NBC News has posted my short explanation of the thinking behind my essay on Donald Trump and John Tyler:
What Steven Lubet was THINKing about this week when he wrote:
Donald Trump is not the worst U.S. ex-president — yet
When you think of which former U.S. president gets compared to Donald Trump the most, who comes to mind? Most likely Richard Nixon. Andrew Jackson perhaps comes in a close second. As a historian of the abolitionist legal movement, I wanted to add another name to the mix: John Tyler.
I have long been aware of Tyler’s dishonorable choice to join the Confederacy, thus making him the only former president to have actually betrayed his country. But I thought perhaps a more general interest audience would find the history fascinating, particularly since the word “unprecedented” has been attached to Trump a lot.
Before I heard Trump vowing to issue pardons to Capitol rioters if re-elected, I would not have compared him with Tyler. Trump was a terrible president, but not a disloyal one – until the Jan. 6 attempted insurrection, and even then it seemed to me that he could claim to have operated at least within the nominal bounds of the law. The Constitution defines treason against the U.S., in slightly archaic language, as “levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.” Tyler was unique in doing just that, and Trump has now been flirting with it. Historical analogies can sometimes have great explanatory force, and I hoped this would be one such occasion.
Steven Lubet is the Williams Memorial Professor at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law.
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