This hurling of insults is nineteenth-century political theater revivified. Trump’s tweeting frenzy resembled nothing so much as Andrew Jackson responding to critics by invoking the code duello. Revenge was the Jacksonian recourse in an era when perceived slights led to brawls and shoot-outs. In the fall of 2016, anticipating defeat at the polls, Trump asserted that the election had already been “rigged.” In 1825, Jacksonians similarly attributed their hero’s loss to a “Corrupt Bargain,” because Congress refused to ratify popular opinion. Those who lionized Jackson adored him for his
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