Who Are Trump's Role Models?

With only 45 people serving in the presidency, it's hard for chief executives to find role models. But because historians and the public measure American presidents against previous ones -- and because presidents make statements about their values and goals with the choices of portraits they place in the Oval Office -- it's useful to measure current leaders against earlier presidents. As we approach Presidents Day, here's a look at some who have held the office before Trump and how he measures up to them.

-- George Washington. No comparison. The first president was known, in a slight exaggeration, for never having told a lie. This is not Trump's strong suit; The Washington Post fact-checker found that, unlike the first president, the 45th president made 30,573 false or misleading statements in his initial term in the White House. Also, Washington gracefully exited the presidency in 1797. This wasn't a pattern Trump followed in 2021.

-- Thomas Jefferson. Closer than you might think. A mixed record on race, to be sure; Jefferson talked about liberty but owned some 600 slaves throughout his lifetime. Jefferson resorted to trade restrictions during the Napoleonic Wars, a tactic emerging as an essential element of the Trump playbook. And Jefferson stretched the contours of the Constitution to accommodate an impulse that Trump shares: national expansion. The third president bought Louisiana, doubling the size of the country. Trump has his eyes on Canada, which would more than double the size of the current United States. Add Greenland, Panama and Gaza, and the current president has eyes bigger than what the current country might reasonably stomach.

-- Andrew Jackson. Bingo. No diversity, equity and inclusion here; he was an unrepentant Indian fighter. Many of the great populist's supporters were a rough match for the MAGA crowd -- contemptuous of elites, eager to assert their power over the established order. In his classic "The Age of Jackson," Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. regarded the ascendancy of the Tennessee general as the triumph of the country's "propertyless wage earners," an early 19th-century analog to the MAGA crowd.

-- James K. Polk. A sleeper. Yes, he wanted to reduce tariffs -- one strike against him in the Trump ledger. But he also was an expansionist: Oregon. California. New Mexico. Why isn't his portrait in the Trump Oval Office?

-- Abraham Lincoln. Far from it. The Illinois rail-splitter spoke of "malice toward none" and the "better angels of our nature" -- phrases, and sentiments, that are not in the Trump lexicon. And the nickname "Honest Abe"? No counterpart with Trump.

-- Grover Cleveland. History may have repeated itself -- Cleveland and Trump are the only two presidents with nonconsecutive White House terms -- but the two have little else in common. Two examples suffice: Cleveland had great respect for federal employees, even those appointed by Republicans. Another: "When Cleveland swore to uphold the Constitution," John Pafford wrote in his 2013 book "The Forgotten Conservative: Rediscovering Grover Cleveland," "he really meant it because he had read it and believed in it."

-- William McKinley. Not as much as Trump believes. He is convinced the Civil War veteran is his spiritual predecessor; in his inaugural address last month, Trump called him "a great president" who "made our country very rich through tariffs and talent." With enthusiasm and pretty much with unanimity, historians see little comparison between the two. McKinley was quiet, shy. Trump is neither. McKinley was devoutly prayerful. Trump isn't. And while McKinley was an early advocate of tariffs, he changed his mind, in large measure because, Robert W. Merry wrote in "President McKinley: Architect of the American Century," he "saw that America's thrust into the world and its growing overseas trade rendered obsolete his old philosophical commitment to 'ultra-protection.'" One important similarity: McKinley was a grand acquisitor -- Hawaii, Guam, the Philippines, Puerto Rico.

-- Theodore Roosevelt. Pretty darn close. He grabbed the Panama Canal, Congress be damned. Score one for him in the Trump book. And while TR was known for speaking softly (not a special Trump attribute), he also boasted that he carried a big stick (a Trump specialty).

-- Franklin Delano Roosevelt. A surprising match on two counts. The first: the rush to achieve his goals, no matter what. In his 1933 inaugural address, FDR vowed that if Congress didn't go along with his New Deal plans, he would ask for the unlimited power of commander-in-chief to wage war against the economic disaster of the Great Depression. Trump is prepared to do just that. The second: "At times," Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote, "Roosevelt seemed to enjoy deception and dissimulation for its own sake." This is a character trait that Trump has put on display in his negotiations with Canada and Mexico.

-- Richard Nixon. Too facile a comparison. Both men, to be sure, faced impeachment (Nixon resigned before certain House impeachment and Senate conviction; Trump was impeached twice). Each pressed constitutional limits -- another similarity. Each wanted to refuse to spend money Congress appropriated. But Nixon would not put the country through an ordeal by contesting the 1960 election, where there were voting irregularities; Trump plunged full speed ahead into refusing to accept the 2020 verdict of the voters. Most of all, Nixon -- for all his faults (vulgarity, paranoia) and all his excesses (especially in his red baiting and unforgivable slurring of Helen Gahagan Douglas in the 1950 California Senate race for being "pink right down to her underwear") -- was the very model of a conventional politician who believed in the established order of government. Trump is not, and does not.

-- Donald Trump. Surprise! Not so much. The tactics, language, style and comportment are the same, but there's a substantial difference between the 47th president and the 45th. Trump 2.0 is, in a word, More. More angry. More vindictive. More ambitious. More experienced. More extreme. More surrounded by men and women who share his vision and won't sneak to his desk and remove papers and hide them. This is a very different president, and the result is that this is a very different time in America. (David M. Shribman is the former executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.)

COPYRIGHT 2025 DAVID SHRIBMAN

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