{"id":1598,"date":"2026-06-14T08:05:50","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T08:05:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=1598"},"modified":"2026-06-14T08:05:50","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T08:05:50","slug":"americans-crushed-this-same-trump-con-republicans-pushed-100-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=1598","title":{"rendered":"Americans crushed this same Trump con Republicans pushed 100 years ago"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

I just toured the opulent Biltmore Estate<\/u> in Asheville, NC. I love beautiful homes as much as anyone, but this tour didn\u2019t land as intended.<\/p>\n

Read more Trump broke his biggest election promise \u2014 and Republicans enabled the betrayal<\/a><\/p>\n

To me, America\u2019s largest private residence, one that took 1,000 laborers six years to build, is a testament to inherited wealth and inequality<\/u>. The lavish indoor swimming pool was built at a time when most homes didn\u2019t have plumbing. As I walked through the gardens and imported Italian tapestries, I couldn\u2019t stop thinking about how the laborers who built the estates of Gilded Age scions lived in squalor<\/u> themselves, and could barely afford to eat.<\/p>\n

The warning was also deafening: Trump and his corporate backers, pushing an economic regression<\/u> most supporters can\u2019t even recognize, are taking us back to that era. MAGA keeps buying the same robber-baron<\/u> con job the working-class finally defeated over a century ago<\/u>, even as they bear the brunt of it<\/u>.<\/p>\n

Fast foward only a hundred years and we are watching the same well-planned, deliberate, and coordinated effort by a handful of tyrants<\/u> to dismantle the regulatory state<\/u>, enrich themselves at taxpayers\u2019 expense<\/u>, and erode the rule of law<\/u>. The parallels to the late 19th century are disastrous and obvious.<\/p>\n

Robber barons then and now<\/strong><\/p>\n

During the first Gilded Age, robber barons like John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and Andrew Carnegie operated under laissez-faire capitalism<\/u> where laborers were expendable and civil rights were non-existent. The man who built the Biltmore, a 175,000 square foot monument to extreme<\/u> wealth, inherited his massive fortune from Cornelius Vanderbilt, his grandfather, who built railroads on the backs of starvation wages<\/u>.<\/p>\n

The Gilded Age top 1% claimed that their hyper-monopolies were the natural result of a free market, but in truth those monopolies were protected by corruption: oligarchs openly bribed<\/u> legislators, crushed labor unions with brutal force<\/u>, and treated the working class as disposable. Trump\u2019s grid of exploitation<\/u>, anti-regulation<\/u>, and legal evasion<\/u> follows the same formula.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s entire political apparatus models the 19th-century political machine where Trump is the Tammany Hall boss<\/u> and the presidency is a vehicle for transactional profits<\/u> lining his family\u2019s pockets. With the help of corporate-aligned Supreme Court justices<\/u>, US health and environmental protections have been dismantled to favor big oil and corporations, while education, health care, and food assistance have been gutted to finance another massive tax giveaway to the<\/u> rich.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t conservatism; it is an oligarchs\u2019 coup, a return to the robber baron past where laws applied only to the poor.<\/p>\n

Trump, Musk and Bezos\u2019 deliberate dismantling of institutions that could check them<\/strong><\/p>\n

Read more Devastation: Economist uncovers searing truth about the trillionaire threat to democracy<\/a><\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s constant attacks on the judiciary<\/u> and the press<\/u> are meant to weaken the only institutions capable of checking his lawlessness and the concentration of wealth it affords his family and donors. His anti-regulation, pro-corporate policies even drive US foreign relations, with his latest National Security Strategy<\/u> pledge to push \u201cEurope\u2026 to abandon its failed focus on regulatory suffocation.\u201d Escaping regulations and laws altogether, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump are building a private resort on Albanian protected land<\/u>. Don Jr just married Epstein\u2019s banker\u2019s daughter<\/u>, with a record $620 million Pentagon loan<\/u> for his start up to boot. Eric is taking an Israeli drone company public<\/u> for $1.5 billion, directly profiting from Trump\u2019s war in Iran.<\/p>\n

Elon Musk is the modern equivalent of a railroad tycoon, contemptuous of the laws of nations<\/u> where he operates. Musk has utilized his massive wealth, much of it accumulated through , to build global communication networks<\/u> only to weaponize them against democratic institutions. Why? To end corporate regulations\/ environmental protections, labor laws, and fair taxation. By bankrolling political disinformation campaigns and turning Twitter into a right wing echo chamber<\/u>, Musk helps distract voters with manufactured culture wars so they won\u2019t notice their economic rights being stripped away. Gilded Age tycoons controlled the printing presses; Musk controls the algorithms.<\/p>\n

Jeff Bezos completes the triumvirate. Much like Gilded Age factory owners who locked workers in unsafe facilities for starvation wages, Bezos built an empire that invades the privacy of its employees<\/u> and tracks their bathroom breaks<\/u> while spending tens of millions to fight workers\u2019 unionization efforts<\/u>. He, like the Robber Barons, also pays Amazon warehouse<\/u>and delivery staff<\/u> sub-standard wages. While his employees rely on federal assistance programs<\/u> just to survive, Bezos builds himself mega-yachts<\/u> and finances space tourism projects<\/u> for the rich. The Biltmore would have been right up his alley.<\/p>\n

If past is prologue, we\u2019re going to be ok<\/strong><\/p>\n

The central tragedy of our moment is how easily millions of Americans were conned into voting against their own self interests, and remain conned, with the help of Fox News<\/u>. Informed only by propaganda, working-class supporters defend<\/u>Trump\u2019s policies because they can\u2019t see that they are directly aimed at their clean water, safe workplaces, and economic survival.<\/p>\n

As we drove away from the Biltmore grounds, I looked up the Progressive Era<\/u> on my phone, America\u2019s response to the Gilded Age. The good news is that gross inequality during the robber baron era led to the rise of organized labor, legal reform, political resistance<\/u> and antitrust enforcement<\/u>. If things get bad enough under Trump\u2014SNAP and Medicaid will begin to disappear in October<\/u>\u2014 anger and hunger will morph into political will. If that happens, in 2028, we will balance the high court<\/u>, reverse Citizens United, and pass a real wealth tax<\/u> so that we can fix our broken systems.<\/p>\n

US history has shown what happens when a handful of corrupt tyrants dictate the laws of the land; it has also shown what happens when voters get fed up.<\/p>\n

Sabrina Haake is a political analyst and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more No accident: ex-staff accuse Trump candidate of \u2018intentionally\u2019 stealing valor<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just toured the opulent Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC. I love beautiful homes as much as anyone, but this tour didn\u2019t land as intended.To me, America\u2019s largest private residence, one that took 1,000 laborers six years to build, is a testament to inherited wealth and inequality. The lavish indoo…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1597,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nAmericans crushed this same Trump con Republicans pushed 100 years ago - Next Address America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=1598\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Americans crushed this same Trump con Republicans pushed 100 years ago - Next Address America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I just toured the opulent Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC. 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