Behind Donald Trump's bizarre obsession with a 19th century world leader

President Donald Trump frequently professes admiration for a different Republican commander in chief, William McKinley, who served from 1897 to 1901. According to a columnist who has studied 19th century America, this fixation reveals a great deal about Trump’s personality and values — none of it encouraging.

“At the beginning of 2025, he expressed admiration for William McKinley, the 25th president,” Jamelle Bouie of The New York Times wrote on Sunday. “McKinley had, in Trump’s view, made America great with tariffs and aggressive imperial expansion, including a war with Spain, a war in the Philippines, and the annexation of Guam, Hawaii and Puerto Rico as territories.”

Indeed, Bouie pointed out that in his second inaugural address Trump claimed that “President McKinley made our country very rich through tariffs and through talent.” From there the columnist observed that “it is clear that Trump has modeled aspects of his presidency on McKinley. There was the enthusiasm for tariffs that marked his first year, and there is his current enthusiasm for foreign wars and interventions — first Venezuela, then Iran and soon, it seems, Cuba.” Regarding the latter, Bouie quoted Trump saying on Monday that “we may stop by Cuba after we’re finished with this.”

McKinley, who was elected in a milestone presidential election in 1896, caused a generational realignment for the Republican Party that lasted until Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt prevailed in the 1932 presidential election. He is best known for ushering in the age of American imperialism through the Spanish-American War and imposing high tariffs to reverse the low tariff policies of his predecessor Democrat Grover Cleveland. He also operated at a time when anti-Catholic prejudice was rampant in America, and while McKinley himself was not bigoted against Catholics, Bouie argued that Trump’s rhetoric attacking the Pope is reminiscent of that time period.

“What we have, then, are politically powerful American nationalists feuding with and denouncing the pope for any involvement in American politics,” Bouie argued. “Is that you, Samuel Morse, inventor of the telegraph and noted author of ‘Foreign Conspiracy Against the Liberties of the United States,’ an 1835 text that warned of the political influence of Catholicism? ‘What, then, is the duty of all Americans, all who really love their own free system of government?’ asked Morse. ‘Patriotism equally demands the discouragement, in every lawful way, of the further introduction of popery and popish influence into the country.’”

He added, “Even more resonant to our moment is the time, in 1893, when anti-Catholic agitators circulated, in the words of historian John Higham, ‘a bogus encyclical addressed to American Catholics by Pope Leo XIII’ that ‘absolved them of any oaths of loyalty to the United States and instructed them to ‘exterminate all heretics’ on a certain date in September.’”

Bouie concluded, “It is darkly funny to see just how much this administration has resurrected the ideas, tropes and preoccupations of an earlier age. If it weren’t so destructive, I would be tempted to laugh.”

Speaking to AlterNet last week about Trump’s anti-Pope statements, Christendom College associate professor of history argued the president is playing into a larger history of anti-Catholic sentiment.

“Anti-Catholicism is baked into Anglo-American political culture,” Shannon told AlterNet. “During the Revolution, patriot leaders from [future president] John Adams to Thomas Paine repeatedly denounced British oppression in language drawn directly from earlier denunciations of the Catholic Church. For example, in Common Sense, Paine likened monarchy to ‘popery.’”