Return to The Gilded Age? Really?

Trump Wants to Take America Back to the 1890s but do you know anything about The Gilded Age he yearns for?

At a recent event, Trump said:

“We’re lowering taxes, we’re going to use tariffs very, very wisely. You know, our country in the 1890s was probably … the wealthiest it ever was, because it was a system of tariffs and we had a president, you know, McKinley, right? You remember Mt. McKinley, and then they changed the name, but, uh, one of those things, but, uh, he was really a very good businessman. … We were a very wealthy country.”

This quote is a target-rich environment for criticism but let’s just talk about the 1890s. Yes, the 1890s made a handful of robber barons extremely wealthy—but for regular Americans? It was one of the most corrupt and exploitative times in U.S. history. The term “Gilded Age” was meant as an insult, because the country looked rich on the surface while rotting underneath.

Here’s what life was actually like in Trump’s “very wealthy” America:

  • A few ultra-rich oligarchs (Carnegie, Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan) controlled everything. If you weren’t at the top, you were disposable.
  • No worker protections – No minimum wage, no weekends, no 8-hour workday. Child labor was everywhere.
  • Crushing economic collapse – The Panic of 1893 led to one of the worst depressions in U.S. history.
  • Rampant corruption – Big business bought politicians outright, and government served the rich.
  • Violent suppression of workers – Strikes were put down with military force. Companies hired private armies to kill labor organizers.
  • Widespread racial oppression – Jim Crow laws, lynchings, and legalized segregation were the norm.
  • Women had almost no rights – No vote, no workplace protections, little legal independence.

Yes, America was growing—but that growth only benefited the top 1% while the rest of the country was crushed under the weight of unchecked greed. Even Republican President Teddy Roosevelt saw how broken this system was and started trust-busting corporations because they had too much power.

So when Trump calls the 1890s a “very wealthy” time, ask yourself: Wealthy for who? Because it sure wasn’t the average American.