Reading Michael Stutchbury’s article on Donald Trump (“‘Liberation day’ risks going back the ’90s. The 1890s”) makes it far easier to understand the US president’s obsession with the 1890s.

Before Trump the only US president to make a comeback after losing a bid for re-election was Grover Cleveland in 1892. Cleveland’s rebirth was facilitated by a recession brought on by tariff legislation championed, in 1890, by Republican William McKinley.