handover of power from one administration that is very clear about its positions to another administration that is also very clear about its positions but whose positions are almost diametrically opposed for the outgoing administration. it will be interesting to see what donald trump says to the crowd here tonight and it will be interesting to see how it differs from what he says tomorrow after he is sworn in. one would assume that he ll give a boisterous speech to supporters tonight and then, many people, of course, hoping tomorrow he ll give a more unified speech after his swearing in at noon. you mentioned the change obviously in terms of tone, in terms of style, in terms of breaking with a lot of the customs for better or worse that have governed american politics for a long time. it is interesting that donald trump this week, in the runup to this inauguration, he has invoked himself the example of andrew jackson. andrew jackson, back in 1828
what year was andrew jackson ? that was a long time ago. and it was. but it was 1828 and he was the first president that was not a virginia landowner who owned slaves or a member of the adams dynasty. jackson was a radical, radical shift. i don t know that trump wants to compare himself to andrew jackson in a number of ways, but i do agree with you that andrew jackson was very different from his predecessors and he was a straight talker. he was in your face hardcore america, we re tough, we ll get it done. but i think reagan is who i think trump will model. it will not go amiss, at least for me, that britain has a prime minister and i thought back to
into social media. some of these democrats have reacted to president-elect trump because they know it gets them attention and prestige. it was interesting this morning congressman lewis s staff said this has all generated 60,000 additional followers on twitter for congressman lewis s account. as if that was an important, dramatic moment worthy of note. the growth of social media and it was a contentious election in a way we haven t seen for decades. we ve had 1828, 1896, 1964 in which there was a lot of anger by people particularly on the losing side but this election was close, it is one of five elections in which the winner of the popular vote was the loser in the electoral college and all those things have combined to along with the unhealthy involvement of social media make it a more difficult transition.
bill: you wonder what a president trump does about this. a piece in the wall street journal over the weekend. trump may herald a new political order. the last time this happened was 1932. do you believe a president trump has the ability to transform in the way that it is suggested there? well, the one difference is every previous realignment election, the 1932, 1896, 1860 and 1828 elections were all pointed to by john steele gordon as realigning elections. the winner took a majority of the popular vote or in the case of the 1860 election was the plurality winner and essentially the political system was blown apart by the succession of the southern
four candidates ran that year and none of the four received the needed 131 electors that at that time were needed to win. andrew jackson did get the majority of the electoral votes but 99 was not enough to win. so it went to the house of representatives, and they picked john quincy adams, who was secretary of state to president james monroe. the electors felt that jqa was the most qualified to be president, so he became the sixth president of the united states. andrew jackson was not amused nor did he give up. four years later in 1828 he ran against john quincy adams and won becoming the seventh president of the united states and a founder of the democratic party. it turns out that part of the reason andrew jackson won that race in 1828 was because of his populist rhetoric. so now fast forward to 2016, one of the things that the right wing loves to do is compare donald trump to andrew jackson. this is like andrew jackson s