Herbert Hoover & Donald Trump

Prior to their times in the Oval Office, Herbert Hoover had little in common with Donald Trump.

Hoover, the 31st president, lost both his parents by age 10 and grew up poor. Trump, the 45th president, grew up rich, and in 1975 received a “small” loan (the equivalent of $140 million in 2018) that started off his career. [Source]

Hoover found success in mining, and was worth (in 2019 dollars) over $100 million by the time he was 40. Trump built his reputation and wealth through real estate, licensing his personal brand, and making television appearances. However, success proved elusive until later in life, and by the time he assumed office he’d declared corporate bankruptcy four times. [Source]

Hoover entered public service during World War I and became famous as “The Great Humanitarian” for his food relief efforts in Europe. During the Harding and Coolidge administrations, he served as Secretary of Commerce. Trump, on the other hand, deferred military service four times during the Vietnam War before being classified 4-F for bone spurs. The presidency was the only public office he held.[Source]

Whatever their differences up to their inauguration, though, their administrations would experience similar problems. Both men were “non-politicians,” (Hoover a bureaucrat, Trump a businessman) which strained relationships with politicians in Congress and even within their own party.

Both also had contentious interactions with the press due to them being very think-skinned. Hoover once stated that if he were reelected, he would “clean that bunch out whatever the consequences may be.” (p392)

Trump’s first conflict with the press as president was over the size of the crowd at his inauguration [Source], https://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/24/politics/trump-legitimacy-voter-fraud-inauguration-crowd/index.html and he frequently complained about “fake news.” [Source]

Both Hoover and Trump faced massive national crises in the form of the Great Depression and the COVID19 pandemic, respectively. Hoover tried a voluntary, collaborative approach to relief, but would not do the one thing that would have had the most impact – abandoning the gold standard.

Likewise, Trump had difficulty staying focused on measures that would guide the nation’s COVID response. Rather than promote epidemiologists’ recommendations, he used press briefings to air grievances and attack political enemies. [Source]

Both men enjoyed individual recretion. Despite being a national figure, Hoover was painfully shy, and relied heavily on encouragement from his closest aides. He enjoyed fishing more than anything else.

Although Trump stated in 2015 that he would only rarely leave the White House ("because there's so much to do"), [Source] he ended up spending a total of 308 days golfing (22% of his time in office), typically at one his own golf courses. [Source]

Under both Hoover and Trump, the Republican Party would end up losing not only the presidency, but also control of both houses in Congress. They also had trouble adjusting to their losses during the interregnum. Hoover took it upon himself to “save” the country from Roosevelt’s misguided policies. During the nearly five months between the election and Roosevelt’s inauguration, he pursued an increasingly intransigent course that culminated with a banking crisis just as Roosevelt took office.

Likewise, Trump refused to concede his loss all the way up to the day the Electoral ballots were counted on January 6th. Despite the pandemic, he led a large rally in Washington, D.C., that devolved in to a riot that broke into the Capitol and disrupted the election proceedings. [Source]

After the post-election insurrection failed and Trump’s social media accounts were suspended, spend his remaining days in office isolated and angry. He refused to attend his successor’s inauguration.[Source]

When I ordered this book in July of 2017, there’s no way I could have guessed all the things the Herbert Hoover and Donald Trump presidencies would have in common. But by reading it in the last year of Trump’s administration, the parallels were impossible to ignore.

And it makes me think we should never elect another “non-politician” again.