Witness the reemergence of William McKinley on the American political scene, after 124 years in the shadows. Praised in President Trump’s speech for enriching ‘our country’ through tariffs and ‘talent,’ and for laying the groundwork for the Panama Canal. With a eulogy to the Republican from Canton, Ohio, Trump declared, ‘We’re taking it back.’ Hours later, he signed an executive order that hailed McKinley’s ‘heroic’ leadership in the Spanish-American War—a conflict most modern presidents prefer to overlook—while expanding America’s global footprint. McKinley, after all, was the one who claimed the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico as war spoils, in the era when the U.S. referred to them as ‘colonies,’ not ‘territories.’ It was also McKinley who annexed Hawaii, paving the way for the Trump International Hotel in Waikiki over a century later. For these ‘achievements,’ one of Trump’s first acts was to restore the name ‘Mount McKinley’ to the highest peak in North America, reversing Obama’s decision to rename it ‘Denali.’
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