What's With Trump’s McKinley Fixation? | David McWilliams | TMR
March 18, 2025
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28:42Now PlayingWhat's With Trump’s McKinley Fixation? | David McWilliams | TMR
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Live-streamed on March 13, 2025
David McWilliams, Irish economist and writer, discusses Trump’s interest in the presidency of William McKinley.
David McWilliams then dives right into the historical context for Trump’s obsession with William McKinley – 25th President of the United States – highlighting how the election of McKinley in 1896 served as a major turning point in the evolution of the Gilded Age, as a culmination of a populist push against growing economic consolidation amid increasing culture war and a rapidly growing (and changing) working class with an influx of European immigration, and the very clear parallels with how Trump is handling the similarities in this moment, from his alignment with the monopolists and oligarchs of the time, to his obsession with small territorial acquisitions while pushing an isolaitonist economic agenda. After touching on the end to McKinley with his assassination in 1901 and the major role his Vice President Teddy Roosevelt would play in pushing back against the political takeover of robber barons and monopolists, putting a bit of a damper on potential parallels to the Big Tech-backed JD Vance, McWilliams walks Emma through McKinley’s expansive project to bolster the pockets of his wealthy donors, from cementing the shift to a gold standard (crypto reserve anyone?!) and bolstering rail monopoly at the expense of America’s farming majority, to the inception of lobbying with the backing of his 1896 campaign by notorious businessman Mark Hanna (Musk), who would rally the wealthy elite behind McKinley to change the facts on the ground. Having briefly expanded on McKinley’s imperial agenda, and the particular role it plays in creating an atmosphere of chaos to mask the kleptocracy at work, David looks to the extreme lengths Trump has taken McKinley tariff regime, applying them to quite literally every close ally the US has in such a drastic manner it offers little explanation outside of in-group speculation while the economy as a whole collapses. They wrap up the interview by touching on the role McKinleyism and the Gilded Age played in spurring the emergence of the US labor movement under FDR.
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