President Donald Trump is promising to push the U.S. into a "golden age," but some historians are questioning whether he could inadvertently press Americans into a new progressive era. They argue today's America has all the hallmarks of a new Gilded Age.
That age is a reference to the period between post-Civil War reconstruction and the early 20th century and takes its name from a novel by Mark Twain. Gilded is a term used to describe a thin layer of gold around an object and sometimes refers to a lifestyle of opulence and wealth.
Much about Trump's second term matches with the late 19th century, according to historians. Everything from his support for former President William McKinley and the former president's embrace of tariffs to breakneck technological advancements to the extreme inequality of that age dovetails well with the Gilded Age, they say.
The 1890s and modern-day American share some similarities, but there are also differences.
TECHNOLOGICAL DISORIENTATION
The Gilded Age was a time of extreme disorientation for many Americans, according to William Henry Brand, a historian at the University of Texas. It brought "rapid changes in technology. The urbanization of America, where cities seemed almost like foreign places," Brand told CBS News.
One such form of technology driving the change was the railroad system.
About 70,400 miles of rail tracks were laid down between 1880 and 1890 for a total growing from 93,200 to 163,600 miles during that decade, according to historian John Stover's book, "The Routledge Historical Atlas of the American Railroads." The West experienced even more expansion, with a 129% increase in railroad construction.
Likewise, big technology companies are expecting a massive boom in the buildout of artificial intelligence over the next ten years, which could lead to some seismic social changes and possibly wipe out industries, AI company Open AI CEO Sam Altman argued in a recent interview.
"I'm not a believer that there won't be any jobs (after AI)," Altman said. "I think we always find new things to do, but I do think like the whole structure of society itself will be up for some degree of debate and reconfiguration."
Never before seen risks take shape as the world moves further into the digital age. A greater reliance on internet-connected software means dramatic upticks in ransomware attacks, cyberattacks, deepfakes and online scams.
In 2022, more than 300 attacks against U.S. organizations were recorded, according to TechTarget's database. Those numbers were likely higher, given the lack of transparency and consistent reporting for ransomware attacks targeting large and small businesses.
Analysts worry unchecked artificial intelligence will make cyber intrusions a daily problem for most people.
ECONOMIC DISPARITIES
The economy grew around 4% per year on average from the 1870s until 1913, according to Federal Reserve data, higher than those of Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada in the same span. Trump is aiming to put the U.S. on a similar trajectory.
Along with galloping economic growth, wealthy titans of industry saw greater access to power than most Americans in the Gilded Age.
Financier John P. Morgan was the poster child showing one banker's sizable impact on the U.S. economy. During the Panic of 1893, he founded a banking syndicate along with other large banking CEOs and loaned more than $65 million to the federal government when the Treasury nearly ran out of gold.
J.P. Morgan nearly single-handedly bailed out the entire federal government, which at the time did not have a central bank. Nearly 100 years after his bailout, the United States government did the same for JP Morgan Chase during the 2008 recession.
Access to power and economic inequality were problems in the 1890s, and they are increasingly becoming a challenge in 2020s.
Obtaining accurate numbers about income disparities at the turn of the 20th century is difficult because the modern income tax did not exist at the time. But a PBS documentary in 2018 provided one example of the gap.
In 1897, the wealthiest 4,000 families in the U.S. attended a ball in New York City. And according to the documentary, that group of Americans represented 1% of the overall population and had about as much wealth as the other 11.6 million families living in the country.
A similar gap existed in November 2017. A recent CNN analysis of Federal Reserve data shows that, as of the end of 2017, the top 1% of Americans held 38.6% of the nation's wealth. By contrast, the top-earning 20% of households in the U.S. brought in 43% of the nation's income in 1968, while those in the lower four income brackets accounted for 56%, Pew Research Center data show.
RAMPANT CORRUPTION
Because politicians were still haggling over old arguments dating back to the end of slavery, lawmakers were mostly wayward regarding their desire to tackle social problems. That allowed political corruption to fester and seep into the political system.
