Donald Trump’s Gilded Age

December 10, 2025 Hunter Wallace donald trump, Politics, Populists 4

I can’t say that I am surprised.

A year later, Donald Trump’s “Golden Age” has fully become Gilded Age II. As I look back at my expectations, we are not that far off from where I thought we would be last December.

The Big Beautiful Bill that delivered on tax cuts and border security passed Congress through budget reconciliation in the summer. World War III with Iran, Russia and China didn’t happen in 2025. Trump quickly brought the border under control. There have been multiple “Overton Window victories” that have made it easier to talk about race and Jews. The Jewish Question has gone mainstream on the Right since the Iran strike. The Austin Metcalf, Shiloh Hendrix, Iryna Zartuska and the Cinnabon worker Crystal Wilsey controversies have all been milestones that have illustrated the trend of hardening White racial attitudes. Nick Fuentes was recently interviewed by Piers Morgan and boasted about how he identifies as a racist. Trump has made news lately saying that Somalian immigrants are Garbage Americans.

My only regret is being too optimistic in the spring that Trump would break out of the pattern of thermostatic politics in his second term and build a durable governing majority. This was always inconsistent with my prediction that we were entering Gilded Age II. The first Gilded Age was a time of rising income inequality, political extremism and assassinations, legislative gridlock and political volatility. American society became more racist and nativist while simultaneously becoming more miserable at a material level. It was a great time for the rich. The stock market has also been great this year.

Everything that I thought would happen on the economy in 2025 has happened. The GOP passed their precious tax cuts. Gas prices are low. Trump went wild with tariffs. Trump went out of his way all year to unfetter AI development for the tech bros. He is now taking a beating in the polls because none of this was ever a real solution to crushing inflation and the decline in our standard of living.

Glenn Beck interviewing an AI simulacrum of George Washington while Republicans continue to get massacred in special elections symbolizes where we are now. The worst fears of the Trump blackpillers didn’t come true in 2025. No one died storming the beaches of Iran for Israel. Nevertheless, the country is in a foul mood because life hasn’t gotten any better for the ordinary American.

Note: I apologize for my absence here. I haven’t felt inspired to write anything about American politics for weeks now. Christmas is also always the busiest time of the year.

4 Comments

  1. Will Donny will let the Trumpkins press their snotty noses up against the windows of his magnificent new White House ballroom so they can watch the oligarchs dance and feast like it’s a Charles Dickens novel though?
    Donny’s polling #s are garbage because 90% of Americans(10% of Americans own 85% of stonks) are sitting around asking themselves now if their lives are better than they were 10 months ago/do they see life getting better soon and the answer is obviously “No”. Unfortunately the alternative for White Americans is the Democrats who loathe Whites slightly more than the Republican Party does now(i.e. (R) minority and women candidates becoming the norm).

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  2. Interesting personal thoughts on the state of our Republic at the current time. I don’t even have any quiibles with them. It was always incorrect to believe that being in Gilded Age 2.0 that Trump could build a durable majority out of such a situation thru more Gilded Age politics.

    On the other hand, Glenn Beck’s George AI actually goes to prove why building such a durable majority during Gilded Age policies could work. George AI’s response to what ails America is 100% spot on. Further, Glenn Beck by building George AI shows the path out of the Gilded Age 2.0 moral swamp. What he has created, if it is true, is actually what AI models should be built like across the board. Essentially, encyclopedic knowledge backed by citation and curated for a particular subject, in George AI’s case, the subject being Founding principles. So, I happen to like the idea of it, particularly its supposes ability to interpret actual bills against Founding principles.

    Of course, everything is in the details of such creation. We don’t live in George’s world anymore. We don’t have a landed Aristocracy running things. We don’t have a limited franchise for land owners who have military experience. We don’t have sole propreitors or estates running our society and economy. In fact, we don’t have estates anymore except in the most limited probate matters. We also don’t have primogeniture or entail on property.

