Trump is as American as apple pie

We shouldn’t be surprised by anything Trump does – he’s as American as apple pie
Opinion by Edward Stourton •

1/11/26
The word “unprecedented” has become a commonplace of commentary on Donald Trump’s second term. Many of his domestic opponents condemn him as “un-American”, and from across the Atlantic he can seem maverick and even mad, certainly quite out of keeping with the style of American leadership we have grown used to all our lives. But the evidence increasingly suggests that his presidency is in fact deeply rooted in American history; almost all the shocks he has given the world – whether his trade tariffs, his apparent contempt for the rule of law or his capture of a foreign leader – have precedents in America’s past. Donald Trump is as American as apple pie.


In foreign policy, the clues were all there in his inaugural address this time last year. For most of the past century or so the US has – true to its revolutionary origins – been anti-colonial; this was a source of real friction even when Washington and London were united by the struggle against fascism in the 1940s. But Donald Trump stated baldly that “the US will once again consider itself a growing nation – one that … expands our territory”. And he followed that promise almost immediately with a phrase which, although he used it with reference to space exploration, takes us right back to the 19th century; “we will pursue our manifest destiny [my italics] into the stars”.

The slogan was coined by a New York editor who wrote, on the eve of America’s 1846-48 war with Mexico: “Our manifest destiny is to overspread and possess the whole continent which Providence has given us.” The Mexican-American War marked a huge step towards that ambition. It ended in total victory for the Americans, and Washington exacted a heavy price; Mexico was forced to cede more than half its national territory, an area larger than France and Germany combined. The US acquired parts of what are now New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Wyoming, and – the greatest prize – California. The republic really did now stretch “from sea to shining sea”.

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In 1867, the prominent American economist and politician Robert J Walker produced a report urging the acquisition of Greenland because of its “resources and geopolitical importance”. The report also argued the move could have important diplomatic consequences; British North America (which became the Dominion of Canada that same year) would find itself surrounded on three sides by the territory of the US, and would therefore feel pressured into joining the Union.

Walker’s report was endorsed by William Seward, the then secretary of state, who was an enthusiastic champion of American expansionism. In the spring of that year, Seward had successfully negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia, after Tsar Alexander II found himself strapped for cash following his country’s defeat in the Crimean War. Seward secured the vast territory for $7.2m dollars, less than a cent an acre. It was a real estate bargain that would surely have earned the admiration of the author of The Art of the Deal.


Trump’s second inaugural address also paid tribute to his hero president. Alaska includes the highest mountain in North America (at more than 20,000 feet), and in 1896 a gold prospector named it Mount McKinley in honour of the then Republican candidate for the White House. In 2015, the Obama Administration formally changed that to Denali in deference to local tradition. In January 2024, Mr Trump reversed that decision, and “Mount McKinley” it is again.

Donald Trump’s admiration for McKinley is inspired mostly by his 19th century predecessor’s enthusiasm for tariffs (McKinley was nicknamed the “Napoleon of Protection”), but the 25th president also presided over America’s most nakedly colonial conflict. In 1898 he went to war with Spain, and within a matter of months, American forces had expelled the Spanish from Cuba, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. McKinley also took the opportunity to annex Hawaii; American settlers there had staged a coup against the native queen – who had unwisely espoused the idea of “Hawaii for the Hawaiians”. McKinley is said to have justified the move on the grounds – echoed in Mr Trump’s comments about Greenland – that “we need Hawaii just as much and a good deal more than we did California. It is manifest destiny.”


Both the Mexican-American war and the Spanish-American war were hugely popular. After the first, the New York Evening Post, generally regarded as a liberal paper, declared that “The Mexicans are Indians – aboriginal Indians…only rendered more mischievous by a bastard civilisation”, and the paper concluded that “they must share the destiny of their race, extinction”. And John Hay, the American secretary of state, proclaimed the equally devastating defeat of Spain to be a “splendid little war”. Today, some of Mr Trump’s supporters are inspired by instincts which go even further back in their country’s history.

MAGA religion, for example, has never really accepted the separation of religion and state laid down in James Madison’s 1791 First Amendment to the Constitution, which states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. Many of the conservative evangelicals who voted for Donald Trump remain wedded to the 17th century view of religion that the early Puritans and Pilgrims brought with them to the new world; for these “Christian nationalists”, as they are sometimes called, religion means Christianity, and it should always be supported by the power of the state.

This explains the tone of the reaction to Donald Trump’s Christmas day air strikes against Islamic extremists in north-west Nigeria. These were enthusiastically welcomed by conservative Christian groups on the basis that those targeted were responsible for “killing Christians”. In fact, there are very few Christians in Sokoto State, where the strikes took place, and much of the local violence is directed against Muslims.

In exploring this history, I set out to show that you cannot understand Donald Trump without understanding America’s history. After tracing the connections between the past and the present I am persuaded that you cannot understand America without understanding Donald Trump. Since the capture of Nicholas Maduro there has been lots of talk about a “new world order”. It feels much more like the re-invention of an old, all-American order we thought had long gone.

If its next flashpoint comes with a revival of the ideas put forward in Robert J Walker’s 1867 report on Greenland, the Danes, who are currently responsible for the vast Arctic island’s foreign relations, should at least have some institutional memory to guide them. Through much of the second half of the 19th century they dealt with American efforts to acquire their Caribbean properties, the Danish West Indies. In World War One, Robert Lansing, the American secretary of state, threatened to occupy the islands on the grounds that they were vulnerable to attack by Germany. Eventually, the Danes decided to take the money, $25m, (;18.6m) and in 1917 they ceded what are now known as the US Virgin Islands.

Edward Stourton presents the BBC Radio 4 programme Sunday and is the author of Made in America: the Dark History that Led to Donald Trump

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