Donald Trump is not the most articulate interpreter of the American past. While many US presidents have been keen to locate themselves in a certain American political tradition, Trump has generally shown little interest in doing so. His few forays into this sort of endeavor have accomplished little beyond revealing his discomfort with the subject. In 2017, for example, he compared his election to Andrew Jackson’s, musing, “They say my election was most similar to his . . . 1828 — that’s a long time ago. Usually, they go back like to this one or that one, twelve years ago, sixteen. I mean, 1828, that’s a long way, that’s a long time ago.”

Lately, however, Trump has shown a new interest in the past. Over the summer, he began comparing himself to William McKinley, the Republican president elected in 1896. Included on few lists of top presidents, McKinley is something of an odd choice for a precursor. One wonders if Trump simply asked an aide who was the most pro-tariff president in history.

Yet the comparison with McKinley is a revealing one. It reveals what has changed and what hasn’t in over a hundred years of history of the Republican Party. Even more than that, however, it reveals just how frail a political foundation Trump’s project really has.