We Could Use a Man Like Grover Cleveland Again
On January 20, 2025, Donald Trump will join Grover Cleveland as one of only two American presidents to serve nonconsecutive terms. Like Cleveland, Trump won his second election due largely to the fact that his predecessor presided over a poor economy. But Trump does not seem to recognize this, treating his victory as a sweeping mandate to impose a wide range of nationalist policies.
Unfortunately for opponents of both imperialism and the military-industrial complex, these policies include a spirit of outright acquisitiveness for other sovereign lands. This is why Cleveland’s career is especially relevant today.
Trump says that America should own Greenland as an “absolute necessity,” even though its more than 50,000 residents have given no indication of wanting to be under American sovereignty. He similarly lusts over the Panama Canal, which Panama is no more likely to cede to full American control than Denmark is to peacefully relinquish Greenland. Even closer to home, he’s made comments about making Canada America’s 51st state.
Even if Trump utterly fails in these geopolitical gambits, the fact that he is trying in the first place shows his hand. In his second term, Trump plans on using his executive powers to expand America’s global empire. By contrast, Cleveland spent his second term trying to roll back America’s then-nascent imperialist ambitions—and did so without flinching when genuine strength in our foreign policy was needed.
The standout story from Cleveland’s presidency involves Hawaii. When he returned to office in 1893, Cleveland was greeted with a treaty that had been presented to the Senate for the annexation of Hawaii. Newspapers across the land waxed poetic about how the American flag would soon wave in the Hawaiian breeze, but few journalists questioned the official story about how this land had come into our possession. They were told the Hawaiian natives had willingly betrayed their own monarch, Queen Liliuokalani, by replacing her rule with that of white foreigners (mostly Americans).
Cleveland suspected there was more to it. He knew that sugar plantation owners and other wealthy business interests were suspicious of Liliuokalani, who wanted to reduce foreign influence in her country. Once those Americans learned she was planning concrete policies toward achieving this goal, American jurist Sanford Dole and U.S. Minister to Hawaii John Stevens led a conspiracy to dethrone her. By the time Cleveland took office, they had succeeded in doing so (with the unwitting aid of American locals who believed they had support from Washington) and were only awaiting the Senate’s ratification of an annexation treaty to consummate their plot.
Cleveland rebuffed the conspirators. First, he appointed former Rep. James H. Blount (D–Ga.) to visit the islands and investigate the coup. After Blount confirmed Cleveland’s hunch—that the queen had been overthrown through violence and against the will of the Hawaii
Article from Reason.com
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