“Make America Great Again” has been a Trump motto even during his first run for the presidency in 2015. It's not new (Reagan used it, for instance), but it does bring up a question: when was America great, according to Trump? Where does his backward look land in history? If you ask MAGA believers, you get many different answers and views on this.
Trump himself has helpfully answered this at least to a degree. Trump told the New York Times when asked when America's power was greatest: "No if you really look at it, it was the turn of the century, that’s when we were a great, when we were really starting to go robust. But if you look back, it really was, there was a period of time when we were developing at the turn of the century which was a pretty wild time for this country and pretty wild in terms of building that machine, that machine was really based on entrepreneurship etc, etc.” At a rally in Phoenix, Trump said “President McKinley made our country very rich through tariffs and through talent. He was a natural businessman. “ (also) “He was a strong believer in tariffs, and we were actually probably wealthiest of any time, relatively speaking, at any point in the history of our country.“ McKinley was president from 1896 until 1901, when he was killed by an assassin.
1901 was within what is called The Gilded Age, which was a time when extremely wealthy men known as robber barons owned most all of the commercial activity of the country. They essentially ran monopolies of steel, sugar, rails, and other essential products. JP Morgan almost single-handedly ran the financial activities of the country, so much so that he was actually called upon to bail out the US government in 1893. The Gilded Age was thus controlled by what we today call oligarchs: “...the high water mark of US wealth concentration and inequality occurred during the quarter-century before World War 1... a somewhat informed guess would put the zenith around 1901 or 1902” [Wealth and Democracy, by Kevin Phillips, p. 122]. The average American at this time was barely scraping by, but the super rich like Trump today were powerful and essentially untouchable.
Many of these robber barons subscribed to Social Darwinism, which teaches that the Survival of the Fittest applies to the business world as well. The rich are rich, the theory goes, because they are the “fittest” within the economy. The poor are unfit and thus are rightfully in their lower condition. A biographer of Andrew Carnegie noted that to him, “If his friends, subordinates, and competition suffered in this battle for survival, such was evolution. There was no room for sympathy...” [Carnegie, by Peter Krass, p. 154].
Immigration to the United States was in full swing in 1901. There was backlash, however, where some groups were considered unable to fit in to United States culture. Chinese, for example, were forbidden entry. Black Americans were still considered inferior. Jim Crow laws enforced segregation and prevented blacks from voting. Prejudice was a strong aspect of 1901.
Manufacturing jobs were big in 1901. 10 hour days, 6 days a week were typical requirements. There was no worker's compensation. Child labor was common. The average annual income was $500 (about $19,000 in today's dollars). But “by the beginning of the 20th century, gross domestic product and industrial production in the United States led the world. “ [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilded_Age]
1901 was a year of technological growth, after the telephone but before motion pictures. It was the beginning of radio. The Olds automobile came on the market, but it was only a 3hp, one-cylinder vehicle. Steam engines powered ships to and from the old world, making transport much faster.
There was no income tax in 1901, as most federal government income was from tariffs. The New York stock market had its first crash this year.
The United States was in a period of territorial capture. Hawaii, Panama, the Philippines, Cuba, and Puerto Rico came under US control during McKinley's presidency.
So this is when Donald Trump thinks America should look back on with longing. If we could just emulate some aspects of the Gilded Age, America could be great again. But really, what was so great about that time? Through Trump's eyes, we quickly see the oligarchs of the time and the great control they had over the country. This would be quite appealing to Trump, though not to the rest of us. Through Trump's eyes, restricting the “other" - be that blacks, foreigners, the poor - would also induce a yearning for a time when those Not Like Us could be controlled or even expelled. Through Trump's eyes, capturing new territory looks quite beneficial to the bottom line, no matter the messiness of trying to turn the unwilling into subjects. Can the federal government run off income from tariffs? It did in 1901, so why not now?
So yes, it's quite understandable that 1901 has an attraction to Trump. But not so much to the rest of us. But right now we're living in Trump's world, so we have the oligarchs taking power, an aggressive attack on foreigners (even ones here legally), a revival of Empire Building, and a push to replace income tax with tariffs. With all this going on, it's easy to see that Trump does indeed look to 1901 for inspiration, and to Make America Great Again.
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