Quote:the Democrats started as the party of Andrew Jackson, a figure whose background and positions were not too dissimilar from Donald Trump’s, whose ideals were populist, whose voting base was made mainly of the working class, and who had very protectionist trading policies.
Rubbish.
Jackson came from an extremely impoverished Ulster Irish community in North Carolina; Trump's father was a New York business magnate. Jackson and the early Democrats were hardcore laissez-faire free traders; Jackson deplored the protectionism of the Whigs, as did the South altogether.
The only similarities between Trump and Jackson are stylistic ones. His campaign is VERY strongly in the Whig and especially the post-McKinley Republican tradition.
At no point in history until the 1980s was the Democratic Party the more protectionist one. Franklin Roosevelt was a tremendous free trader; Jack Kennedy created the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Dick Gephardt Democrats were the exception, not the rule.