Washington Merry-Go-Round

IMMEDIATE RELEASE 8 March 2025
WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND
Today’s Events in Historical Perspective
America’s Longest-Running Column Founded 1932
Pres. Donald McKinley
By Douglas Cohn and Eleanor Clift         
 
WASHINGTON – A little history can be a bad thing, and Pres. Donald Trump’s little glimpse of history appears to be limited to the 1897-1901 administration of Pres. William McKinley, which may explain his apparently incomprehensible decisions on taxes, tariffs, and the economy.
              A founding Republican Party tenant up until Pres. Eisenhower ushered in a different direction in 1953 was an adherence to high tariffs. Before the income tax arrived with the 16th Amendment in 1913, tariffs had been the primary source of income for the federal government, though often misused, sometimes favoring one region over another as occurred before the Civil War. At other times they were employed to protect favored industries, which is what McKinley became known for. In short, relatively low tariffs made in concert with America’s trading partners were workable whereas high and misused tariffs repeatedly proved to be detrimental and devastating.
In 1890, then-Rep. McKinley, dubbed the “Napoleon of Protection,” was instrumental in passage of what was known as the McKinley Tariff raising rates by an average of 50 percent. This reduced international trade and became one of the primary causes of the Panic of 1893, the worst U.S. financial crisis until the Great Depression, that event primarily a result of the infamous Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930.
              Tariffs were lowered in 1894 during Democratic Pres. Cleveland’s administration but raised again in 1897 a few months after McKinley became president.
              Enter Pres. Donald Trump, the modern incarnation of McKinley, a president he admires and even announced in his recent address to Congress, “I renamed, for a great president, William McKinley, Mount McKinley again.”
But ask almost any economists and they will tell you that the imposition of widespread high tariffs increases prices. Yet President Trump seems hellbent on putting as many tariffs in place as he can get away with despite warning they could boomerang and run counter to his promise to lower inflation.
The stock market tanked at the first sign tariffs were coming. Under fire, Trump granted a reprieve until April 2nd to the Big Three automakers to give them time to adjust to the new order, unless, of course, he turns a delay into a permanent action, though this is not what he is saying. Trump boasted in his primetime speech to Congress, “I’m just getting started” and “the American Dream is back, bigger and better.” He even uses tariff as a verb, as in “I’m going to tariff you” for those nations who do not bend to his will.
Trump is also on track with McKinley in foreign affairs. Full of swagger, he repeated his promises to gain control over Greenland “one way or another,” and to take back the Panama Canal, which he claimed was built for Americans with American blood. Trump, like McKinley, is an isolationist except in our hemisphere or elsewhere where the pickings are easy.
              In McKinley’s case, the nation went to war with Spain in 1898, not in Europe, but in Cuba and the Philippines, claiming the Spanish had blown up the battleship Maine in Havana Harbor. And, so, prodded on by yellow journalism the cry went out, “Remember the Maine,” without considering that it was an act devoid of a motive or purpose.
Trump is not the first Republican to romanticize McKinley. GOP strategist Karl Rove who advised George W. Bush drew inspiration from McKinley’s connection with Mark Hanna, known as “Dollar Mark,” an Ohio senator and prodigious fundraiser who became emblematic of how the rich and powerful leverage political influence.
A tariff-based economy in the 1890s ushered in a dramatically unequal economy that became known as the era of robber barons. Wealthy families like the Vanderbilts, the Rockefellers, the Carnegies, and the Mellons, controlled vast amounts of wealth that enabled by McKinley’s rise to the presidency and the perpetuation of accommodating policies. Once again, here is McKinley’s roadmap for Trump and his modern robber barons epitomized by Elon Musk, who spent nearly $300 million to get him elected.
              Between McKinley’s tariffs, war of choice land grabs, and lockstep connection with moneyed interests, the template becomes obvious and explains what has seemed unexplainable: Trump is the reincarnation of McKinley, attempting to govern in 2025 as if it were the pre-income tax, pre-Social Security, pre-Medicare, pre-high tech, pre-nuclear, pre-aerospace, pre-women’s vote, pre-civil rights, pre-World War I and II, pre-NATO, pre-etc., etc., etc. era of 1898. He looks in the mirror and sees two in one. He sees Donald McKinley.
 
See Eleanor Clift’s book Selecting a President, and Douglas Cohn’s latest books The President’s First Year: The Only School for Presidents Is the Presidency and World War 4: Nine Scenarios (endorsed by seven flag officers).
              Twitter:  @douglas_cohn
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END WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND