by Jacob G. Hornberger

September 16, 2026

I don’t think it’s difficult to understand why millions of Americans so passionately support President Trump. I think the reason is primarily based on his promise to “make America great again.” That mantra obviously struck a powerful chord within many Americans, including right-wingers, non-ideologues, and even many libertarians. Today, Trump’s supporters still take great pride in wearing their MAGA caps.

But notice something interesting: The mantra doesn’t say, “Make America Great,” but rather “Make America Great Again.” What could Trump and his supporters possibly mean by the adverb “again”?

The adverb clearly implies that America was once great and that it lost that greatness. Thus, the mantra conjures up the image of restoring that prior greatness to America.

I too believe that America was once a great nation, but I am certain that my concept of American greatness is totally different from that of Trump and his MAGA supporters.

As I have long pointed out in my articles here at FFF, my favorite time in American history was around 1870-1910. As far as I’m concerned, that period of time was when America was a truly great nation. No, it wasn’t a pure libertarian panacea, especially given that statists were adopting measures (for example, Jim Crow laws) that were designed to move America in a different direction. But during that period of time, Americans came closer to the libertarian ideal than at any other time in history.

Just think:

No income taxation or IRS. People were free to keep 100 percent of their earnings, and there was nothing the federal government or the statists could do about it.

No Social Security. People used their own money to honor and take care of their parents and grandparents.

No Medicare and Medicaid. Americans had the finest healthcare system in the world, one in which many physicians and hospitals treated the poor for free.

No government welfare. Charity was entirely voluntary. Moreover, the extremely large amount of money that was donated — hundreds of millions of dollars — as well as the extremely large number of charitable organizations — shocked the world.

No Federal Reserve. No inflationary debasement of the currency.

No paper money. The official money, as established by the Constitution, consisted of gold coins and silver coins.

Almost no immigration controls. Even though the statists had succeeded in ending America’s founding system of open borders, the new immigration-control system nonetheless permitted almost every foreigner to enter the United States. One of the big exceptions that the statists got enacted was the cruel and brutal Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

No national-security state — i.e., the Pentagon, the vast military-industrial complex, the CIA, and the NSA — which comes with omnipotent powers, such as assassination, torture, and indefinite detention. Instead, Americans were still living under the country’s founding governmental system of a limited-government republic, which came with a comparatively small military force and no powers of assassination, torture, and indefinite detention.

No foreign wars, interventions, coups, invasions, occupation, wars of aggression, sanctions, embargoes, foreign aid, and other foreign interventionism, with one big exception: The statists succeeded in getting the U.S. embroiled in the Spanish-American War in 1898, followed by the Philippine-American War, which started the country down the road toward empire and foreign interventionism.

Almost no federally managed, controlled, or regulated economy. One big exception was the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 that statists succeeded in getting enacted. Instead, Americans lived under what was called a “free-enterprise system”— that is, one in which economic enterprise was free of government management, control, and regulation.

The result of this unusual system? The greatest nation in history and, ironically, one of the weakest governments in history, one whose powers were few and extremely restricted. Not only did America become the most prosperous nation in history, it also became the most charitable nation in history.

People all over the world marveled at what Americans accomplished and had the highest respect and admiration for the American people. That high admiration and respect were exemplified by the gift of the Statue of Liberty that the people of France gave to the American people.

Unfortunately, twentieth-century Americans, falling for the Siren’s song of “security,” abandoned that remarkable way of life. They adopted income taxation, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the welfare state, the Federal Reserve, paper money, immigration controls, trade wars, a national-security state, and foreign wars and interventionism.

And that is precisely why America lost its greatness. America became like every other statist nation in history — one where the government is omnipotent and the nation is weak. In fact, notice the irony: today Americans live under the most powerful government in history and yet are among the most frightened and dependent people in the world — scared to death that they will lose their government-provided dole and scared to death of the Reds, the terrorists, the Muslims, Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, illegal immigrants, drug dealers, and other official, scary enemies of the U.S. government.

The problem with Trump and his MAGA supporters is that they firmly believe in this statist system and fully reject the American system from 1870-1910. Trump and his supporters figured that if they could just make Trump a strongman president, he would be the one to make America’s statist system work. That’s why they placed their deep and abiding faith in him. They really believed that if anyone could make statism work, it would be strongman Trump — as long as nothing and no one, including the Constitution, the courts, and the Congress, would interfere with him.

Alas, it will never happen. Trump will not make America great again. The reason is very simple: America’s statist system is inherently defective. That means that no one, not even a presidential strongman, can make it work. America will continue to go downhill.

There is one — and only one — way to make America great again. That’s by restoring the principles of economic and political liberty that characterized America from 1870-1910 and then building on them.