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Did people really vote for William McKinley reincarnated? [1]
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Date: 2025-01-08
A pattern seems to show up in the demented orange menace’s rants. He is all in favor of tariffs. He is an imperialist in favor of territorial expansion, and in owning (again) that canal in Panama. He does not care much for civil rights. He favors the privileges of big corporations over the people. This is not an original script, though.
William McKinley, a Republican, was elected in 1896 and reelected in 1900, but was assassinated in 1901, succeeded by Teddy Roosevelt. McKinley was a protectionist. While in Congress he supported tariffs, and as president he supported and signed a law raising tariffs. However, that turned out to be bad for the economy, and he spent some time afterwards negotiating bilateral waivers with major trading partners. He was weak on civil rights, even though before him the Republican party had been the one supporting rights for the African-American population, as did his Methodist church. He did nothing when the coup d’etat in Wilmington NC overthrew the elected government and installed a Jim Crow one, and he did not generally oppose Jim Crow.
McKinley was a big fan of the gold standard. The economics of the money supply were not understood well at the time. The Panic of 1893 was very serious (“panic” is a proper term for what we now call a recession, and was normal at the time) and was in part caused by an inadequate supply of gold. The economy can’t grow without an increase in the money supply; if the money supply is too limited, just sitting on it (i.e., hoarding gold) is a safe investment and actual investment in production is riskier. Democrats, notably Bryan, were promoting “free silver”, meaning that silver too could become part of the money supply. By the time McKinley took office the panic was over and new discoveries of gold had temporarily solved the cash crunch; he even got a law passed in 1900 that made the gold standard official. That, my friends, was voodoo economics.
McKinley’s main claim to fame was imperialism. He waged the Spanish-American War, taking Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines, and Cuba in the process. He also annexed Hawaii, which had been independent, though its monarchy had been overthrown a few years earlier by business interests, not democracy. Cuba was given independence a few years later; the US has kept the rest. He supported the Panama Canal effort, largely to help have a “two ocean” Navy, but it didn’t actually get approved until after TR took office.
So now the failed real estate developer from Queens wants the Panama Canal back, wants territorial expansion into Greenland, wants protectionist tariffs, supports Jim Crow, and wants Denali renamed Mt. McKinley. Is that the “great” America of the late 1890s that red state people actually want back?
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