Trump Loves The Gilded Age And Its Tariffs. It Was Great For The Rich But Not For The Many.
HuffPost
In Trump's idealized framing, America was at its zenith when top hats and shirtwaists were fashionable and typhoid fever often killed more soldiers than combat.
WASHINGTON (AP) — In President Donald Trump’s idealized framing, the United States was at its zenith in the 1890s, when top hats and shirtwaists were fashionable and typhoid fever often killed more soldiers than combat.
It was the Gilded Age, a time of rapid population growth and transformation from an agricultural economy toward a sprawling industrial system, when poverty was widespread while barons of phenomenal wealth, like John D. Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan, held tremendous sway over politicians who often helped boost their financial empires.
“We were at our richest from 1870 to 1913. That’s when we were a tariff country. And then they went to an income tax concept,” Trump said days after taking office. “It’s fine. It’s OK. But it would have been very much better.”
The desire to recreate that era is fueled by Trump’s fondness for tariffs and his admiration for the nation’s 25th president, William McKinley, a Republican who was in office from 1897 until being assassinated in 1901.
Though Trump’s early implementation of tariffs has been inconsistent — with him imposing them, then pulling many back — he has been steadfast in endorsing the idea of 21st century protectionism. There have even been suggestions that higher import tariffs on the country’s foreign trading partners could eventually replace the federal income tax.
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