Wing) and Wild Bill Hiccup [sic], the Second Coming of Andrew Jackson
I read in the New York Times last month that President Trump aka Wild Bill Hiccup [sic], spent the afternoon of his second day in office, poring over the Whitehouse’s art collection, and selecting a painting in which to grace the oval office. I imagine him asking himself, which painting defines me? What will best represent my great and powerful brand? Who is the bigliest [sic] of them all, besides myself? He finally settled on a portrait of Andrew Jackson, notorious mass murderer, a historical figure that Trump clearly admires.
How did Ronald Reagan, insane clown president in chief, come to this conclusion about Andrew Jackson, anyway? I imagine Trump sitting alone in the Whitehouse kitchen with his bachelor dinner of steak tartare with catsup, fava beans and a nice Chianti, while enjoying a documentary about Andrew Jackson on the History Channel. If the idea of the president watching anything other than Fox News is too implausible, then let’s say that someone unloaded a pair of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson tickets on him instead. I don’t imagine Trump would have liked the play—he might have been misled to assume it featured The Rockettes, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
According to the The New York Times, many close to Trump have drawn parallels between him and Andrew Jackson, calling Trump a natural successor to Jackson, referring to both as “men of the people,” and hallmarks of political populism. Yet, who knows what the attraction is? It is clear that Trump admires Putin as well. What other dictators and megalomaniacs does Wild Bill Hiccup [sic] admire?
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Here’s some of what is known about Andrew “Bloody” Jackson, the real historical figure—the 7th president of these United States. Indian Country Media Network listed Andrew Jackson among the worst of U.S. Presidents, and he is nicknamed “Indian killer,” and “Sharp Knife.” Jackson practiced brutal campaigns of genocide against Native people, and while in office signed into law The Indian Removal Act—which legalized ethnic cleansing, and the forced removal of the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole from their homelands and relocated farther west in a campaign known as The Trail of Tears. In a presidential address, Jackson spoke of how true philanthropy allows for the extinction of one generation to make room for another. But he did not mean any random generation, he meant for generations of white settlers, at the expense of Indian lives.
We’ve all heard “how the west was won” thanks to spaghetti westerns and John Wayne epics, but “how the east was won” isn’t an adage seared into the American consciousness. Yet, this is what The Trail of Tears, the Indian Removal Act, and Andrew Jackson essentially are: How the east was won. Andrew Jackson, the face of our twenty-dollar bill, is the eastern version of General George Armstrong Custer. The wild west began in the white house’s proverbial wild west wing.
On the same day, January 24, 2017, when Trump was looking over the Whitehouse art collection, and deciding to hang the portrait of what many Native Americans equate as Osama bin Laden, in the oval office, he also signed off to go-ahead with the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Keystone XL pipeline, even though tribal leaders and attorneys have stated time and time again that the pipeline infringes upon treaty rights and threatens to poison the water source for the tribe as well as 17 million other Americans within proximity. The Indigenous Environmental Network stated that “these actions by President Trump are insane and extreme, and nothing short of attacks on our ancestral homelands as Indigenous Peoples.”
And if valorizing Andrew Jackson and signing pipeline orders ON THE SAME DAY isn’t enough evidence to prove that the president holds no regard whatsoever for indigenous people, or the law, or treaties, or the environment, he also flagrantly tossed around racial epithets during a Whitehouse meeting with senators in early February. Like some Yosemite Sam with a pair of six-shooters, Trump fired off “Pocahontas is now the face of your party,” referring to Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Trump has been calling out Sen. Warren’s questionable claims to Native ancestry for a long time now, however, in previous instances, he wasn’t representing the office of POTUS. His use of racial pejoratives—no matter what the context—targeted at indigenous people is definitely conduct not becoming an officer and a gentleman. But then we already knew that going in, didn’t we?
Tiffany Midge is an assistant poetry editor at The Rumpus, and an award-winning author of The Woman Who Married a Bear. Her work is featured in McSweeney's, The Rumpus, Okey-Pankey, The Butter, Waxwing, and Moss. She is Hunkpapa Lakota. Follow her on Twitter @TiffanyMidge
