[detbuch]

Here is a response to a question in the popular online forum QUORA on "Why did so many of the founding fathers hate Alexander Hamilton?" A lot of similarities to Trump in the answer, but certainly not the purely noble spirit that resides in your opinion of him:

Basically, because he was extremely ambitious, pissed a lot of people off, and had a variety of traits that made him incredibly vulnerable to being demonized.

He was an advocate of centralized power at a time when many people feared an effective return to monarchy. Even after the Constitution was enacted without adopting his suggestion of a president-for-life, his Treasury Department quickly ballooned to 500 full-time employees (compared to a dozen civilians in the War Department and even fewer in State) and gained powers that his opponents argued were unconstitutional.

He hated a number of things that were really popular during his time, such as liquor, stiffing creditors, and slavery. He managed to enshrine two of those hatreds in federal law, in the forms of a tax on whiskey and a policy of paying the current owners of bonds rather than the original owners. Slavery, of course, was constitutionally off-limits until four years after his death.

He was one of the leaders of a major political party, and he got right down in the dirt and threw rhetorical elbows at his opponents. But he also sabotaged enemies within his own party, most notably—during both of his presidential elections—John Adams. Think of how Ted Cruz recently alienated many Republicans with his “vote your conscience” speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention; now imagine he had criticized “the disgusting egotism, the distempered jealousy, and the ungovernable indiscretion of Mr. [Trump]’s temper” and complained that “Mr. [Trump] has repeatedly indulged himself in virulent and indecent abuse of me”; and finally, imagine that Trump lost the election because of attack ads quoting Cruz’s speech. Understandably, Hamilton made bitter enemies on both sides of the aisle.

Although they never found any evidence of impropriety, his behavior in office created a constant whiff of corruption around him. For instance:

He started with nothing and became very wealthy, while literally being in charge of the government’s money.
He rubbed elbows with finance types, who were distrusted then as now, and pushed policies that seemed calculated to benefit them.

He was the only Cabinet secretary required to prepare reports for Congress, and he used that access to lobby for legislation.
He clearly, almost openly, traded influence; on at least one occasion he expressed the opinion that no government could possibly operate effectively without this kind of horse trading.

And his enemies hounded him constantly, frequently launching investigations of his behavior in office. People figured that where there was so much smoke, there must be fire.

Though extremely charming by all reports, his rags-to-riches background meant he had to teach himself the social skills expected of someone in the halls of power. He did a creditable job of it, but still came off as nouveau riche.

His background also exposed him to xenophobia; you can see this occasionally in John and Abigail Adams’s letters to one another. Birther-like rumors circulated about his parentage, alleging that his mother was black or that James Hamilton was not his biological father. It didn’t help that it was true that his mother was married to another man (they were separated), and that she therefore fell under the legal definition of a prostitute.

There was a common stereotype that, through too much contact with oversexed black slaves, white men from the Caribbean often gained overactive libidos and were prone to sexual immorality. As a shameless flirt and ladies’ man, he seemed to confirm this stereotype.

Worse, many believed that his womanizing had not been tempered at all by his marriage, and that it might even extend to his sister-in-law Angelica, which was considered incest by the standards of the time. His admission of an affair with Maria Reynolds seemed to confirm the rumor that he was a serial adulterer. (If you’re familiar with the play, you should know that it downplayed the affair; it started about a month before his family left town and continued for an entire year. And some historians argue that she didn’t seduce him, but rather he pressured her into it.)

He was ruthless at using the code duello to get his way; he was involved in nearly a dozen affairs of honor, though only the one with Burr in 1804 reached the “pistols at dawn” stage. In many of the others, he successfully extracted humiliating apologies from the other party.

He had a habit of engaging his mouth before his brain, and made a lot of ill-advised jokes which seemed, when taken out of context, to confirm all of the worst impressions of him. Three examples:
When confronted on the streets by a Congressman upset that the Treasury had refused to repay him for a wartime expense, Hamilton defused the situation by joking that he might reverse the decision if the Congressman changed his vote on a bill. Both of them laughed, but soon enough, it was reported as though it had been a serious offer.
While attending a dinner party at Jefferson’s home, Hamilton said he believed the greatest man of all time was Julius Caesar (i.e., the general who overthrew the Roman Republic and installed himself as emperor). Modern historians think he was merely trolling Jefferson, but Jefferson repeated the story to anyone who would listen for the rest of his life, insisting that Hamilton had revealed his true colors that night.

There are several different versions of the story, so the details are uncertain, but he seems to have made some kind of poorly received quip about religion at the Constitutional Convention. In one telling, Ben Franklin proposed to start each session with a prayer, and Hamilton replied that he saw no need to call in “foreign aid”.

Despite all of these obvious signs of his corruption, immorality, hotheadedness, and tyrannical lust for power, George Washington—universally beloved and incorruptible—trusted Hamilton. Many wondered how this could be. Had he tricked the man somehow? Was he the son Washington never had? Was he literally his son? His gay lover? Whatever the explanation, they all anticipated the coming plot twist, where Hamilton would betray his mentor and his nation for his own benefit.

Start with Barack Obama’s suspicious-to-some background, mix in a cup of Hillary Clinton’s ties to Wall Street and history of unproven scandals, add a pinch of Bill Clinton’s infidelity, stir in a heaping scoop of Ted Cruz’s bomb-throwing and unpopularity among politicians in both parties, and cover with a thick layer of inexplicable influence over a trusting leader which I can only liken to Jafar, and you have the recipe to be as unpopular as Alexander Hamilton.