The Left spent five years trying to tear Andrew Jackson off his pedestal near the White House.
Ron DeSantis just put him back up – permanently – in the county that bears his name.
And DeSantis unveiled a new statue of Old Hickory as part of Florida's America 250 celebration.
The Man Who Gave America Florida
Democrats need you to forget what Andrew Jackson actually did for this country.
Before he was president, he was a general – the general who stopped the British from seizing New Orleans and the entire Mississippi River valley in January 1815.
The numbers tell the story.
American casualties at the Battle of New Orleans: 55 killed.
British casualties: 386 dead, 1,400 wounded, 500 captured.
Jackson's ragtag army of Tennessee frontiersmen, Louisiana militia, free black soldiers, Choctaw warriors, and Jean Lafitte's pirates handed the most powerful military on earth its worst defeat of the war.
Without that victory, British forces could have held New Orleans hostage and rewritten the Treaty of Ghent – potentially reclaiming the Louisiana Purchase territory and strangling American expansion before it started.
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Then he went and got Florida.
In 1821, Spain transferred Florida to the United States under the Adams-Onís Treaty, and Jackson stood in Pensacola as the Spanish flag came down and the American flag went up – cannon salute, Star-Spangled Banner, the whole thing.
He organized Florida's first territorial government.
Without Jackson, there is no Florida as we know it.
That's what DeSantis is honoring in Marianna – not just bronze, but history the left spent years trying to bury.
While Democrats Were Erasing, DeSantis Was Building
In June 2020, a mob tried to tear down the Andrew Jackson statue at Lafayette Square, right outside the White House.
Federal charges were filed.
But Democrat politicians didn't stop there.
In 2021, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton introduced legislation to remove the Lafayette Square statue entirely, calling Jackson "an unabashed racist" whose statue had no place near the White House.
In Kansas City – in Jackson County, Missouri, named after the same man – Democrat legislators voted 7-to-1 in 2023 to remove Jackson statues from two courthouses, overriding a 65-35 percent voter referendum that had kept them in place just three years earlier.
The Left's pattern was clear: erase the men who built this country, replace them with guilt and grievance.
DeSantis chose a different pattern.
While Democrats were tearing statues down, he was putting them up – Thomas Jefferson in Jefferson County, James Monroe in Monroe County, George Washington in Washington County, Abraham Lincoln in The Villages, Frederick Douglass in St. Augustine, Calvin Coolidge, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, Juan Ponce de León.
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Now Andrew Jackson in Jackson County.
Secretary of State Cord Byrd said what this entire initiative is really about.
"We the adults have had the privilege of living in the greatest, freest country on earth that's ever existed," Byrd said, "and really this year is about imparting those principles to the children."
That's the battle.
The Left wants the next generation of Americans to grow up ashamed of their country's founders.
DeSantis wants them to grow up knowing who saved New Orleans, who raised the American flag over Pensacola, and why any of it matters.
One of those produces citizens.
The other produces activists.
Florida is choosing citizens.
Sources:
- Thad Randazzo, "DeSantis celebrates Andrew Jackson statue in Marianna at America 250 event," WWSB, August 13, 2026.
- Michael Costeines, "DeSantis Unveils Statue of Andrew Jackson for 'America 250,'" August 13, 2026.
- "Florida marks America's 250th with historic statues honoring founders, presidents and national figures," Chronicle Online, July 9, 2026.
- "Governor Ron DeSantis Announces Statewide Commemoration of America's 250th Birthday," Florida Governor's Office, January 30, 2026.
- "Old Hickory: Andrew Jackson and the Battle of New Orleans," Bill of Rights Institute.
- "Battle of New Orleans," American Battlefield Trust.
- Norton Introduces Andrew Jackson Statue Removal Act, Office of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, February 24, 2021.