    Everything has been commoditified. The great Founding Fathers generation all the way until the late 1800s, could entail their property to their heirs, finance them thru banks or lender, and rest assured that their White descendants would still run rings. Illegal Laws were passed ending such power to direct where your property would descend. Hunter cannot Entail his property to his heirs which is why he no longer has the ability to live in one of the former grand Griffin Plantations, because they’ve been broken up and sold off to non Griffins since they couldn’t get financing and the gov said Pater Familiar Griffin’s descendents could sell it off to some Italian Ethnic Rif Raf.   

    We don’t have estates anymore because they got rid of such entities by law and ended their utility in finance by ending Entail. But we do have corporations with limited liability who can finance vaste amounts of money to gobble up oodles of land and other assets across the country. These corporations can control entire markets, out up non government barriers of entry into them, monopolize wholesalers, and finally immoderate all competitors down to the sold proprietor and labor level. 

    Corporations are the Genesis of both Gilded Age 1.0 and 2.0. They have all the attributes of state power, short of monopoly on force, but have privatized all profits to its shareholders whilst outsourcing almost all of its public social costs. Such things didn’t exist in George’s time except for a few giant State sovereign companies like the East India Company which was viewed as very dangerous by the Founders. We now have in essence hundreds of East India companies rampaging across America pillaging it’s wealth and spreading immiseration. Glenn Beck apparently is unaware of this and thinks Americans have just forgotten Founding Documents are something.

    Old Progressivism, with its Unionizations, State and Federal regulations, Labor protection laws, etc all that currently are the basis of most government structures were the result of the spread of this Gilded Age 1.0 corporatism. They were a reaction to it which is ironic given the name applied to the movement. In return for allowing the continuation of such things as Standard Oil Company or the Sugar Trust, or US Steel, we got regulations overseeing food quality, labor protections, unions etc. That is why old Progressives could be racists or nationalists against cheap labor immigrants and blacks while championing such things as minimum wage.

    George AI sounds incredibly interesting. Its the type of innovation based on the unique intellect of Anglo-Protestant culture that helped build American socio-economic power. However, it is uniquely tainted by conservative boomerism which thinks of going back to Cowboy and Indian days without realizing the unique racial, national, ethnic, and religious chauvinism that allowed Americans to defeat the Indians. It talks about Founding principles against a backdrop of US Marines raising a flag after battling thru tens of thousands of fanatic slant eyed brutal Japs, backed by giant warships of steel with oak tree sized guns hurtling hundreds of pounds of shells thru the sky; all made by giant corporations George would have seen as threatening to the socio economic fabric which made America. It has scenes from Selma Alabama, of Blacks marching in triumph over being given special privileges over Whites for Civil Rights, something George would’ve seen as threatening to American liberty as unregulated giant corporations, but which Glenn Beck apparently thinks is Founding principles..

    Obviously, Trump and MAGA, aren’t going to build a durable permanent majority out of Gilded Age 2.0 which itself is a corruption of the American socio economic liberty. But, you can help build one by doing what George AI said to do, stop complaining and build something. George AI is a bit out of class for making a total answer but it is a tool you and others can use to build that durable majority out of Gilded Age 2.0. Hunter, you have O.D. to help. You have your connections with the little platoons of American society such as LoS, CoCC, and others to help build something. Glen Beck’s George AI is right the answer won’t come from Washington, it will come from within each of us, working together in solidarity which will Make America Great Again. Meanwhile, enjoy Trump’s YMCA dance, he deserves it, even if it’s not for a first place victory.

    P.S. For the Judenhaters on O.D. Beta Test George AI on the JQ and Israel and see what comes out.

    P.S.S. For the American nationalists, Beta Test George AI on American Identity and Ethnicity and see what comes out.

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  3. “Donald Trump’s Gilded Age”

    Yes, a gilded age for the ultra wealthy, but it was also grinding poverty for many farmers and mill workers.
    With 40 trillion in debt we should all be living in mansions and driving Bentleys.

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