"Unable to Advance a Coherent (or Even Accurate) Narrative"

"On the surface, this is almost interesting—the kind of reference that makes its wielder seem erudite. The 'American system' was a program for the development of the nation's infrastructure (financed by high tariffs for selected industries and sustained by a national bank), a project of the Whig Party and its leaders, like Kentucky's Henry Clay. Abraham Lincoln was an admirer of this system and promoted key elements as president. And one could say that the Roosevelts, or at least Franklin Roosevelt, were pioneers of a second American system, whose ideas were contiguous with the first. But that's where the actual history ends."

At Slate, Jamelle Bouie criticizes Steve Bannon's view of the nineteenth century.