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Charles Tocci, a faculty member at Loyola University Chicago’s School of Education, echoed this sentiment as he described how he felt navigating the rapid changes to a scholarly institute for K–12 teachers on the topic of the Gilded Age that he co-organized with Crystal Johnson of the Chicago History Museum: “It’s all very confusing and betrays brazen incompetence,” he told me by email.

He wants to go back to the Gilded Age of William McKinley in the 1890s.

The average citizen during the Gilded Age lived a bit differently:

During this era, known as the Gilded Age, the wealthiest families in America, such as the Rockefellers and Vanderbilts, formed a new social elite akin to European aristocracy.

It’s not just that the concept of a true democracy for all is under attack, but that those waging the contemporary assault are pointing to this Gilded Age of reaction as their model for everything from tariffs to imperial expansion.