I paid almost $75 to fill the tank in my small truck the other day. Now, the president wants to fight another unwinnable war. This time, it’s a trade war with our ally to the north — Canada — a people who once disagreed with us about whether to have a king but have been friends with us ever since.
Like any other war we fight, who pays the bill? We will.
The MAGA name implies nostalgia for some time in history when our country was great. We have learned that the president believes that period was “The Gilded Age,” a time near the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. The name came from a book by none other than Mark Twain, who sarcastically described something with a thin layer of gold covering a hidden base of greed and corruption.
Back then, the name “baron” was a familiar one. We had timber barons, steel barons, railroad barons, barons of finance and of industry. An age of rich and powerful men. It was also the age of the sky-high import tariffs and why our president loves that period in history.
This administration’s stated goal is increasing manufacturing in the U.S. At first, tariffs even applied to bananas and cinnamon, but they couldn’t explain how that led to the “U.S. manufacture” of bananas and cinnamon, so they dropped that idea. The CATO institute, a far-right (libertarian) think tank, has determined that since tariffs began there has been no economic expansion of American manufacturing, not in new factories or new workers.
Back then, the tariff revenues, another kind of tax, was used to support our country and protect the wealthy industrialists.
However, the living conditions for most of those who were born and lived during the gilded age were starkly different.
There was an excess of plenty for a few very wealthy men and their families compared to the extreme poverty of those who worked on farms and in our cities. Working people (including children) survived the economic conditions of that period of our history.
I imagine today’s rich elites would survive its return. My question for MAGA and Republicans would be this: Why would any of us who work for a living want to go back then?
Darrell Anderson
Battle Ground
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