Most of the graft was concentrated in Congress rather than the executive branch.
"The parties were in drift, nothing was really being done, they didn't have agendas. They were just ad-hoc dealing with issues," Frank DiStefano, a political analyst and writer, noted in a YouTube video. DiStefano writes on political realignments in American history.
Corruption is a big theme in the 2020s, as well.
Surveys show that most Americans in 2023 say they believe money in politics is a major problem, and that lobbyists have too much influence in Congress. While 9% of adults say a lawmaker's constituents have too much influence, 70% believe they have too little influence in what happens on Capitol Hill, according to a Pew Research poll that year.
Titans of industry in the 1890s were similar in ways to Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg. Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller revolutionized the steel industry and the oil industry, respectively, in the same way big tech CEOs ushered in the digital age.
Like Musk donating $260 million to help elect Trump to a second term, J.P. Morgan did the same for former President William McKinley during the election of 1896. That alone doesn't make a case for corruption, but many worry that the United States is growing toward oligarchy.
McKinley defeated populist firebrand William Jennings Bryant with the help of donations of $250,000 from both Rockefeller and Morgan. That's the equivalent of $7.2 million in 2016. Other industrialists followed their lead and plowed money into McKinley's campaign.
MCKINLEY AND TRUMP
Trump is fashioning his second term after the 25th president, saying during his inaugural address: "President McKinley made our country very rich through tariffs and through talent." He is also through executive order changed the name of North America's tallest mountain peak in Alaska -- from Denali back to Mount McKinley.
The president's main preoccupation is with McKinley's protectionist policies. When he was in Congress, McKinley helped pass new tariff legislation in 1890 raising the average price on imported goods to 49.5%. The move was very popular among industrialists who sought to keep foreign competitors out of the U.S.
McKinley's Tariffs -- as they became known -- were unpopular with most other Americans, as they raised prices on most manufactured goods. The law also partially contributed to a Republican landslide defeat in the midterm elections the year the tariff was passed.
The tariffs inadvertently sparked the Spanish-American War, according to Douglas Irwin, an economics professor at Dartmouth College. Part of the law involved removing tariffs on sugar imports, which at one time aided Cuba, then a Spanish colony. That sparked political turmoil and eventually the war.
Spain lost and gave the U.S. Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. It also paved the way to Hawaii's annexation. Unlike Trump, McKinley eventually evolved and embraced bringing down trade barriers, realizing the need to take advantage of the U.S.' expanding industrial base.
There are differences between McKinley's era and modern-day America. For one, Trump is viewed as the populist candidate, despite garnering support from corporate money and billionaires. The same was true of his general election opponents.
"America's first populist party so-called emerged during the Gilded Age. But it was a populist party that raged against the billionaires," Brand said. "Now, American populism elected a billionaire president."
But the history books are not done being written yet, Brand said. While Trump is perceived as a right-wing populist today, perspectives change, and Americans could eventually see his administration in a different light if his policies aggravate more economic disparity.
"Maybe, Donald Trump will bring in a new era of progressivism. When Americans realize 'well, you know, there's stuff the government did that we like," Brand said.
That was partially the case with McKinley.
McKinley was assassinated by a socialist-anarchist in 1901 and was succeeded by his vice president -- former President Teddy Roosevelt, who proceeded to undo much of his boss's legacy. Roosevelt was the tip of the spear to the progressive movement and civil reform.
In 1904, Roosevelt was given the moniker -- "trust buster" when his administration used the Sherman Antitrust Act to break up the Northern Securities Company, which controlled the main railroad lines from Chicago to the Pacific Northwest. He used the same law to break up other monopolies.
Roosevelt's fifth cousin -- Franklin Roosevelt -- eventually became president three decades later and implemented the New Deal at the outset of the Great Depression. FDR's work led to the New Deal coalition, a movement that realigned American politics for several decades.